Hotel Quest

LJ and I planned to be out the door early morning to start the search for the hotel that we can use for our wedding preparation. Well, it rained cats and dogs Monday morning, and that allowed me to sleep in, yey! We finally got our butts out the door by 3pm (so much for trying to be early birds, haha!)   

I’ve done some research the night before and narrowed down our options to 4, so here they are… 

Lancaster Hotel Manila 

622 Shaw Blvd corner Samat St, Mandaluyong City, MM

Into the Blue

My officemates spent our Saturday afternoon at Blue Water Day Spa – Ortigas (Greenhills). It was hours spent on relaxation and was just perfect. 

As soon as we came in, they offered us some cold drinks. 

Sari, their Spa Manager, entertained us right away and we were each asked about our preferred treatment. What type of massage we want and how much pressure we fancy. 

All of us went for the Absolute Relaxation Package, which came with an Athlete’s Massage and Foot Reflexology.  I opted to trade the Combo Herbal Massage instead of the AM. You can do this, but the price will still be the same.

Komixathon 2012

Last weekend, LJ and his good friend Ryan joined Flipreads/Komikon 24-Hour Komixathon, simple lang naman requirement, tapusin ang komiks within one day -- starting from Saturday 12noon, ay hala!. We basically spent our last morning in Boracay with LJ glued to his laptop lettering for their entry. Being the supportive fiancee' that I am, you can hear me adding more pressure with my,umm, very helpful countdown... 

"2 hours to go... 1 hour to gooo... 15minutes to go... last 4 minutes, save! save! save!!!" 

my cheerleading efforts

After much stress, they were able to complete and submit it just in time, hooray! 

To be able to see and read their entry click here 

(it's  a really cool read, and I'm saying that though I'm not even into comics)  

ah-1, ah-2, a Station 3

We finally arrived in Cagban, hailed a tryc to take us to our hotel and agreed to the 100peso fare. With only a week of preparation we booked our hotel based on availability as most of the popular mid-priced hotels are already full. The reviews in Trip advisor aren’t the best, but we decided we’ll take a chance. Nevermind the bad reviews, it met our top three requirements for this trip, 1.beachfront,  2.aircon, 3.with wi-fi so we should be good. If all else fails, we’ll be out enjoying the sun and sand most of the time anyways. 

The tryc dropped us off at the end of the alley to Station 3, he gave us some instructions – “kaliwa ka dyan sa beach.” My mistake for assuming that the hotel will already be there when I “turn” left. Well it wasn’t, not yet. So we walked, and trekked. We’ve been to station 3 before and I don’t remember the resorts that we are passing, so I called Reception and told them we might be lost, described the resort in front of me and she assured me that we just need to go straight. Two resorts later, there it was – Arwana Hotel and Restaurant, yey! 

photo from MyBoracayGuide

So far, so good. The hotel matches the on-line photos, the restaurant looks promising. They served us welcome drinks and escorted us to our room. Hmm.. they said the hotel was just a couple of years old. Parang hindi. It does have potential, from outside it looks like a modern boutique hotel.  They just need to invest more on maintenance. 

Day 4: Home Bound

All good things must come to an end, and it’s time go home. If you’ve travelled via 2go going to Boracay, then you can consider yourself a pro now. *clap* *clap.* The home bound route is basically the Caticlan and Boracay bound posts in reverse.

Prepare the same things you’ve organized when you were Caticlan bound. 

click here if it’s you’re still a first timer to know what you need to have, and 

click here so that you can see my reminders

Since the departure time was still at 7pm, we requested for a late check out. They allowed us to stay up to 2pm. We had lunch and rented a tryc to get to the Cagban port around 3pm and paid 100pesos. 

When we got to the Cagban port the terminal was under construction, and they had make-shift counters on the right side if you are facing the building. Pay 25pesos for the pump boat and 100pesos for the terminal fee. Just behind you there’s a queue with a guy collecting the terminal fee stub. Walk straight and there will be someone directing you to the available boat and they will collect your boat stub. When you are walking into the boat, take a seat on the benches to your right to get the most shade from the sun (this is the left side once the boat moves to Caticlan).