Great location, room temperature needs to be warmer in winter.

I wrote a large review of the Malmaison last July 2017, with my main point being that the hotel is in a great location, the rooms are nice, but there was a lot of noise in the morning.

I’m happy to say that the noise issue was sorted entirely with housekeeping being as quiet as mouses. My only issue about the room was that the temperature on the heater is capped at 25 °C but the room never came close to being 25 °C and was often quite cold in the chilly English winter.

I do need to say a big thank you to the hotel reception who allowed me to check into the room around 8:30 am after a very long fight.

All in all a great hotel, just a little cold.

Lovely views, dated hotel.

The current version of the Taal Vista was built a good 40 years or so ago and it is really starting to show its age. It is, however, positioned so that you get some beautiful views of Taal Lake and the volcano, and is pleasant enough if you are just staying in Tagaytay for a couple of nights.

Getting to the Taal Vista from Manila will take you about 2 hours by car if you leave when there is no traffic. If you head out at rush hour, then you can expect to be stuck on SLEX for a further hour at least.

Checking into the hotel was relatively painless. There was a bit of a queue, and considering how large the lobby is, the actual number of check-in desks seemed a little low.

The premier king lake wing rooms are extremely spacious and give you a fantastic view of the lake and the volcano right from your window and balcony area. The bathroom is equally spacious, but the shower is absolutely terrible with the bath being so narrow that it can sometimes be difficult to stand whilst you wait for the water to drip out.

Unless you have kids who are itching to swim, then I would avoid the pool entirely. It is small, old, in the shade, and crowded.

Whilst we didn’t try the buffet, the ala cart lunch at the restaurant was decent enough, with a nice selection of sandwiches and light bites that you’d expect on a lunch menu.

The hotel is situated across from the “casino”. I have put that in quotes because it is more of a private Baccarat club than a casino, which serves no drinks at all and doesn’t seem very keen on having foreigners bet there. There is a McDonalds situated right next to it though, so you can at least grab a burger before bed.

Checkout was simple enough but be warned that you are going to get caught in heavy traffic trying to leave Tagaytay if you checkout between 11 am and 1 pm.

Lovely grounds, nice variety of food & drink, try to avoid the crowds.

I’ve stayed at The Shangri-La Mactan three times now, and it is one of the largest resorts I’ve visited in the Philippines. It has 4 or so restaurants, 2 bars, a separate pool away from the kids, a pitch and putt 9-hole golf course, and is about 15 minutes from Cebu-Mactan International Airport. At times, it can be super busy, but if you time your trip right, then you can avoid the crowds and enjoy the large grounds.

Getting to the Shangri-La couldn’t be any easier and is one of the reasons why I find it an easy choice to keep coming back to. If you are flying domestically from Manila, then it is about a one and a half hour flight from Manila into Cebu-Mactan Airport. From the airport, there are usually plenty of local taxis that will take you to the resort. Or if you prefer comfort and safety (I do), then you can book a private hotel car or shuttle and someone from Shangri-La will be there to meet you as you exit departures.

Checking into the hotel isn’t the fastest experience. They have enough room for desks, but they don’t seem to be very efficient, especially when having to deal with guests who don’t speak or understand English particularly well. You do get your usual welcome drinks though, and there are sofas that you can sit on whilst you wait to check-in.

Onto the rooms, if you haven’t got children then you absolutely want to be staying in the Ocean Wing as this affords you access to the Ocean Wing Pool, which for the most part tends to be void of children. We like to stay in the Panorama Ocean Wing room as it does give you a lovely view of the sea and the room is nice and spacious. The bathrooms are a little dreary and are starting to look dated, with the less said about the pathetic shower the better, which really does let the whole room down.

As mentioned, if you picked the Ocean View room, then you get access to the ocean view swimming pool, which is entirely separate from the main pool area where all the kids and families tend to congregate. From there, you have easy access to the man-made beach, and whilst not talcum white sand, is pleasant enough. Be warned though that the beach water is quite rocky, but once you go far enough out, you will start to see some marine life that is very colorful.

