Frendz Hostel El Nido — Hotel in El Nido

I stayed at Frendz with my friend between 18th - 27th December 2024 and 02nd - 03rd January 2025. The hostel itself is fantastic, with a rooftop swimming pool and bar, then also a bar and restaurant downstairs in reception area. The rooms are very spacious and cleaned everyday. The bunk beds also have stairs which I feel is a luxury to any top bunk guest. The hostel is very sociable, with nightly events on the rooftop from bingo to trivia and karaoke nights. That being said, from 11pm the hostel had quiet hours to ensure you get a good nights sleep. The location of this hostel is also brilliant, a 2 minute walk to the strip and beach but also far enough away you cannot hear the nightclubs.

The hostel offer tours too with Haqqy Life. We did tour A which was really good, Omar and team really make sure the trip is above expectations whatever the weather from princess treatment on the kayaks to beach volleyball competitions and group karaoke on the boat.

The staff are on another level and will do anything to help you out and make your stay that more enjoyable and personal to the point of knowing everyone’s names. They really do deserve a pay rise and to have more rest days with the amount of effort they all go to to make the hostel worthwhile. I’d personally like to thank Josh and Mark the rooftop bar men for being outstanding, from knowing your order to always having something new if you wanted, and Mark, Ken and Jaydee who made sure the events taking place were as fun and smoothly run as possible, the experience at the hostel wouldn’t of been the same without them. Even on rainy days, you could count on the boys to entertain you from magic tricks to poker lessons. They put on a Christmas Eve Buffet / Party which was very good and sociable, with Jaydee and Santa on the decks ! I would also like to personally thank the staff, in particular Josh and Mark, for looking after me this night and ensuring I was safe while being I was a drunken nuisance.

I would highly recommend this hostel for anyone thinking of staying in El Nido. If I ever come back to the Philippines, I will 100% return to such a great place !

The only thing I don’t recommend is sleeping in reception unless you want 95 mosquito bites as a Christmas present (although they do provide...

After years of travelling around Asia this is one of the most overpriced and poorly run hostels I've seen. Costs 23 USD for a 8 bed mixed dorm which is on the high end of hostels in SEA, yet not worth it at all. The pictures might look great with a colourful building and rooftop pool, but the important things, i.e. bed and bathroom are lacking. Bed is a very basic and narrow. Showers are small and they don't even provide body wash or shampoo. Hostels like this in SEA charge 10 USD usually, not 23 - a rip off.

Also El Nido has basically nothing to offer apart from shared boat tours that herd tourists like cattle to generic islands and beaches. Yes they're beautiful but they're not unique, there are plenty of places in SEA with the same scenery but also much more to offer. Hence El Nido attract masses of basic trashy Europeans because they don't know any better (also why everything is overpriced). 2 of these idiots decided to have sex on the top bunk bed at 1am making the whole thing shake and impossible to sleep. When management was confronted, even with evidence, they say there's nothing they can do since it's beyond their control. Are you kidding me? You're the MANAGEMENT, you manage the place, you make rules and you enforce them. Maybe try doing your job? How incompetent can you be?

No hostels in the world allow sex in dormitories, and most places will straight up tell you this rule and the penalties, because they're not run by idiots and actually care about their guests experience. I asked for a 50% refund for that 1 night but they said they can't because they would have to find the other guest to compensate me. No you idiot you compensate your guests for a terrible experience, then chase up with the offending guests. That's how you know this place only cares about money. In the end they tried to offer 10% refund just to make the problem go away, and when asked to speak with management the staff just said they're too busy. Clearly not busy doing their actual job.

Do yourself a favour and skip El Nido, I passed thru for 1 day because I had no choice and yeah that's more than enough. And stay somewhere else if you...

I definitely enjoyed my stay here.

Rooms: shared room and it was good

Lobby: spacious but utilized lobby, has pool table which guests can use. Free water in a dispenser beside receptionist. Haqqy life is their in-house/partner tour agency which caters not just tours but motor rentals and such is on the right side and Hub cafe, the in-house resto is on the left side.

Tour agency: makes booking for tours easy, they also have online booking site

Hub resto: food was good for its price (compared to the rest of el nido and no service fee, or maybe its just because im a frendz guest). They accept gcash payments which made payments easy.

Frendz is a 5-floor hostel, 5th is the rooftop where their overlooking pool is in and also their happyhour bar. There’s a pool party at night and ends at 10pm.

Quiet time is 11pm-6am, which means guests must respect other guests by keeping their cool, or better yet, stroll outside as bars are still open naman (this is what my roommates did, pool party from happy hour to 10pm, party outside beyond that).

Arrived at around 12am and the staff was ready to assist me. Originally booked 3 nights but since i arrived earlier, i had to add 1 night for the same price (500 nightly in a 8-bed shared room). Had foreigner roommates during the first 3 nights and they’ve been kind and calm to share rooms with, the last night or 4th night roommate was kind of troubling as he/she was having nightmares i guess which sounded very weird at around 2 or 3am, it kinda gets into you on what he will be doing next and kinda find it hard to sleep well, the other roomie noticed it too and asked me about it in the morning. I’m saying this because i hope that people who books for a shared room should also be responsible with their actions or existing sleeping problems which can disturb other guests of the same room.

I would gladly come back to this hostel when i visit El Nido again as a backpacker. The view from the rooftop alone was worth the 3 flight...