Anilao Awari Bay — Hotel in Mabini

We visited Anilao after maybe 20 years so we wanted to explore new places to eat - the caretaker of the home we were staying at recommended we go to Awari for dinner on our first night. ||TLDR, Overall their food was great. But the guest experience in this resort is unusual. Not what I expected stepping into their beautiful property.||What happened:||1.) Upon arriving we were asked for identification cards, our personal email and contact number - this was for guests wanting to just to eat at their restaurant, not even checking in (we travel a lot and this is a first for our family to have to register our personal information just to have a bite. Felt a bit intrusive and unnecessary but we complied)||2.) We arrived with no other guest at the restaurant, had maybe 3 or 4 waitstaff in the area but a bit hard to get their attention - they mostly faced the bar talking to each other. Then when we were ordering, we ordered 1 dish and the waitstaff didn’t ask if we were done. Just said thanks and left. We had to call him back and say we were getting more (we literally just ordered soup and he thought that was enough for our table to get? Lol) also FnB staff inside and outside of the kitchen just kept sneezing so loud!! Hopefully they covered their mouths lol||3.) While at the resto, my dad’s karabiner broke so he asked if he could borrow a screwdriver- immediate response was they didn’t have one. As a total surprise for a fully functioning resort not to have any tools we had to ask the waitstaff to check with their maintenance team and see if we could use it for just 1 minute to fix it. Quite interesting that the immediate response was not to help, but they eventually helped us out here after “checking” so we appreciate that.||3.) When we asked for the bill, waitstaff said to settle the bill at the reception - interesting again - so we went up to the lobby to pay ||4.) At the lobby, while waiting for them to prepare our bill, out of our interest with the resort we were chatting with the ladies at the reception (Lesh and Nica). (I must say the location and the way they built the resort is fantastic - beautiful view, well maintained place, clean) So we asked them how much their room rates was and how many rooms they had (35 rooms only and wow I love that about their resort). unfortunately, the receptionists didn’t seem very knowledgeable about their property. They were scrambling to get answers, not graceful at all. And when we asked, out of curiosity now with how things were going, who was running the place and like if they had other branches, the answer was so unexpected - they didn’t know! The only had one location (ok, understandable) but the only thing they said about who was running the place was “It’s THE corporation” lol. They didn’t know the corporation name, who was running it, etc. Maybe they don’t remember? Maybe it’s a secret? Who knows? ||5.) We got our bill and it was pretty messed up. They doubled an item and only applied 10% off, 36 pesos, senior discount on the cheapest item on the menu. (Dad is a senior citizen) When we asked to clarify they had multiple things they had to say - let me check with the restaurant if you really did not order 2 of the same thing, let me check what dishes you shared, as per our policy we only apply senior discount on most expensive dish that was shared, etc. It was confusing and full of explanations. Their operations seemed so disorganized. No one knew what to do! After their conversation with their supervisor and calling up the waitstaff to confirm our food (was rolling my eyes during this whole process) they finally got the bill together and found a resolution by manually calculating it out - thanks to the supervisor Joseph and Jhun of the restaurant. ||So if you want to have good food but a weird customer experience (30 minutes and 4 people working on your bill) I guess you can try this place. But we don’t think...

A resort with a focus on diving. Nice setting with a difficult to build resort due to the steep slope. The resort has various types of accommodations, a restaurant, a large pool, well maintained gardens and a dive center. Beach access is small and full of rocks. A floating device has been placed to access deeper seawater. Although impressively looking at first, there are some negatives with this place. The management needs to be much more around, observe, do constant property and room inspections. The resort has chosen to use salt water which requires high demand on the pumbing system and is challenging to maintain. In general, a place can look nice however needs to be maintained constantly to be kept up.

The management needs to ask themselves two questions every time they make their rounds or do inspections; Is this "normal/correct/acceptable" what I see what can I do to correct this.

And then the management needs to train their staff to ask the exact same questions when they are at work. Not only in their own area however everywhere they go in the resort. Get the staff involved, get them responsible, make them proud to be able to work there and eventually get them accountable.

A leaking vanity drain, a broken vanity tap, vanity wood that is so much expanded that it is falling apart (as there is no glass by the shower so the water sprays all over the bathroom), a shower hose that is totally rusted (due to the use of salt water), completely corroded taps (due to the use of salt water), a fire extinguisher that has been moved and the holes of the old location in to room not filled or corrected. The rooms could be "dressed up" more in both decor and amenities. Two small framed pictures on the wall don't cut it. Amenity wise: minibar, hair dryer, etc would be expected at a resort like this.

Then the restaurant: having to wait 1.5 hours for your food (with a child at the table) is not fun ... to say the least. For further meals, we placed the order in advance and gave a time to have it ready. The management has to figure out what is going on there and take corrective action.

Building and owning a place is not all, constant maintenance and improvements (and training) needs to take place to keep the property in the same pristine shape or even...

Visited this resort to have a nice, upscale relaxing vacation and do some diving. The pictures looked great, and upon arrival, the grounds were well manicured and had a beautiful view of the water.

However, I soon started to realize that I was the only guest in the entire hotel and my room was a severe disappointment, in desperate need of maintenance and cleaning, and far under what I would expect for this much money. The food was mediocre, and it was extremely weird to be eating at the restaurant by myself with 10 staff just sitting 3m away staring at me the whole time.

Since I was traveling alone, it was very disappointing to be the only person at the resort. To make matters worse, they refused to operate the pool and fountain and various lights in order to save money since I was the only guest, which meant if I wanted to go swimming, the water was not fresh. However, when some people arrived to check out the resort to see if they should stay there, they had everything turned everything on a few minutes before they arrived and the moment they left.

Despite having a "dive center", they did not have a boat or a divemaster to lead dives, so it took awhile for them to find both of those items. I was happy with the dive guide and had all of my own gear, but I left my Scubapro wetsuit hood; when I inquired about whether they could send it to me, I never received a response despite emailing multiple different addresses.

Since I was alone, I tried to speak to the staff, but they finally admitted that they were not allowed to converse with guests. The staff was very nice and polite and eager to help, but seemed super scared of management.

Maybe the fancy suites are in better condition, but my double room was terrible. I wouldn't recommend this place, especially for the price. It had nice views, but every hotel in Anilao...