We just came from a weekend getaway at Treasures of Bolinao in, well, Bolinao, Pangasinan. My friend blogged about this site so I thought why not give it a try. We were supposed to stay until today but opted to check out early because we were completely unsatisfied with this place.
Anyway, to be fair, let’s start with the few positives:
1.) The location is nice. The view is good. Sunset was definitely breathtaking. However, the beachfront of Treasures of Bolinao is not really a beach but rock formations. Good for sightseeing perhaps, but not for swimming. The picture shows here the nearby Patar Beach, which is a public beach area.
No need to check in at Treasures of Bolinao to enjoy the Patar Beach
2.) The staff at Treasures of Bolinao is friendly and nice.
Now, for the rest. Let me just outline some key things:
1.) After we have checked in, it looked like the room was poorly prepared. Never mind that our name was taped nicely by the doorway. There were no tissue/shampoo/soap in the bathroom, no towels, heck not even any pillow casing for the bed. And the room was pretty spartan. This would be fine if the rate was Php2,000 or so, but they called this room The Maharlika Suite, which was about Php7,000 to Php8,000/night.
2.) The bathroom lock was not working. They had to get someone to try and fix it while we were already checked in.
3.) The food takes forever to serve. At least 1 hour. Our mom was very frustrated when she ordered way ahead for dinner (like around 4pm pa lang) and still dinner get so delayed. So she ordered while in the pool and then went and showered, got dressed, rested a bit, hoping that when we got to the resto food would be ready. But lo and behold, we still had to wait for more than 1 hour. Same thing with breakfast. They asked us to inform the resto staff way ahead, but breakfast was served pretty late. And the food they offer is not even that great (over priced and under quality).
4.) Around 10pm or so, we heard loud bangings coming from the floor above. Like there was some ongoing repair and maintenance. At this ungodly hour. At first we let it pass, thinking it might be just a short while. But it went on and on for a couple of minutes, and not just with hammering but also with what sounded like furnitures being dragged across the floor. Wifey couldn’t take it anymore and asked me to check out what’s happening so I stormed the floor above. They were fixing a room, moving the beds, hammering the bed together etc. and the sound was being echoed completely along the hallway and to our room below. And again, this started at 10:00 in the evening.
5.) Unreliable running water. There’s a pail inside the Maharlika Suite. Guess what it’s for?
Again, at a price of Php2,000-3,000 maybe, we would let this pass. But we were paying for Php7,000++/night (+10% service charge), would you blame us if we expected a lot lot more? Goodness, if we shelled out an additional Php1-2,000, we could already have gotten a 2 bedroom suite at The Manor in Camp John Hay, Baguio or a villa in Sitio Remedios in Ilocos or a room in Nami Hotel in Boracay - where you get super pampered and with super excellent food to boot. Anyway, we thought it wasn’t worth our while to stay in this resort for another day, so opted to leave earlier than planned.
We weren’t the only group apparently. I think 2 or 3 more families were checking out early as well. Everyone as unsatisfied as we were. We know because we were able to talk to a family during breakfast and a lady was checking out (enumerating their group’s complaints) just as we were leaving the front desk.
Upon check out, they asked us to pay 30% of our bill for the second night. They tried to weasel in 10% service charge more for our penalty but Wifey was quick enough to point out that it should just be the room rate. Dapat nga daw full price pa since we reserved for 2 nights and “we are running a business here.” they said. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind paying in full if the place was really nice, but we were leaving early because we felt they didn’t hold their end of the bargain of this business deal.
Anyway, I wanted to leave that place immediately so we just paid up the 30% of their published room rate just to go. We just enjoyed the fact that, after our experience in Treasures of Bolinao, we were able to hear Sunday mass at the Our Lady of Manaoag (where we got our newly-acquired car blessed) and had a great meal at Isdaan Restaurant in Gerona, Tarlac.
So if you want to see the beaches of Bolinao, allow me to list down some of my alternative suggestions:
1.) Check out the other cheaper resorts in the area. I know we should have at least checked out the nearby resorts but we were just so pissed off with Treasures we really didn’t want to stay in the Bolinao area much longer.
2.) Treasures claims its the only resort in Patar Beach. True, but they don’t say that you still have to walk around 1km to get to the nice area of Patar Beach (harap nila puro bato, great if you want to go snorkeling and see the fishes, but if you want a long stretch of beach, you really have to walk far…)
Walking along Patar Beach to go back to Treasures of Bolinao, which is almost a speck on the horizon
3.) And walk across public beaches. So might as well check in to one of the resorts and drive to this public beach. Bring your cooler, umbrella, and head on to the most desolate part away from the videokes.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:45 am
please help us all promote the beautiful beaches of our town Bolinao tanx. Hi to all my hommies at Bolinao. Specially family Cahiga and Caasi. http://bolinao.site50.net
June 15th, 2009 at 11:12 am
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
June 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Hi. I like the way you write. Will you post some more articles?
August 5th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Read
We have visited few resort along the road way to Patar, Bolinao. Some of them are not so bad and quite least to our expectation. We traveled upto the end of the island and came accross this beautiful light house. By looking at this place, I feel it should have been another film with a romantic scene. My partner immediately pointed a scene in a Filipino film by one of the famous young actor. While at the light house and looking at the horizon an overview is a resort in front of the seaside. We stayed at the light house waiting till the sun set sink in. The view is spectacular. A very rate beauty. Crisp and crystal clear sun set “perfect”. It was late in the afternoon and decided to check in. We found the staff are accommodating, polite and courteous. The place is clean and everything was in order. We request them to cook adobo and grilled dangit. They were happy to take our order.The serve and deliver the food the way we expected. We manage to compromised some of the things we expect and take it for granted to happen at hotels in Las Vegas and some high end resort in Bahamas. But hey, this is a remote resort. This is the beauty of it. Worth of a million dollar as they say. As a film producer, celebrities are dying to get hold of such a prestine, remote and almost untouch and hidden place. A place such as this beauty we its a disgrace to publicly put our concern with much emphasis on charges and unfairly crossified this resort with so much negative comments. My question is – how all this things could be true?
Unfortunately, not many places are left in the planet and few know how to appreciate. On the other side lucky, few of them still around.We are in loved with Bolinao.
Mark Seymore
August 7th, 2009 at 1:16 am
hi mark! we do think the beach in Bolinao is great, we also went to the lighthouse and, believe me, we’re fond of lighthouses (go to http://roamingronos.com/2009/03/north-luzon-prenup/ for our pre-nup photos inside the Lighthouse at Ilocos Norte). let me be clear with one thing, it was the service at Treasures of Bolinao during our stay that left a lot to desire.
i’m glad you had a different experience though. they probably learned a lot from dissatisfied customers (yes, there were a lot of us grumbling clients) on that weekend. they may not have been prepared with the tourists that came their way at that time since it was a long holiday. we put all the specific things we dislike about the resort and i’d be glad to know the owners were able to rectify these mistakes.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Thank you very much for that useful post.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Wow thanks very much for posting.
July 21st, 2010 at 3:27 am
Wow ang ganda naman sa bolinao pangasinan, dami talaga magaganda island sa pilipinas noh. Pero mas maganda parin sa boracay.
Tanya Gemarin