Kalinga Beach Resort — Hotel in El Nido

The beachfront seaview is super worth it. There's a lot of costruction sites going on in the area - the "filipino way" is to start working at 5.30-6 am, which definetely affects guests stay. The hotel has power blackouts and you are never sure if you will have water to make yourself a shower. For who needs the WiFi, please make sure you can buy your own Sim card, therefore the hotel one is not reliable at all. This is not El Nido problem- since I have been asking other "resorts" and they will have more than 3 wifi connections, their own generator and their own water pomp. Rooms are nice, aircon sounds like a tractor and was difficult to sleep the first 2 nights, mosquitos are inside the room, please be prepared with proper protection. Staff is mostly helpful, this is a family-run guesthouse and sometimes you can see them making pool parties with their own friends. In the morning they are usually screaming to communicate each other. You can book shuttle service to the city for free and you will get a coconut on arrival. You can also book a share ride to Puerto Princesa and motorbikes. The breakfast is superb but I saw many times a big mouse running on the stoves. They will offer you boiled water with coffee - better if you do not drink if you do not want to stay in the bathroom for the whole day. The pool is not very clean, the sea water looks cleaner to swim. Unfortunately for my experience I got to know the trycyle service after 4 days of my stay and the coconut has been given on my wish after I saw someone else receiving it (which I have to say, was frustrating to see people threatened differently). If you love dogs this is the place for you, theres 6 of them and they are kinda asking for food to you when you are eating. This occures anywhere in El Nido.

Overall was a nice stay. Please be aware this is not a resort but...

Premise: to get there you have to walk along a beach (apparently the tuk do not get there), take a piece of road busy with mopeds and finally take a piece of your choice: either near the unkempt cemetery or on a beach (between the sea and the cemetery ..). The structure is old, the rooms are very poorly maintained, the swimming pool is not usable (full of mud and water never cleaned or changed in the 5 days I was there). Embarrassing breakfast. The worst thing is the owners, who are not at all nice or accommodating. Perhaps because it is the owners and not the workers who get paid. In other structures at least we received a smile, nothing here. The linen on the second day hadn't been changed yet and we had to insistently ask several times. We also changed the room once !! The first was made of straw, with broken mosquito nets, the bathroom with other people's hair and dirt, a pre-war fan impossible to use! Smell of burning from 4am that smoked the room! They moved us to an air-conditioned room which might be fine if you overlooked the musty smell and dirt! The whole family of the owners lives in the resort in huts. All nasty looking at you as if you are bothering them !!! Children screaming, dogs barking at any time. In short, everything but not a resort, not even a hotel, perhaps some old and stale rooms. They should pay people to stay there !!! We asked for a refund of the last night because we were exhausted from staying there and they started questioning! The only positive note? The view. But that is in many other hotels! What a...

This place needs a restaurant, because it has a great view and yet you can't get anything to eat, except for breakfast. There are only a few restaurants nearby and they are very expensive. The walk into town takes about 20 minutes and part of the path is very dark and narrow, so it's not something you want to be doing in the evening or in the heat. They offer a free tricycle service to try and overcome this problem. The family rooms by the pool are basic but decent. The upstairs villa is in an attic shape room and needs a bit more investment - the aircon doesn't work too well and we needed the shower and toilet fixed while we were there (which to their credit, the management fixed promptly). The main positive of this place is the superb view of the bay and islands plus the small pool. The three main negatives of this place is the distance from town, lack of restaurant (if somebody opened a good restaurant in this neighborhood and reasonably priced, it would draw in all the tourists from the neighborhood) and lack of hospitality from the management - they weren't unfriendly, but we didn't feel particularly welcome. They seemed indifferent to their guests and you couldn't help feeling they'd prefer you weren't there, except for the money (and I'd say this place is heavily overpriced, but so is all...