I'm not picky when it comes to accommodation and I had my expectations low coming into this place but still I found my stay disappointing. Firstly, I had booked a double but I was placed into a twin with the beds pushed together, I asked for a room with windows which technically they did have but were obstructed by a gigantic billboard on the outside of the hotel so there was no light coming in during the day. They did try to move me the next day but the room they provided was the same, twin room with beds pushed together and it did not have a working safe.
The hotel is in a very good location right next to a giant mall and 10 minutes away from the LRT with lots of minimarts and 711's nearby. Very convenient for anyone who isn't familiar with the area. That's about all the positives I can say for this hotel. Rates are more or less the same as with better equipped places in the surrounding area but it's not a bad place to start.
It should be noted this place also has short time rooms. 3 hours and 12 hours are available for short stay. Nothing sleazy going on, you get young couples coming in and out, also families and day trippers hoping to get a room for some respite before heading off elsewhere.
During my stay I tried three different rooms. The rooms seem neat enough at first but then you notice the floors are sticky and there are markings on the walls. Two of the rooms I had, had very dirty floors with bits of dried food and dirt sticking to my feet.
You get the bare minimum in their standard rooms, no fridge, no kettle, toiletry kit with one bar of soap and a shampoo packet that seems to have been halved from a larger one. The beds, the ones in my standard room were two singles pushed together with very thin foam mattresses, the type you get at hostels with cheap vinyl covers. The beddings and blankets were thin but adequate.
As I mentioned above, this places provides the bare minimum, there is no room service door tag and rooms are not cleaned unless you ask. Toiletries and the 300m bottles of water are not replenished by housekeeping when they clean and you need to request them daily. Even then, staff needed a reminder after they were not delivered 40 minutes after I had informed the front desk. Another time the drinking glasses were not cleaned, I requested someone take them away and they forgot to replace them so I had to wait over half an hour for that.
I thought that upgrading to a Suite from a standard would improve things a bit but still, I was placed in a room with it's window obstructed by the giant billboard despite my repeated request for a window that allowed light through. There was a fridge but the temperature dial was broken off and the wires were cut and taped back together in several places. The kettle was filled from the previous guest and there was a teabag inside. Sloppy work from housekeeping yet again. Took them over 20 minutes to send up a clean one, a cheap plastic kettle that did not close properly or shut off when boiling so I had to keep an eye on it. You get the same cheap toiletries with one bar of soap as in the standard room. There are two coffees, some off brand bottom barrel instant coffee and cheap plastic stirrers that melt in the hot water, no spoons.
Bathrooms are clean but in the standard rooms the water flows from the shower area to the rest of the bathroom because there is no shower divider. Tiles get wet easily in the suite and stay wet. You need to dry them off with a towel but of course you are only given two, no hand towels or anything to clean or wipe your feet with at the bathroom area.
To be fair the front desk staff seem helpful and pleasant to deal with but despite their best efforts my simple request to have a room with a window that let in light was not accommodated and there was no accompanying explanation, I was not told of any issues with them being fully booked or anything like that. They do check you in and out quickly and respond to requests in a timely manner, apart from the times when they don't...
The included breakfast is a joke, buffet choices are minimal you get dried up clumps of rice paired with super oily food that has no flavor. One choice of fruit, and watered down coffee, no effort at all to make it seem like respectable meal.
This place calls itself a business hotel, I've never known a business hotel that didn't have it's own laundry service or even able to recommend one nearby. Front desk staff and bellboys are well presented in their uniforms but the doormen outside spend a lot of time smoking and watching videos either at their post behind a podium stand outside the door or occupying one or more of the three outside tables intended for paying guests. Throughout the day you'll see them there sometimes with the hotel driver and some of the security staff, oblivious to the guests who may want to use the area. Sometimes they open the doors for guests, other times they sit there and carry on with what they are doing.
I have no problem with people wanting to relax when there is no work to be done but doesn't give a very good impression of a place if you have staff lounging around like this in plain sight, even worse when they are doing it at the front of the hotel.
Finally, when I moved to my suite, I was able to operate the tv using the remote but when I returned after my dinner, it had stopped working. I found the batteries missing with no signs of them anywhere. I thought maybe they had fallen out when I dropped the remote but battery cover was intact and in place when I checked. I can only assume this was some kind of juvenile prank by someone in housekeeping or a way to get back for complaining about the kettle that was not cleaned, or requesting to see different rooms when they were unable to provide the one I had booked, or having towels and water replenished when they failed to do so. Or maybe they just needed some extra batteries and this was the only way they could get any. Either way all my stuff was still there and I was not concerned enough with my ability to turn the tv on or off to make a big deal of it on my final night.
Overall, it was not a terrible place to stay but given the asking price for a standard room 3350php or 2750 discounted, you should be able to expect more from the place. Little things, like not being stingy with their toiletries or water bottles would give a much better impression of the place. Properly cleaning the floors would also be nice.Then there is the matter of actually placing guests in the rooms they book.
If you can get a good price of agoda, it's not the worst place but walk in rates are totally way overpriced for what you get. Generally, it's not a great value area but there are budget hotels that provide more for a lower cost.