Ciriaco Hotel and Resort

Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers TV Show) would feel right at home in this hotel which is undergoing renovations at something seemingly slower than a snail’s pace. There are indications of the restaurant & front desk area nearing completion. The two lifts are Out of Service, so you must climb the stairs even if you have an extremely painful ankle like I observed one lady on numerous times. Some of the rooms have keycard while others have a big physical key – does not seem to be any reason as to why each room is different. The room I was assigned overlooked the highway, but they couldn’t move me to a room with a garden / sea view even though they had low occupancy. During check-in I was told it would be plated breakfast and not a buffet since the occupancy was very low. Eggs with bacon was an option so that sounded OK – sadly the next morning there was no bacon, and the same the following mornings at the breakfast buffet. What the….., I’m in the Philippines, one of the largest pork eating nations & yet this hotel can’t get any bacon – go figure! I was very tempted to go to the Super Metro & bring my own bacon to the hotel & ask them to cook it! First morning I didn’t enjoy my cold shower, so they sent an engineer to fix it. Yes he manged to get hot water, however by the following morning the shower still was cold water & a major plumbing exercise was initiated to try to repair it so I was upgraded to a superior room, which was a more spacious room still overlooking the highway. By morning three I was looking forward to my hot shower – well yes the water was hot but the knob to change the water flow from the spout to showerhead came off in my hand when I pulled it. Oh well I thought, I could just pull the spindle & once the shower was running it would be OK – alas that was not the case as the spindle would not stay extended, so I had to pull & hold the spindle whilst trying to put soap on my hand & wash myself. Yep another trip to the front desk to voice my disappointment & frustration. Once again the trusty engineer arrived at my door to work his magic. Overall, the staff seem to have no experience or real enthusiasm for the ensuring the guests have an enjoyable time. I was working on my laptop near the pool & decided a cappuccino coffee would be nice, so I walked to the pool bar & ask for one – not available. They didn’t even suggest that if I went back to the main dining room they could probably get me one….. I was they only guest out near the pool at the time so it wasn’t like they were so busy they couldn’t say let me get that for you it might take me a few minutes. Oh, did I mention the “green” coloured pool & zero deck chairs to lay on – nothing like the blue pool in the booking site photos. In fact, when I showed the Front Office staff the picture from the booking site with the idyllic blue pool & matching blue deck chairs they burst out laughing at the picture. It appears if you don’t ask for your room to be serviced it doesn