Palanas by the Sea — Hotel in Boljoon

Perspective of this review: |We are a middle-aged/middle-class family (teacher and electrical engineer) that understands standards vary by country. This review is relative to similar experiences in Philippines/East Asia, not North America. ||We had positive experiences at Palanas in 2014 and 2015, before it grew into a resort. Beyond the pools, in our humble opinion, there is nothing that makes Palanas-By-the-Sea special and worthy of the price they charge. We have no plans to return. On future visits to Southern Cebu, we will opt for simpler and lower priced lodging.||April, 2023 Experience-||Albacore Room (our room): Two nights with two adults and three children cost approx. 12500 pesos ($250USD). This included an extra p450 per night for a fifth person. Room has one double bed and two singles. Air-conditioner was modern and effective. There is a decent refrigerator and microwave. The television, while modern, seemed unnecessary and had no impact on room satisfaction. For reasons noted below, the bathroom was disappointing. ||Price: As noted above, this room cost more than $100 USD/night. Service and amenities were below those of similar properties in the area. The room was as pictured on their website; decent and clean. The comfort/restroom was not good and on the level of a gas-station toilet in any country--foul odor included. The toilet seat was loose/broken. Water pressure of the shower and sink was extremely low and made showering a frustrating experience. Toiletries (soap, shampoo, bath tissue) are not included. While this is very common, most hotels in this price-range do provide them at no charge.||Payment: Palanas accepts major credit cards on premises, but their website does not. A 50% down payment, required for the reservation, can only be made via bank-transfer or cash. Some banks and money transfer services, including Xoom.com(tm), do not permit such transfers to a business. This can be a challenge for foreign tourists without family/friends in the area.||Other Rooms: Smaller and larger rooms, including suites are available. ||Pools: Filtered/treated seawater. One pool is 1.5+ meters deep, the other is approx. 50cm deep. There are fresh-water showers for rinsing. No towel-service or extra room towels for swimming. Website photos are accurate. Very decent||Beach: Very narrow at low-tide, absent at high-tide. Fine for locals familiar with tidal flows/currents but may be dangerous for tourists.||Breakfast Included: Rice, eggs-to-order, fresh fruit, and choice of bread, beverage and meat (longanisa, corned beef hash, tocino etc). Excellent quality. ||Restaurant/Bar: Priced as typical. Decent quality.||Outside food and non-alcoholic beverages are permitted: Alcoholic beverages are subject to P1000 (20 USD) corkage fee. Typical and expected.||Visitors: At no charge, an additional eight (8) family members were permitted to eat outside-purchased food at our room. This was on the condition they did not use resort amenities, including pools/beach, or stay beyond 8pm. Much appreciated. ||Parking: No charge...

Stayed here during the Lenten season of 2022. The plants and animals were amazing. Really liked how things were managed in terms of maintaining gardening and the exotic animals. The staff was accommodating enough to help us know where the parking area was, which was near the pool area. They had a great play ground for kids too (see saw, swing set, monkey bars, tiny jungle course to the slide).

What I find disappointing was the rooms and how they handled my family during the stay. We had no idea that the area with hanging white flowers was a function room. Our family was eating there and unpacked our luggage there since we were tired from the 3 hour trip. When we were eating, we were then informed that we were not allowed to eat there which slightly bothered us but we understood. Another thing was when we were getting water from the water dispenser they had there, they suddenly added a "Not for guests" sign which was highly insulting. They should've provided us a full coverage of what was with the stay in the resort. Following to the recent incident, our family was separated in 2 rooms by choice. What gave us the bad impression is that they provided us a room which was filled with an overwhelming stench of a freshly painted cabinet. Although, negativity aside, the towels and blankets were laid out professionally which was awesome. But again, what blew us off was the room required us to pull out our air freshener and opened the room to let off the paint smell.

For those sensitive with what the pool's water is, it's sea water. We prefer having the pool with the sea water than actual pool water with chlorine. I have no problem there.

What made me think of the resort as red flag is when they started charging fees for using rice cookers (150 per rice cooker), kitchen use (280 for 1.5 hours of use). Which ruined the whole trip for my family.

The sea was sort of brown when we went there. It was murky with probably sand from a nearby beach but we couldn't see anything below our feet even when I was wearing a snorkeling mask. I guess it's not a good spot for snorkeling as a hobby. The stairs need extra work though, probably an effect of Odette but there was a dangling metal foundation bars which was rusty too. Worse comes to worse, you might get impaled if the waves would push you.

Overall, it wasn't a fully horrible experience, again, there are some areas of the resort which had an amazing impact but was not enough to bring the experience to an equilibrium of positive and negative feedback.

Notes to whoever plans to go here: They charge for kitchen use They charge for rice cookers The pool uses sea water (not a negative thing, just a thing for people to pick up) They charge you if you lose a towel (reasonable) Alcohol is available but you're not allowed to drink near the pool

They decided to waive the extra charges after expressing what we...

I super love the place. ||I love their dorm type rooms. They are clean and very budget friendly. It has its own fridge, tv set, landline phone and fully air conditioned. The bathroom has heater which is great.||The common kitchen is spacious and clean and it has the basic kitchen stuff you would need. We only paid extra 100 pesos for a whole day use of the LPG. Super awesome.||The pool is sea water and they clean it everyday. It is super love.. the view is breath-taking. The pool will close at 11pm but you can still do night swimming at the beach.||The front desk staff and the rest of the resort staff are super friendly and professional. I love them. ||The resort is a 10 minute walk from the market so it is easy to buy fresh fish and meat, food and buy things you might forget to bring for the vacation.||This is great place to hang out with friends. Also a great place for a beach wedding venue... ||I highly...