Matinloc Resort El Nido — Hotel in El Nido

I have to admit I had some serious anxiety about the location on the way to the property. I read some reviews that were very negative and for the price I ended up expecting the worst. Thankfully, that poor review was nothing like the experience I had. The property is amazing. This place looks like a fantasy land and had me asking questions about how it was constructed. In this review I am going to discuss several aspects of the property and will try to do it in order of arriving and departing. || First off. Make sure you reserve your flight to the island prior to booking the hotel. | The hotel has a super strict no cancellation/change policy. I took an AirSwift Flight from Manila Terminal 4 to El Nido. This is a very nice prop driven craft. If you are the type that likes to book your seat in the front of the plane so you can be the first to exit. That won't work on this plane. You enter/exit from the rear, so in this case sitting towards the rear will get you off the plane faster. It really doesn't matter as you might be bused to the plane in Manila and when you arrive at El Nido the van is not leaving until all passengers are mustered. The van that picks you up is not what you would expect from a fine establishment so don't let that cloud your judgement of the hotel. The van picked me up at the airport and drives you to a port office. From there you will take a short boat ride to the resort. Keep in mind it might be a while until the boat arrives. I was able to grab some lunch in town first. The driver will take you to a place that most westerners frequent. ||The boat ride to the resort was approximately 25 minutes. The ride was very pleasant, and the island and water scenes are suburb. The boat was decent and has two 150hp outboard motors which scoot you along quite quickly. ||Upon arriving at the resort, you are greeted with shell necklaces and a very refreshing drink. While I'm on the topic of drinks let me give you a stern warning. This facility does not have a bar and does not sell alcohol. Word to the wise. If you want to enjoy some alcoholic delights, talk to the van driver and have him take you shopping. I got the memo on this from the driver, but apparently other quests had the inside scoop because some arrived with enough drinks to have a serious party. I heard there are two reasons for this.... I don't know which is true. 1. Apparently, the owner does not approve of alcohol due to religious beliefs. 2. Some of the rooms are alongside the mountain and there are tons of steps to reach the highest rooms which you would not want to be climbing with a buzz much less drunk. The hotel does not seem to care if you bring your own alcohol and I noticed they happy provided ice some residents that had a few bottles of gin at their table. ||Check in went very quickly and the front staff will guide you to your room which was very nice. My room was about halfway up the side of the hill. I am in damn good shape, and it gave me a decent work out. ||The room was huge. There is a bedroom and a rook that hosts a jacuzzi and two sinks. The shower and toilet are attached to this room. The bad review I mentioned earlier reports that the air conditioning lacks luster. This is true, but not due to the capability of the AC, which I noticed is a very nice Japanese model, Daiken. I think the problem is the AC unit is not made to cool two large rooms. The bedroom and bathroom are connecting, and I believe at one time there was a door here. Now there is no door and the AC unit, which has the fan mounted on the wall of the bedroom has to cool both rooms in a climate that is extremely hot. I also noticed that the wood floor has some gaps, and I could see under the room outside. This cannot be helping with the cooling. I found that once I got to the room, it was best to take a nice shower, which you are most likely going to be doing anyway, and that helps take some sting out of the temperature. When I woke up in the morning the room was comfortable. The room was beautiful, the bed was awesome, the jacuzzi refreshing. The room was also stocked with a few fruits to include local mangoes which I love.||Some of the rooms are high up on the hill and to gain access to these rooms there is a small gondola. The gondola ride is a four-minute trip to top/bottom. ||The views from these rooms are amazing. There is a small gym on site, but it was extremely hot in there and one of the treadmills was out of order. I can't imagine needing this exercise room unless you are going to be there for an extended time. ||I did plenty of walking up and down the steps, walking around the property, walking along the beach, and swimming. About swimming. I was just at the property last week. (end of April). The water is crystal clear, and you can see a myriad of Marine life just steps into the water. I used my pool googles and had a blast. The resort has all sorts of equipment which they offer to you for free. Masks, botties, snorkels, fins. Just ask and the super friendly staff will be happy to assist. Ok, back to the water. At the time I was every time I entered the water, I was getting stung. The hotel staff says this is the time of year where some sort of plankton can sting you. I noticed it immediately and it feels very similar to Jelly Fish I have been exposed to. It not as bad as a bee sting, but it is annoying. I love to swim, and these critters didn't stop me. The hotel also has sea kayaks that you can enjoy. There is a small beach about 500 meters away you can kayak to. The water was very calm so please enjoy. ||The restaurant offers some very good food and tropical drinks. I fell in love with the caramel banana shakes. The restaurant is open to the outside air, and it could get quite warm. I noticed a family that was sitting outside requested a fan. ||There are two pools on the property, which are very nice and I spent some time in the front pool. ||I did get a massage on the facility, and I really enjoyed it.||Also, I took the half day cove tour. The guide will make it a memorable occasion and will take some great action photos of you. | |The resort has a small gift shop which I confess didn't go into. If you are the type that likes midnight snacks, I recommend you pack them. Once you are on the resot, you are on the resort and would have to take the boat back to society for any shopping needs. If you have special medical needs, best bring it. Please bring plenty of sunblock. ||All the hotel staff live on site. I was sure to tip everyone, I really appreciated how they all made my stay a perfect vacation.||Lastly let me mention the local wildlife. I had read some reviews about the belligerent monkeys. The first night on the property and the second morning I seen one monkey that was minding his own business. On my last day I heard a commotion outside my window. Like a real rookie I had left an unfinished can of coke and my very aromatic sub block on the table outside the door. A few monkeys had knocked over the soda and were licking it off the deck. One of the monkeys took my sunblock. The monkeys get quite aggressive if you get somewhat close to them and they will even charge at you while observing them from the window. I traded the monkey an apple for my sunblock. Word to the wise. Do not leave anything edible or resembling something edible outside your room. ||I gave the property 5 Stars because I love the total experience of being off the grid. Oh speaking of the grid. The hotel does have wifi, and it is decent, but I was not able to download some Netflix episodes. Additionally, I have a Philippines SMART SIM and I was not able to get a connection from the resort.||The property is very unique and feels like a paradise. I wish I could have stayed longer. The staff are extremely polite and will bend over backwards to ensure you are well taken care of. ||If you want a real getaway, I recommend you give...

