Les Maisons D'Itac — Hotel in Cebu

DO NOT STAY HERE. The staff, specifically the hotel manager, are incredibly rude. Her communication from start to finish was exceptionally poor. I had reached out to reception weeks before check-in to arrange airport transfer and was asked to provide my contact details so a menu could be sent for the meal we were told we would receive on arrival. The menu was never sent as was promised. I sent another message a few hours prior to arrival requesting the menu. I never received a reply. When the driver arrived to pick us up at the airport, he informed us that we need to get our own food, as food would in fact not be provided for us. If this had simply been communicated beforehand we would have made our own provisions.

When we arrived she greeted us with an exceptionally brief introduction, and never told us her name. It was dark on arrival and she neglected to point out the location of any of the facilities. This gave us the impression of being isolated and somewhat vulnerable in the event of requiring assistance. The villa offers breakfast on the patio, and we requested this one morning of our stay. Our coffees were brought with no creamer or sugar, and when I politely asked her if we may have some it seemed like an inconvenience. After breakfast we left for a day of activities, and when we returned none of the plates had been removed and were covered in ants and flies. The breakfast is also incredibly overpriced for the meagre offerings - the villa takes full advantage of the fact that there are no other options around. They do not even provide a kettle in the rooms, and charge 200 php for a hot drink.

The villa offers transport to local Moalboal/Panagsama via jeepney. We requested this one evening and it was confirmed, but we were later told the jeepney had broken down. We were then offered the more expensive, and less comfortable option, of a tricycle. When we questioned this, negotiation on the price was shut down and we were told there were no other options. When we then decided to try and source our own transportation, the option of a car for the same price of the jeepney suddenly became available. Upon dropping us off at 6:30pm we asked the driver about arrangements for pick up. He asked that we simply message the manager when we were ready and he would return. At 7:20pm, the manager messaged me and stated that the latest we could be picked up was 9pm. This was a huge dampener to our evening, as it was the last night of our holiday and we would have liked to have enjoyed the bars and Karaoke of Panagsama. I replied to her message and accepted the pickup time, but stated I would have appreciated knowing this beforehand. There was no apology or real acknowledgement, just ‘OK ma’am’. Her lack of timely communication again had a direct impact on the enjoyment of our holiday, and her rudeness just made it worse.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the worst was yet to come. On the drive home, the driver ran over a dog. He proceeded to drive backwards and forwards over the poor animal, and its heartbreaking cries and the sounds of impact with the vehicle underneath were very audible to all of us in the car. After what seemed like a long time, he eventually drove off without saying a word. He could speak good English, and it was clear that we were distressed by the incident. This was a truly horrifying experience and it completely ruined our last night of the holiday. We went to settle the bill when we arrived back at the villa and we told the manager about the experience. She said ‘OK ma’am’. No apology, no nothing.

Photos present Les Maisons D’Itac in a flattering light, but the truth is that the service is so poor, and the costs so inflated, that I cannot find one good thing to say about this place. The manager is perhaps the most inhospitable, rude and unapproachable person I have ever encountered in the service industry. She clearly takes no pride in her work, and appeared to treat us with some level of disdain. Avoid staying here...

For rooms that are booked at this rate, TOTALLY not worth it. The 5 start resorts, like the Crimson Resort or Mövenpick are the same price. While this place has beautiful rooms, that's pretty much it. Overall, I was really disappointed.

I'm always excited to try some hidden gem or something off the beaten path, but this wasn't it. When we arrived, it was to a very awkward greeting, a dirty private pool and basically zero instructions on how to do or use anything. We happened to wander down to the main area to ask about food, which we informed we had minutes to put our order in for the night. If we had never come down, would anyone have let us know that we were missing out on dinner? As we waited for our food, we explored the property. It wasn't well taken care of - everything needs a good cleaning and updating. Locals and dogs wander through the property grounds throughout the day and night. Also, the beach smells... this isn't anything they could do, but it's covered in seaweed and gets smelly as it dries. There isn't really a beach to hang out.

We only had one meal there as we ended up checking out the next day, but the food was good. This resort is very remote, about 30+ minutes from the closest town you can eat in. While you're there, you'll rely on the staff to help you navigate their resort and area. I found them to be unhelpful and unprofessional - not rude, just unprofessional. For example, we ate our dinner at our villa and the next morning all our plates were still there covered in bugs and flies. No one explained or walked us through the villa, talked about meals, showed us the property, or told us about office hours. Literally nothing.

When we went to check out and speak directly to the staff during office hours, but no one was there. We ended up leaving without checking out. This really upset them, however, they claim to have seen us walking around the property but no one came out to speak with us.

I have traveled the world, been to many places, and this is the ONLY time I have requested a refund. To summarize, you won't be getting what you paid for.

Lastly, we tried to work it out with resort directly but this was the response we got from management "Your over-all complain is not acceptable to us even though we have to apologize in some of the events, because we know we still have more things to improve on. I'm actually not in the mood in discussing anything anymore as it will just continue on who is telling the truth here or not. I've been the manager of this resort for 6 years and I have never seen anything like this, the staff and I were quite shock and unhappy on what happened. I understand if our standard services where not of your expectations, but continuously searching for a negative thing on your stay is not an excuse for just leaving like that. We could have discussed it here or in that morning, but you choose to like escape. As I told via telephone to the lady of the agency. We are not refunding...

Pros; We booked this resort to relax and unwind after 4 long days of tours and travels, and that’s exactly what we got. Our room looked over the ocean and the view was beyond words. Our room was very pretty, giving that island vibes. I spent my stay outside, napping on the hammock, enjoying the sound of waves.

Cons; They don’t have TV in rooms (at least not in ours)… when it rains and you have to go in, you’re stuck in the room with no entertainment… The location was not great tbh, good in the sense that it was by the ocean, but besides that, there’s absolutely nothing. We went out on a walk and there was absolutely nothing. No supermarket, no store, no nothing! Just small local houses. Unless you order food from the resort (they have a small menu with limited options that you can only order ahead of time like a day in advance, it’s not like room service. Plus they don’t have snacks!!!) you’re screwed cuz there’s nothing else outside of the resort. They have massage service and mani/pedi but again, need to book a day in advance.. not ideal. They do provide transportation to wherever you want to go but at a very high price, if I remember correctly, it was like 400-500 php for round trip tricycle within Ronda area or something around that range.

I’d recommend this resort for a 1 night stay, maybe 2 of you push it, just to relax and unwind, but not longer than that.

**Never written a review this long in my life. Hope someone reads it and helps them with booking...