Panorama Boutique hotel & Beach Club — Hotel in El Nido

My wife and I stayed here as a part of our honeymoon. The staff come across friendly and gave us a free drink. They came across as accomodating however we had countless issues and found them quite slow to rectify anything (sometimes they didn't). There was an ant infestation our room and they moved us to another room. They didn't clean the new room properly as there was someone's hair stuck to the shower wall and an open bottle of water in the room. There were still ants in this room but not as many. They have extortionate prices for taxi transfers. We were charged 1000 PHP for a 7 min drive (no working seatbelts) and 2000 PHP for an 18 min drive to the airport. We told them about the seatbelts from the first time and they still sent the same guy with the same broken seatbelts. It's quite sad considering we are customers but still get ripped off (found this the theme across the Philippines). The food and drink is extremely expensive for the quality. Absolutely horrendous. The breakfast was really bad (we got the fry up and pancakes). They offer sunny side up eggs but they were rock solid. They put olive oil on the bread and cut it into weird pieces. They forget drinks often too and it's not like they're busy. The restaurant is usually empty at all times. They stand over you when they hand you the bill and I had to keep telling them I would check it and let them know when I was ready to pay. Basic stuff. For dinner, we had paela but probably the worst I've had and cost about 20 GBP (very expensive for the Philippines). No plug converter for the coffee machine and we had to ask. No spare toilet roll in the new room either. The whole place stank of sewage and I think they have an issue with the water system. Even our shower and tap kept cutting out and restarting. Both public toilets were filthy and the men's toilets flooded on one of the nights. Both room bathrooms we had also stank from the same issue. There are a lot of hassling merchants trying to sell knock off goods. It's done quite forcefully and they even enter the bar seating area. The staff don't do anything to usher them away. This is very inappropriate and made us feel uneasy. Having to keep our valuables close and constantly tell them no. This is not good enough for a high priced establishment. In summary, you pay a premium price (200 GBP / night) for a very low quality experience across everything (food, room, service). They have a lot of work to do and should lower their prices considerably whilst they fix these issues. I would never come here again. It just put a dampener on our honeymoon and was...

Dubious and distasteful practices by this establishment. I booked 3 of their 8 rooms. I am in the hospitality and service industry myself so I understand how much the minimum wage earning staff appreciate when guests show kindness and appreciation. Thus, I would give tips of thousands of pesos a day from servers to custodians to porters specially since I only saw two other groups dine in their restaurant during my stay there. Not that it would've originally mattered that I contributed a majority to their week's revenue, but while checking out they asked for a late check out fee of P1,000 which is understandable. I asked them to waive it and they disagreed. That's okay. What was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE IS THAT THE MANAGER LIED when I asked to speak to her and was told that a guest was checking in thus she and the owner needed to insist on asking for P1,000 from me despite everyone else saying that there was no incoming guest. When I pointed out that it made no sense that if I paid 1,000 then they would let me stay til 3pm before they cleaned then it It means they can do it regardless of payment, the manager's face changed because she realized she was caught LYING. If they can lie just to squeeze another P1,000 out of me who has been beyond generous and good to them, then they probably have other dubious practices. I can't stand this dishonesty on vacation and a lack of hospitality after giving them so much kindness the whole week. I later found out that the other room paid for late check out so there really were no guests arriving and they just wanted more money. This lack of understanding, hospitality, and integrity shows horrible ownership. I was looking forward to bring my family instead of my friends in the future. I hope they reevaluate themselves and this should start with the owners.

Ps. The manager told me she had no idea that I was her biggest customer after staying there for a week. This is either unbelievable incompetence for not checking who booked almost half your rooms, not talking to your staff about the guests, nor checking the sales of your restaurant and bar. Again, either a lack of integrity or competence of the owners...

That’s a no-go hotel! We spent 3 nights at this place but honestly can’t recommend as the rates are completely out of line with what you get. Even worse, it seems that they are harming the nature as the water from the tanks gets pipelined into the ocean. The smell from the tank at the pool is disgusting and destroys the nice surrounding.

Things to improve: Smell of tanks is pretty strong (they try to fix it through joss sticks, though working for a limited time) Pool equipment is dirty and seems to be old Staff is not well-trained and unobserving (they were playing with smartphones right next to us for an entire hour without even asking for drinks or anything) Language barriers occurs and then staff misunderstand orders Bar is not clean in the morning (used Glases standing at the bar) Service: not asking for drinks (never!) Complete no-Go is that you can’t swim in the ocean in front of the hotel — then it’s not a private beach and not even a beach hotel Breakfast: little options (higher expectations for that price) Prices for extra options way too high (eG 2k for tours vs 1,2k at other providers) Pool water gets green (looks pretty ugly) because of the water quality (that’s what they told us)

Positive Hotel/Location is nice and cute Rooms are clean Front desk is nice and tries to help

We complained about all those things and we were at least asked to share our feedback to the supervisor and manager. But honestly we just got the feeling that they wanted to know who did something wrong to blame him/her. As a compensation they paid us the shuttle service to the airport (which seemed a good deal for them comparing this to the overall price that we paid for the room). Also they were telling us different stories with this pipeline/waste water but all confirmed that it’s not advisable to swim in the ocean because of coli bacteria.

All in all, way to expensive for what you get. There are definitely much better hotels for...