I would like to share my terrible experience in this hotel that I had this new year 22-23 so you understand what you are paying for and don’t overpay for this hotel

We came here with a big family of 6. Our family came from US, Vietnam, Paris to celebrate New Year together and my brother was planning to propose

So we booked this hotel, since it was advertised as luxury private island resort

We paid in total 550-750$/night per each room, so we expected the level of service of a 5 star.

1. Welcome: we were greeted at the airport and brought in an old van to learn that we have to wait 1.5 hour till the boat will take us to the hotel. Driver took us to a cheap fish restaurant where the seats were wooden and very uncomfortable. After 16 hours of travelling just a nightmare
2. After good 2.5 hour we finally get to check in, where we were served some canned juice as a welcome drink and briefed about breakfast in a group with other boat passengers, like in a cheap bus tour
3. Luggage was delivered after 2.5 hours, when it was already dark so we could not go to the beach or pool.
4. Rooms: The rooms are very old, I had a feeling that this once used to be a luxury hotel somewhere in 2000s. Now it definitely needed a renovation. All furniture is old, grandmothers’ curtains, some windows have a blurring screen film hiding away splendid view. It seemed the hotel tried to take these films, but failed and left lot of glue, where flies would stick to. Disgusting scene. No welcome fruit, no fragrance, no light, the curtains shut, you enter in a dark room and have to open everything by yourself

