Hotel Room Review Blog

During my first stay in Cebu (a few years back) I was just looking for a basic hotel with a central location for two nights as I was traveling on to Davao by boat later on. I picked the Hotel Eddie, a smaller budget hotel in the center of town. It's clean and basic with a good location. At the time of my stay a night was just about 1300 Piso with a discount from Asia Travel website.

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Located on Soi Nana Omni Tower Bangkok is one of the oldest serviced apartment buildings in Bangkok. A serviced apartment is basically a hotel that rents out furnished apartments for short and long term stays. I booked a 2 BR for me and my friends. The apartment was located on the 26th floor. It was nice and offered a lot of space. The furniture showed a bit of tear and wear compared to other competitors in that area like the newly renovated Centrepoint on Soi 10. The security is very tight and a bit annoying. They ask for IDs of Thai visitors, but foreign looking friends like Westerners and Japanese pass without the need to show an ID. Go figure! Maybe it's because the hotel is located close to Nana Plaza, one of the red-light districts of Bangkok. As long as they offer promos and reasonable pricing the Omni Tower is a good offer for people who want to stay close to Nana Plaza. The elevator ride on the outside of the building offers a great view of the city, but can be scary for people who are afraid of heights.
Online Discount Booking: Omni Tower Serviced Apartments

Top Image: Aerial view from my bedroom overlooking Sukhumvit area with its high rise office and condo buildings. Bottom table of images: snapshots of my 2 BR apartment on the 26th floor.

Buenos Aires is the South American hub for art, design and architecture. It's old style buildings are magnificent and a lot of new houses are build with great design and architecture. Wouldn't it be great to stay in such a fine building instead of a crammy hotel room? When staying for a longer period of time in Buenos Aires a stay in a rental apartment is a fine alternative to hotels. There are a lot of residential rentals available over the internet. During my first short stay in Baires I had a look at a couple of apartments in Palermo and decided to try out Apartments BA for a week's rental of a refurbished loft next to Salerno Plaza in Palermo. It was not cheap, but for the price of a small hotel room I got a huge 2 BR loft with great interior architecture and a lot of privacy. Most of their places feature exceptional interior design, but sometimes the looks are at the expense of functionality. I tried Apartments BA on two other occasions renting houses in central areas of Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks and was pretty happy with the places. Their prices include weekly maid service. They are very attentive to problems and all transactions were smooth. The only thing that was a bit disappointing was their staff being late for check-in and check-out. That's about the only downside to a hotel where you walk to the reception and check-in within a few minutes or seconds. The world is not perfect, not even in a designer city like Buenos Aires, but you do get a lot of value from Apartments BA.

A view at a custom made media center with LCD TV in side a San Telmo apartment in Buenos Aires.

A smaller Bangkok hotel in central location on the crossing of Sukhumvit Road and Soi 19. The Grottino located very close to public transportation like MRT, BTS Skytrain and the Ekkamai bus terminal, taxi transport to the Suvarbnahumi airport lasts around 30 minutes via Asok and Rama 9 highway. The rooms are comfortable and provide a nice amount of space, but some of the hotel rooms are for smokers, be aware of this and ask for a non-smoking room if this is of concern to you. The owners are friendly Swiss people who are more than happy to assist in many matters. The restaurant offers Thai and Swiss dishes. My tip: Try their bread! They operate a bakery with some of the best bread in Bangkok.

Girlfriend and Mom came for a visit to Asia. They wanted to see the famous beaches of Thailand and there is no better place than Phuket in Thailand. I don't remember what website I used to search for hotels, but I found the newly rebuilt Sugar Palm Resort as a last minute offer for 1300 Baht per night. It's located 2 blocks off of Kata beach, one of the nicest and more quiet beaches on the tropical island. The room was great with a sliding divider between bedroom and bath. Everything was new and functional. Internet access for their WLan had to be purchased in 80 Baht denominations for 3 hours with very slow connectivity and poor signal on the third floor. But, hey: other than that it was a great Phuket vacation hotel with nice pool, easy beach access with a lot of touristy places and restaurants near by. I would come here again any time.
Online Booking: Agoda Phuket.

