Amazing rooms, terrible lobby design causing endless queues to check out.

I only stayed in the Marco Polo for one night, so I admit that this review might not cover every experience had I stayed for longer.

Getting to the Marco Polo from the airport is relatively painless depending on what time you land in Manila. If you land at 3 am on a Tuesday morning, then it is probably going to take you about 30 minutes door to door. If you land at 7 pm on Friday evening, then you can expect that same journey to take about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The actual location of the hotel isn’t what you would call “prime Manila,” but if you want to experience some local drinking, you can head across the road to Metro Walk, which has a ton of local style bars and restaurants with live bands and endless San Miguel Light.

The first thing you’ll notice when you get to the Marco Polo is that there is a single desk on the bottom floor with a café to the left and lobby style seating. You have to go around to the elevators and head up to the 30th (I think) floor to get to the actual lobby. Even checking in at 4 am meant waiting for the elevator to make its journey up and down the building.

The main check-in lobby is quite grand and open. I approached the check-in desk with my ID and credit card in hand ready to get up to my room. There were two gentlemen at the check-in desk and between them, it took them well over 10 minutes to process my pre-booking. After these 10 minutes, I was asked to sit down whilst someone checked the room. This then took a further 10 minutes. So, at 4 am with absolutely no one else in the hotel lobby, it took me about 20 minutes to check into a pre-booked room.

When I actually got up to the room, though, I was blown away. These rooms are by far the most spacious in any Manila hotel room. The bathroom features a full-size bathtub and a large shower area. The shower was incredibly powerful and the perfect temperature. The layout of the room was excellent. With all the space, you could literally do anything you pleased. The curtains had the dreaded gap in the middle, which meant that light came shining through at 6 am. But the view across the metro was pretty nice from 40+ floors up.

I was actually attending a conference in the same hotel. So around 12 noon, I ventured down to the lobby to get to my speaking session, and I was blown away again, only this time for very different, bad reasons.

The elevators from the rooms down to the 30th-floor lobby are pretty quick, but because there are only 2 (maybe 3, but it matters not) dedicated elevators going from the bottom floor and conference levels into the main lobby, then you are stuck waiting for everyone to check out and get into them. This is no hyperbole when I say there must have been about 35-45 people queuing from the check-out desk to get an elevator to the ground floor. I asked if I could use the stairs to get to the 9th-floor conference room, but was told I had to wait for the elevator. It really was the single most frustrating hotel experience I have had and took about 20 minutes of just standing there to get an elevator out of the lobby.

The conference was well organised. The room provided by the hotel sat nearly 300 people and the food was great. So if you are planning to use the facilities for a conference, then I do recommend that part.

After the conference, we went up to the Vu bar at the top of the building. Just like the rooms, this bar has an incredible view of the city skyline. There is seating indoors and on either side are the two outside bars, which is really where you want to be if you are heading up.

Since I had a late check-out, I was able to get the elevator down after only waiting about 5 or so minutes. I thought to myself as I was heading to the ground floor that the rooms and the Vu bar are really quite exquisite, but the awfully slow check-in and ridiculous lines for the elevators left a very sour taste in my mouth.

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.