Unlike others, I’ve not really had a bad experience at any of the restaurants, the choices being Chinese, Italian, International Buffet, and Seafood. The seafood restaurant is connected to a small bar area that has a house DJ most nights and stays open until about 1 am on Friday/Saturday nights. If you order your drinks before they stop service, then the staff will let you sit there for another hour or so whilst they close up. The other main bar is in the lobby and is a little lacklustre, to be honest. There is a band that will usually play, but outside of that, there is no music and it can become quite a sterile environment, especially when it closes early at around 11 pm.

The grounds of the hotel are quite zen, with plenty of grass and there is a small 9 hole pitch and putt golf course. I think the price is a little steep at 900 PHP per player, but it is nice to just walk around hitting the ball as you please. There is also an arcade area with billiards/pool for the kids, and plenty of activities going on in one place or another.

As you would expect in the Philippines, the staff are super friendly and for the most part, speak excellent English. Check out was much swifter than check-in and the shuttle will whisk you back to the airport in 15 minutes.

In closing, I’d say that I always enjoy staying at this resort. The variety the restaurants offer, chilled out bar area, and Ocean View pool greatly appeal to me. I can see why families may find the pricing to be a little unreasonable, and people may score lower for a large number of guests, but for a childless couple who usually hates being around kids, we had no issues with the crowds if you choose to stay away from them and dine a little later. I’ll continue to frequent this resort considering how easy it is to fly to and from.

Small resort with private man-made beach.

Movenpick is a fairly small resort with a fairly crowded swimming pool but a nice man-made beach. There are really only two restaurants with one being a buffet, but the entertainment at the Ibiza bar is nice for an evening.

Getting to the Movenpick is a breeze from Cebu-Mactan Airport, with it basically being a 15-minute journey by car. That means that if you are flying from Manila, it’ll take you an hour to fly down and then about 45 minutes to collect your baggage and get to the hotel.

Check-in was fairly smooth, although, with there only being 3 check-in desks, I can imagine that it gets crowded at times.

We stayed in an executive suite ocean room, which was nice and large and had two balconies. The rooms do look a little tired, to be honest, and don’t seem to have been refreshed a great deal since the hotel was “acquired” from being a Hilton. The main issue I had with this room was the odd decision to have glass doors into the bathroom and the fact that the curtains in the bedroom did not fully close, meaning that the 6 am light will wake you up in the morning. This room also gave us access to the executive lounge, which, whilst nothing overly special, did serve an excellent mini eggs benedict for morning breakfast.

The man-made beach is actually a decent size, with a lovely grass area behind it. Despite being a little bit rocky and pebbly, it is very pleasant. You can swim out about 70 meters or so and spot some nice marine wildlife, including a set of different fish and crabs, and the like.

We didn’t go in the swimming pool area as it was very crowded with families, but it looked to me like there was a lack of chairs/beds to sit on even if it wasn’t quite so busy.

There are effectively two restaurants in the resort, with one being inside the main building (The Sails), and one outside on what is effectively a pier (Ibiza). The Sails is your standard hotel buffet type restaurant that also has an ala carte menu. We had lunch here each day for our stay, and the food was of decent quality and enjoyable.

The Ibiza bar on the pier has a nice outside layout and offers evening entertainment in the form of a dance show. The food offered here is tapas and a Brazilian BBQ and is a nice place to sit and have a cocktail in the evening. My only gripe with this bar is that they allow non-hotel guests to reserve tables. This means that on a busy night, and even if you try to reserve a table in the afternoon, you’ll be told you cannot. When I pressed on this, I was told that only 50% of the reservations are for hotel guests, a ridiculous policy considering that there is absolutely nothing else to do in the hotel at night.

Check out was also relatively painless, but we had a major issue trying to get a taxi or hotel shuttle due to rain in the area. The taxi queue was about 50 people long, but since we were just moving 200m down the road, the hotel general manager (whose name I forget) gave us a ride in his car. A very nice touch that certainly went a long way.

I’d happily stay at the Movenpick again. I think the rooms are fine and the price is well within reason, I’d just go there during low season and probably still only stay for a couple of nights at most.

Incredible resort, just needs to iron out the kinks to be a full 5-Star experience.

