Padre Burgos Castle Resort — Hotel in Leyte

Padre Burgos Castle Resort||Tangkaan, Padre Burgos Southern Leyte 6602 Philippines||BEING HONEST HERE IS the BEST POLICY; regarding booking.com the owner/manager Delia R. Warren said “I’m canceling your booking. I/them say you’re a no show! When booking.com emails you, you say why are you a no show? My answer is Coronavirus. That’s my answer! PERIOD!” ||IT WAS A MISTAKE TO STAY HERE! Why? Because there IS NO Restaurant = NO Menu for dinner or lunch. The people/manager/owner are OKAY & they have a continental breakfast BUT there is NO Menu for lunch or dinner. I’m a vegetarian & I do NOT eat MEAT, except grilled chicken breast. I’m diving so I do NOT eat fish/sea food! I walk with a cane. I have sciatica in BOTH legs, so, I can NOT walk cane to town. It cost, for a tricycle round trip (RT) 200 PHP to town. The so-called town is 2 kms. away. There IS NO restaurants or mini-marts ANYWHERE near this place. (It is the same as Punta Ballo & Thresher Cove Dive Resort (It is on the far end of the island), both in the Philippines; you have to BUY everything from them. I don’t minding buying everything from them BUT at least a mini-mart would be nice!). I HOPE the manager will let me LEAVE early. I HOPE? She did! NICE! ||So, I’m going to Hilongos, Leyte, staying 1 night and driving a van that costs 1800 Pesos to drive to Padre Burgos Castle Resort. The van goes right to the resort = Nice! I booked the same van/company to go back to Hilongos. It is the same cost one way (OW) 1800 Pesos. ||I booking with someone and it’s all paid. The room has; a queen size bed, 2 closet spaces, 2 chairs, a small table/lamp, air-con with NO remote, a hot water boiler/1 coffee++, a tiny safe, a TV with a USB plug that works for music & 40 channels of which 10 are in English; WB, NG, Sci, HBO, Fox Sports 1 & 2, CNN, Fox Movie, CN, ESPN, AXN & NG Wild. The rest are Filipino. The bathroom has; 1 tissue, 2 large, medium & small towels, 2 small soaps, 2 shampoo & conditioner & 2 body wash. The resort has activities & services & a dive shop. Check the website for the activities & services, man. There is a continental breakfast included with the price. It consists of; tea/coffee/hot chocolate, fruit juice, 2 pieces of toast with butter/jam, fresh fruit (one half on a mango) & scrambled eggs. The room has a desk where you I can use your laptop BUT there is NO Wi-Fi in the room...you have to go to the restaurant; the Wi-Fi IS VERY EXTREMELY SLOW. It takes OVER 3-5 minutes (“ = minutes) to sign into Yahoo, another 3-5” to sign in, another 3-5” to password, another 3-5” to check email. I gave up AFTER 20 minutes! It takes OVER 3-5” to change to another tab. Credit & debit cards are accepted BUT with a 4% surcharge. They can get you a ride to town, a ride to the ferry and many other items. ||SOLUTION Equals UPGRADE the Internet! I want to use the internet/Wi-Fi in my room NOT in the restaurant OR reception! I want to use it while listening to music & podcasts of MY own kind. Let’s PRETEND; EVERYONE (ALL Customers) IS on the internet (Wi-Fi). Let’s PRETEND; EVERYONE it’s a holiday; NO diving, ALL people including the dive crew are ON the internet. Then let’s make the internet (Wi-Fi) for ALL to use! ||Klaus, the Dive instructor/guide says 3 dives per day, NOT 2 dives per day like I told the owner Delia Warren; I want to do 2 dives per day. Klaus says he does NOT the prices of the dives or the schedule ONLY Delia knows that. So, I don’t know if there are dives Wednesday? I wrote a note to Delia that said I want to go early, on Thursday February 20, 2020. She said OKAY. So she will arrange transport to Hilongos at 9 AM Thursday on a van. The owner/manager Delia IS REALLY, VERY NICE & helped me in...