Most people looking for budget accommodation in the Golden City of Prague do the mistake to search for rooms in tourist places where prices are exorbitantly high during peak season. Prague has an excellent public transportation system linking it's suburbs and center by metro underground rail, street cars and buses for very low fares. It's possible to commute to downtown within 20 mins from remote places like Vysocany (Prague 9). There are a lot of cheap stays around like Arlington Hotel. This place is a very basic 2-star tourist hotel with bed, separate shower, a small desk and cabinet. Arlington offers a small breakfast buffet included in your bill. For people who spend all day sightseeing it's all you basically need. There is no luxury at all, but it's sufficient as a decent overnight stay for tired tourists who need nothing more than a bed to rest and a shower in the morning. This Prague hotel room is pretty peaceful with a small park inside the square.
Booking offers:

It was my second visit to Kuala Lumpur. Because I arrived late night I was thinking about either booking the Pan Pacific Airport hotel or a hotel close to Sentral KL station. KL Sentral is the railway station in Kuala Lumpur that tourists arrive at via KLIA Ekspres, the highspeed train connecting KL international airport with the city, a 37 minute ride for the price of 35 Ringit.

Opposite KL Sentral there is a twin tower building that hosts 2 hotels: The Hilton and Le Meridien. The later is the cheaper of the two so I gave it a try. I booked a club room and was lucky to receive a complimentary upgrade to a jr. suite on one of the top floors as I am Gold SPG member. The room was very nice with a beautiful view of parks and the south of the city (the opposite side of Menara and Petronas towers). Very comfortable bed, good high speed internet and a wonderful bathroom with a corner view. On the downside they would not offer any late check-out and the complimentary water was 'hidden' on an upper shelf in inside the bathroom that made me buy the expensive Evian water out of the mininbar to satisfy my thirst in the middle of the night.
The location of the Kuala Lumpur Le Meridien is perfect when you arrive by air and take the KLIA Ekspres train into town. It's just a short walk across the street. I would recommend booking a room including the breakfast. They have a great breakfast buffet with Japanese, Chinese, Continental and local dishes. A perfect treat to start a busy day as a tourist in Malaysia. Some of the facilities are shared with the Hilton next door, like a real nice pool area and a great little gym with some of the best fitness equipment including a Concept2 rowing machine and equipment made by Hammer Strength as well as a heavy bag for a quick boxing workout.

Bird's view from my Junior Suite on a high floor overlooking the beautiful swimming pool. Unfortunately, the pool was closed due to heavy rain :-(

Usually, I prefer to book apartments when staying in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, but for a short 3 day trip I chose to stay at a hotel and picked the Holiday Inn Express in Puerto Madero. It's location is very central with the ferry port and the railway station in walking distance as well as the central down town with shopping centers on Florida Street right around the corner. The hotel is designed for people that just need a bed for the night and don't spend to much time inside the house. The rooms are very small, but comfortable. Their prices are justified by the central location, not by the outfit of the establishment. Breakfast is very basic self service and the gym on the top floor does not allow a magnificent workout. It's a basic brand name hotel in a central location of Buenos Aires - no more and no less. But that's what the Holiday Inn Express brand is supposed to be in the first place, a clean hotel with basic amenities, only. I would stay there again for a night, but I think there are better choices with more luxury for the same price.

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My first stay in Hong Kong so I wanted to stay in a very central location and picked the Holiday Inn Hotel Golden Mile in Kowloon. What a good choice! The location is hard to beat, right in the middle of Kowloon beside Shim Hsa Tsui Underground station and just a few blocks away from the bay. The rooms are great, very comfortable and equipped with ultra fast internet. The breakfast buffet is fantastic with a wide variety of choices. I liked their wide selection of fruits and bakery products a lot. The staff was very helpful and sophisticated. It's by far the best Holiday Inn hotel I ever stayed in around the globe and I stayed in a lot of them over the past years. Maybe it's because of the tough competition as the house is surrounded by many other first class hotels like the Intercontinental, Sheraton and Shangri La Hong Kong. It has a certain patina, an stylish old touch combined with proven functionality.

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Some international flight connections are funny, so I ended up spending one night in a Washington hotel on my way from San Jose, Costa Rica to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Believe it or not, but the Hilton IAD Airport hotel was a superb choice for the large detour I had to take on this Star Alliance round the world trip. There is a shuttle picking up passengers from the arrival terminals on IAD Washington International Airport every 30 mins for transportation to Herndon, VA, a 15 minute drive. The rooms are very large and well equipped with kind-sized beds and spacious bath rooms. The room service is fast with decent food and their internet connectivity leaves nothing to be desired. I had a wonderful night full of sleep. It's pretty quiet. The next day they arranged a private taxi trip for shopping around Washington for just 50 Dollars. It was a great pleasure to stay at this hotel. I enjoyed the great rooms and the good service.
Discount Hotel Booking: Hilton Washington Dulles Airport

Two shots from my Hilton hotel room. Unfortunately, US Airways lost my luggage on the flight from San Jose to IAD so I did not have a good camera with me to shoot any better pix.