As most people have said in other reviews, the resort itself and the friendliness of the staff is absolutely amazing, and I’d say you’d be hard-pressed to find a more idyllic and beautiful resort in the Philippines. The only real problem is that there a few kinks that need to be ironed out for this to be considered a true 5-star resort — and that includes minor issues with room wear and tear and some more frustrating issues such as delays in serving food.

First off, getting there. If you are flying from Manila or Cebu, then you generally want to fly into the small, but quite new El Nido airport with AirSWIFT. We flew from Manila Terminal 4 (Domestic terminal) on a 7 am flight, which saved us from battling traffic in Metro Manila and flight time being 55 minutes. If you are going to fly into Palawan proper on one of the larger airlines such as PAL or Cebu Pacific, then you will need to take a 4-hour bus journey to get to the resort. Now unfortunately for us, there was a storm in El Nido and the Coast Guard had banned all sea travel. This meant that we were stranded on the mainland and were unable to make it over to Cauayan for our first night. This was where I felt the lack of polish on this 5-star experience as we were mostly left to fend for ourselves with the driver dropping us off at a 3-star resort in town with communication on what was supposed to be happening next severely lacking. We managed to sort out our own accommodation at a nicer resort, and after a few back and forth calls, we were able to get on a boat the next morning to Cauayan.

The boat ride from the El Nido port takes about 15 minutes and is pleasant enough. In times of rough seas, you’ll dock at the back of the island. It is a little unnerving getting out of the boat onto the concrete steps, but pretty much the norm if you have visited almost any other island resort in the Philippines.

The island itself is exquisite. It truly is amazingly beautiful and one of the most incredible views I have seen. Walking from the back of the island to the main area at the front will have you travel through the new mountain villas they are building and across the lagoon onto the beach.

Check-in was fairly quick and we were greeted by the resort manager, Ronin, a Frenchman who really does go out of his way to ensure that you feel welcomed and special. In fact, on Christmas Eve after the dinner, Ronin was in the bar with the rest of the guests handing out free champagne and chatting away, a personal touch that I think goes very far.

We stayed in the water villa, which was fairly spacious but had some odd design decisions. The bathroom, for instance, has an incredibly shallow sink, which means that if you try and use it before going out, then you are going to get water all over your midsection. There was also a little wear and tear, with the false wall behind the toilet peeling away and the pressure from the shower left a lot to be desired. However, plus sides are that the bed was nice and comfortable, and the private balcony over the sea has a beautiful view, with it being especially nice to sit there at night and hear the waves.

My main issue with the resort comes from the restaurant and the slow service that went with it. I didn’t personally think that the food was that great overall. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t anything special. It also didn’t help that, on occasion, breakfast was served cold, staff needed to be reminded multiple times about bringing extra water, or the bill, or toothpicks or what have you. Minor points — but with the heavy premium that you are paying to stay on an island like this, then you expect things to be well oiled.

Others have mentioned the internet connection. It’s not that it is just bad — it is consistently terrible and barely usable for the most part. This is made even more irksome by constantly having to put in the same password time and time again on the “registration page”. They really just need to have a WPA2 password on the Wi-Fi connection itself, instead of it being open and having to fill in a form 25-30 times per day once you are connected. There is also no Globe cell reception unless you go close to the Spa, but Smart gives you 2 bars, which are about enough to make a call. Speaking with Ronin, he says that they have plans to mount a repeater on the cliffs of the island, which should hopefully boost the Globe cell signal from the mainland, allowing people to at least use 3G on the beach. Honestly, though, the internet connection and cell service isn’t a big issue when you consider the beauty of the island and that most people are there for the tranquillity.

There is quite a diverse set of wildlife on the small island. You can trek up to one of the observation points on the cliffs to get a sight of some eagles and more exotic birds.

Checking out was hassle-free, the trip back to the mainland was easy. And once again, Ronin was there to see the guests off and welcome the new ones.

All in all, Cauayan is an incredible experience but has slightly frustrating aspects considering the premium cost. I have no doubt that Ronin and his team will sort all of this out though, and they’ll need to because the occupancy is soon to double with the new mountain villas they are opening.