The villa, which is the most expensive ( 750$/night) completely lacking privacy. All the windows look either to the restaurant, either into a wall, no vegetation around villa, just some grass, so can see your neighbor. Whole stay we were obliged to close all curtains. The front window, that supposed to have its own garden and look to the sea, actually looks straight onto public beach. 5) Housekeeping: quality of cleaning is 3 star, no turndown service, no everyday cleaning or even changing water. 6) Food and Beverage All guest had to obligatory purchase the New Year Buffet, it was included in the price. It was the worse NY buffet I ever had. Very poor choice, no fresh juice, only some canned mango juice, some kind of badly made sushi, pasta and chicken. Horrible honestly, it is very cheap. Breakfast supposed to start at 8am (very late for me, since I wake up at 6) actually only started at 8:30, I guess after New Year eve everyone was partying., again some sugar water, no desert or pastry station. NO COFFEE!!!! For coffe they only had capsule coffee, so no real espresso or cappuccino could be made. No one offered tea either, had to request. Lunch was even worse. Not mentioning that the choice is like in a cheap run by amateur hotel, each of our main dishes had only 50 gr of meat. The chicken curry litteraly had 4 pieces of chicken. No one would clean tables, we ate surrounded by 5 dirty tables that stayed like that for 1 hour. No Bar, so after dinner you are just locked on a private island with no entertainment whatsoever

We are not extremely picky and I would tolerate this, if I was paying 70$ for a family run 3 star hotel. But when you are paying around 2000$ for 3 rooms/ night, this was definitely what we did not expect. And since I was really upset for my brother, who wanted to make this hotel a place where he would propose, I went to talk to general manager. To share my thoughts, maybe influence them to improve and maybe he would make me feel better.

He listened to me, agreed to every single comment, apologized and told me he would come back with solution and ask his owner for a discount, since I felt robed, when not receiving the service in coherence with the price.

Can you imagine, that the General Manager never came back to me until the date we checked out. No discount, no offering some apology , nothing

THIS IS...

I wish I had read the negative reviews for this resort more thoroughly. I would advise others not to book here as you will significantly overpay and not get good value.

Booked this resort through Agoda and when I called to scheduled airport pick up/boat transfer they could not find the booking number despite Agoda confirming it on their end. It was 2hrs prior to our arrival that they were finally able to see it in their system and confirm the transfer.

There is no alcohol on the resort (not a dealbreaker) but we stopped by a convenience store on the way to pick up snacks and drinks.

Speedboat transfer to the island is ~20-25 mins each way. To clarify, there is no regularly scheduled boat transfer to El Nido town. It is only based on when guests check in/out of the resort that you can leave for P500/person. Theoretically, if no one is checking in/out the next day, then there is no way to leave the island unless you schedule a private boat transfer for round trip P13,000 (US236). You have to ask the front desk the night prior as they will confirm what time guests are checking out for boats to El Nido town and what time guests are checking in for the boats back to Matinloc. This was very inconvenient and misleading as the boat "schedule" was quite irregular and you were otherwise stuck on this resort.

Front desk is not available 24/7. After 10pm, you would need to find the security guard on the pier for issues like lizards or other problems in your room.

After checking in, we tried to schedule an island hopping group tour with the resort which was 3x (P3700-3900) the regular cost in El Nido town (P1200-1400). We were told that none of the tours were available at the group rate so we would be forced to do the P20,000 (USD363) private tour for the lagoon tour (tour A) that we wanted to do. Since there was no guest checking out early enough the next day (earliest 1:30pm) to go to El Nido town and be able to do the group tour from there, after speaking to the front desk manager the best they could do was allow us to find our own tour company in town that would then be allowed to dock nearby to pick us up the next morning. As we are not from the area, we asked if they had any travel company partnerships to which they replied they did not and we were left to figure this out on our own. That was the best compromise they could come up with.

For an island resort where you cannot go into El Nido town after 5pm unless you hire a private boat transfer, they do not provide any entertainment for guests in the evenings. After sunset and dinner, there really is nothing else to do here.

The quality of the facilities was abysmal for the prices we were paying. The resort is not for families with small children or elderly with mobility issues as there are no elevators, loose floorboards with nails around the swimming pail area, one of the swimming pool ladders even had yellow caution tape where it was broken and in need of repair.

The management did not care about customer service or hospitality. They did not accommodate or help with our concerns. No apologies.

Hopefully this review can help others so they are not misled like we were.

We were originally planning to stay for 3 nights here, but we were significantly disappointed by our stay here and checked out first thing the next morning. Recommend doing yourselves a favor and booking some place else unless you want to feel trapped in a resort where the quality, service, facilities are all rundown...