Asian Hotel Room

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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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.

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.

This relatively new hotel is located right on P. Burgos Street in Makati, the financial business center of Metro Manila. Burgos Street is an eldorado for party people. The street is full of bars that are open all night. 2 bars are located with the basement of the Bellagio Hotel itself. If I remember correctly, one of the is called The Bronx and the other one is Bottoms UP. The famous 24-hour restaurant Filling Station is right next door.
They have 3 different type of rooms that are either standard, deluxe or themed. Pretty nice and well equiped, but the space they offer is rather limited. The bed are comfortable as long as you don't mind the noise from the street. It's no problem to bring guests into the house at any time, but security is very tight. All in all it is probably the best deal you can get for around 2000 Peso a night in and around Burgos Street. I did not try their internet connection as it was far overpriced. There are plenty of internet cafes around to take your laptop to and plug in an ethernet cable or use their wifi connection for less than half a Dollar per hour. You can book this Makati hotel over the Agoda website.

A deluxe bedroom in the Royal Bellagio Hotel on Makati's Burgos Street

The Clarkton is one of the few older Angeles City Hotels that keep on improving their premises with new construction and better services. Unfortunately, most other hotels in the Philippines just run down their facilities without any maintenance until they collapse. It is refreshing to see how the German management keeps a well maintained business. The Clarkton hotel consists of it's old main building, a side wing and a newly built 4 story annex in the back of the lot. The rooms are very tidy, have large custom built beds and are connected with high speed internet. I have stayed at the Clarkton many times and like it a lot because of it's remote location far away from the entertainment district on Field Avenue (they offer a free shuttle service with their Mercedes van from 6pm until 3am). It is peaceful with a great pool that can be used for swimming and is deep enough for diving. Their Panorama restaurant serves some of the best food in Angeles City including Sushi and Swiss specialities like Fondue. The dinner buffet is superb, but they also offer 24h ala carte menu with the option of room service for a 10% surcharge. I think I will always stay at the Clarkton again when visiting Angeles City in Pampanga. Besides the Oasis hotel it is the only place that offers a lot of privacy and comfort without being exposed to the noise and pollution of the bussier places of this bustling Philippine town. The only downside are the bulky and uncomfortable pillows that cause me neck pain. But that's not a problem since I always bring my own pillow when I travel to the Philippines.

Night view of the Clarkton from Don Juico Avenue on the border to Clark Special Economic Zone.

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