Monaliza Surf Resort — Hotel in Luzon

Honestly, this Motel by the sea made me wish that Trip Advisor changed their rating system to be able to rate from 1 to 10. Giving this place 1 star is far too good for it.||||So let me start with the good, and then I will get to the bad and the ugly. ||||THE GOOD||||The owner , Mona, is a very nice person and she is trying to work with what she has got. Unfortunately what she has got, is not worth the stay with the literally dozens of other hotels in the area. The location is prime in front of the wave, they call a "point" break. But I won't get into my issues with them calling it a point break here, and you will have to read my review of La union to tell you why.||||THE BAD AND THE UGLY||||First of all, this place is not a resort. The word resort makes you think this place is going to have a restaurant, maybe a pool, etc. This is not that place. Monaliza's is one of the first Motels by the surf in La Union. Mona's father was a German and one of the first to discover this surf location in La Union, in 1981. Unfortunately, it does not look like they have upgraded or repaired anything since 1981.||||My fiance and I stayed here for 3 days, and it was 3 days too long. The room was about 10 feet by 15 feet. The mattress was so hard, I would have been better off sleeping on the floor. The TV was also most likely from 1981, and was so small I needed binoculars to watch it from 15 feet away. ||||The aircon barely pushed out air and there were so many gaps in the window and in the area around the aircon that it would just leak out. On top of this, they had a leak somewhere in their plumbing system that every time we wanted to take a shower we had to tell them so they could mess with their plumbing to reactivate the pressure. And even then, there was no pressure.||||Our room was on the second floor with a nice view of "The point", but it was also right over "Le Pointe" bar and on our first night I did not sleep because I could hear the music and people from the bar until about 3 am. I guess we were lucky that the bar owner closed down the bar for the next 2 days to go visit her Mom, but this did not help my sleep because of the afore-mentioned hard bed and lack of aircon.||||The three days we stayed here, not once did they come to see if we needed new towels, toilet paper or even clean the room. NOT ONCE! AND THEY CALL THIS A RESORT?||||Finally, I had to throw the towel in and move to the surf mermaid hotel next door. Upon checking out, they forgot to charge me for my surf board rental, which was 200 pesos per hour. I gave them the 200 when Mona's Mother came out screaming that I rented the board for two hours. I told her I didn't, and that when I returned the board to the surf board rack, that nobody was even around for me to check it back in, so how would they know how long I rented it. I went on to say that they should not charge me anything for the board rental because of all the other things that were lacking and the Mother refused to accommodate me.||||I didn't bother to tell them I am one of the top reviewers in the PI with over 30,000 readers. But I guess they will find out...

This place has a good location, on the quieter side of the beach, with balconies that open up right to the beach. It's a quaint family-owned resort looked after by the owner's mother. Monaliza was accommodating with our text inquiries and booking. They didn't require a downpayment which was convenient enough for us because we booked the place at the last minute. And the good thing about it was that they allowed us to check in at 6am when we arrived. ||||The room was very affordable, at P2000 per airconditioned room good for 4 persons. No breakfast included which was fine. They don't serve food so we had to go to the nearby eateries and restaurants/resorts to eat. But they have a small store where you can buy instant coffee, and they can lend you a hot water kettle. ||||The room was clean and basic. They provided toilet paper, towels and soap. ||||All in all, the place was good enough for us to sleep in. We just wished the owner (I would suppose Monaliza's mother) could have been more friendly as she tended to us. When we asked what's the latest time we could check out without any extra charge (since the place wasn't fully booked anyway), she snapped and said, "Don't you read the signs?" We had read them, we just wanted to clarify. Besides, there's always a good way of saying things. Anyway, they charge P150 per extra hour that you stay beyond the check out time of 12noon. Non-negotiable, apparently. I don't normally make a fuss about basic accommodations, as long as I can sleep comfortably, but the vibe and the staff's friendliness bears a lot of weight on my decision to come back to the same place or not. We may have caught her during a bad day or a bad mood, but she was more grumpy than nice during our two days there. ||||One last thing, security might be an issue. At 3am, someone was trying to open both the front door and balcony door. And when that person found that they were locked, he knocked on our door incessantly and woke all of us. We thought there was an emergency. When my husband opened the door, it was a man looking for "smokes". So make sure you keep your doors locked at...

We stayed for two nights and had a great time. This is a lovely ,small, family run resort, right on the beach, relaxing and quiet. The room was big, clean with aircon, decent bathroom and a balcony overlooking the beach, we paid p1,000 per night for a double room. The decor and furnishings are a little dated but this adds to the overall charm of the resort. There is good wifi in the dining area, we were able to Skype with friends back home. ||The staff at the resort were very welcoming and friendly, they arranged for a surfing lesson for my husband for p400 per hour including the surf board rental. The beach in front of the resort was great for learning to surf. ||We chose Monaliza because it was good value and were very pleased, we did eat at some of the other resorts down the beach which were just too expensive to stay in for our budget. Some of the other resorts on the beach are much bigger, more modern and upmarket but far more expensive. ||Overall we really enjoyed our stay and would recommend, a great spot to...