Probably one of the most romantic hotels in the Philippines with a lot of privacy for it's tenants. A large piece of land on a hilltop looking over 2 bays of Puerto Galera, Mindorro. It's far away from the busy dive stations and loud discos of Sabang and the mass tourism of White Beach. The main building offers normal hotel rooms and a restaurant. A little bit off from it there are two smaller buildings offering three units, with ultimate privacy. They don't have any air condition and there are no TVs inside the ethnic-contemporary styled hotel rooms. It's a place for people who enjoy nature and peace and don't mind heat and solitude. They don't have an agent and you can't book them via a discount broker, but you can call them and ask for a reservation: Tanawin Puerto Galera.

A very romantic panorama view over Varadero Bay from the snail house, Tanawin's most exclusive guest accomodation

From the outside it looks like a fortress built by pirates, the inside of the hotel rooms look more like romantic honeymoon suites. I have been revisiting this Puerto Galera Hotel on multiple occasions over the past 10 years and it is impressive how the Austrian owner Paul has build his house into one of the best hotels in Sabang. It's very close to the small Sabang harbour where the banca ferries leave for Batangas and many divers take off for their daily nitro diving tours. It's a romantic place with a great view of the bay if you have a hotel room or suite on one of the higher floors. While it's so romantic, be aware there are a lot of mosquitos (Lamok) flying around. Bring your lotion with you to avoid their painful bites. The restaurant inside the Tropicana Hotel offers great food, a bit pricey for some. If you like fresh seafood, walk 200 meters to the Sabang market to buy fresh fish and prawns. For a small charge of 50 Piso they will cook and prepare the food for you and you can take it out to eat it on the patio of your hotel room. The minibars are stacked with drinks. A perfect way to chill out the day is to sit on the patio at night time to enjoy cold San Miguel beers while observing the Sabang nightlife from a distance.
Homepage: Tropicana on Facebook

Nightly view of the Tropicana Hotel. It's a pretty romantic place to chill out after sunset.

I was pretty happy the first night I spent inside the Sures Suites in Belgrano, a suburb in the North of Buenos Aires as I had a light flooded suite with floor heating and all amenities including fast internet connection. The next day I had to move into a rather small room in the back of the building's gound floor as the suite I originally booked was reserved for somebody else. This room as pictured above was small and dark. It could not compare to the suite they showed me when I inquired about a stay at first. The small window was facing a wall, internet speed was very slow. I spend another night there and decided to move out the day after as I did not like that small place at all and the internet connection was to slow. I had the feeling it was a room for guests who smoke. Needless to say I was a bit upset about being shown a suite and then shoved to a small dark room. They should have said that when I made my booking to be fair with me.

A pretty good online source for discounted online hotel room reservations. Be adviced to book at least 3 days in advance as they require this time frame to accept any booking over the internet. I have used them several times and they are very helpful. Initially, they started out with Asian hotels in Thailand, but pretty fast they expanded to offer discounted hotel rooms from all over the World.

It's awhile ago that I stayed at the Makati Palace Hotel on Burgos Street. It's conveniently located in the nightlife district of Makati with many bars along P. Burgos Street. Upon exiting the hotel one can chose from establishments such as Bottoms Up, The Bronx, Mascara, Billboard and Rogues to mention just a few Burgos bars from the strip. The Makati Palace is more of a Condotel, some of the rooms are rented out by a hotel type operation while other rooms are advertised and rented by private owners over various ads in daily papers and online media. Therefore the quality of rooms varies a lot. Some are taken care of very well while others show a lot of tear and wear. If you decide to book this Makati hotel, it would be due to it's location on P. Burgos Street and it's nightlife.

A colorful bed cover for this Makati Palace hotel room bed

Mactan Island is a small Island fronting Cebu City, the main hub of the Visayan Islands in the South of the Philippines. Mactan Island is not one of those beautiful tropical islands of the Philippines, but it's close to Cebu City and it hosts Cebu's international and domestic airport. Don't expect any nice beaches! The beach in front of the hotel is not like the sandy white beach of Boracay at all. Watersports are limited to diving and jet ski. The large shaped hotel pool is the best place to take a swim. The restaurant serves tasty Asian seafood dishes and is mostly visited by tourist groups from Europe and East Asia. The hotel rooms are very basic, but offer a lot of space. Actually, they are a little bit to big for the small air conditioners that are build in. If you are a watersport freak who spends just little time in the hotel, it's a place to stay, but for the little comfort the Cebu Beach Club offers, it appears to be overpriced for my taste. I checked out some other resorts located next to it like the Maribago Blue Water Resort and liked it much better.

An outside view of the rooms entrance. The hotel building is shaped like an 'U' around the large swimming pool landscape. The rooms are aligned like a row of small houses, similar to American motels.