You are better off going to any other place such as Southern Leyte Divers or any place and save money. I want to try to keep my review full of chaos as simple as possible so I would just enumerate all reasons.||||1. No Wifi. No Globe Signal. Like almost zero Globe data connection. However if you already have a SMART or Talk N Text sim with loaded data, you are in luck because there is decent connection there. However, I noticed there is a SmartBro around the area and employees said it is not for guest use? Only for the owner I assume? That is sad.||||2. Cockroaches in bathroom. No joke, pictures are there to prove enough. These friendly roaches at least try to hide behind the window so they avoid getting slapped.||||3. Do not get Family room. There is one bed that feels way different and worse than the other two beds, it is very “springy” and does not feel soft at all. Had a hard time sleeping with it. Bedsheets have holes and torn. Asked staff for a replacement, but they dont have any replacement. Plus cockroaches hiding nicely behind the beds. Did not take picture because wanted to slap it straight. Here are some pictures of the drawers filled with cob webs, lots of dust on some unseen areas covered by furniture, and unfinished paint job at the bathroom? Toilet seat is very broken and small. No bidet. ||||4. Power interruptions? It is appreciated there was a generator but it is not hidden well so it was very noisy that disturbed my sleep. ||||5. Do not get room with kitchen, although pretty spacious and has 2 big beds, but really looks unfinished judging by the very poor paintjob and poor furnishing. To make things worse, the bathroom/kitchen has a window LITERALLY BY THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE GATE that can be seen easily by visitors. ||||6. Overpriced food but very delicious. Although I have to admit this disastrous experience has been a bit chaotic, does not disappoint. It is super delicious. However, fix your pricing please, I think 750 pesos (15 USD) for almost all chicken dishes is too expensive. However, the chicken curry is a must try.||||7. NOT HANDICAP FRIENDLY. This is not recommended for people with physical disabilities. No wheel chair can get in to almost any room because almost every room needs stairs except the 2 rooms on the tower. And a super rocky, steep, barely any handrails to hold on to which is literally an accident waiting to happen just to go to the beachfront.||||My stay at Padre Burgos Castle was during April 2021 which is still COVID-19 season. However its redeeming factors are its beautiful clean beach (super beautiful there is many marine life not from afar.) And delicious overpriced food. I hope all this mess just happened just because of this pandemic season. Paying for 3500 pesos (70 USD) for this is chaotic mess is probably fine but it was only 50% off because of pandemic season?? Does this mean I get less clean room just because its cheap from its original price of 7000(?) (130 USD) I expect better accomodation and service after pandemic season because they charge way too overpriced for it. And again, perfect...

Beautiful getaway. Breath-taking views. Had all the resort to ourselves. Comments: -pretty and very accomodating owner of Castle Resort -food was scrumptous! I had a taste of their salad with balsamic vinegar it was divine! Seafood was very fresh. -very far, of course, it's almost at the tip of So Leyte, a somewhat 4-hour drive from Tacloban (acceptable) -there's a pool as seen in the picture, we use it cooldown after swimming in the beach -the resort has its own boat to take you to sightseeing or go to Limasawa (with lifejackets) -the crew knew exactly where to take the boat for dolphin-watching (it was amazing! Oh and i even saw a big turtle!) -the sea looked like crystal clear water, it was so transparent (marred by sometimes floating trash carried by the currents) -the resort is near Tangkaan Beach, a local tourist attraction -1 room had its CR located outside the room, all others had their own CR, a lil inconvenience (trash bins should be provided on each room) -no WiFi (but hey you're there to enjoy the view not surf the net) -careful of cabinet handles, they tend to fall off even with even a soft pull (needs updates on furnitures inside the rooms) -should provide better electrical wiring for the aircon (connected by an extension wire only, very haphazard) -bring swimming shoes! The beach directly below is not sandy, it's more of washedout brokendown corals which is typical of the area (rocky and very painful to walk on barefoot, but in Tangkaan beach next door, it's very sandy) -there are floating cottages for rent in Tangkaan beach, but they don't really go out to sea, just float near the beach. It can accomodate 20 persons at a time. But it was full of trash! Though we tried to clean it up, it's really impossible cause the trash came floating from everywhere. -the beach is kinda filled with trash, i do hope there's someone cleaning them. I saw one lady sweeping the sandy area only but not including the beach where most plastics are (again a trash bin or wide receptacle area should be readily made available for tourist/people to know where to put their garbage. Or maybe they could setup a net or something to capture debris i dunno) -we didn't go to diving areas but i hear they have good diving areas there, maybe next time.

All in all, the stay was pretty enjoyable. Hope to go back there soon. PS: if ever you visit, please be mindful of the environment. Please preserve the...