Nouveau Resort — Hotel in Mahinog

Our exp (2 nights): I've been to camiguin several times and since it's the second birthday of my LO, my hubs and I opted for the best place to stay. We had so little time to prepare and hubs booked via Agoda as we always do and we travelled by car for 9 hours only to be welcomed by an unwelcoming supervisor who had to explain at length that since we're a group of 5 we have to book an extra room since every room has a max of 4 people. Had we checked the confirmation she said it was CLEARLY stated in the rules. Oh god. It wasn't as if it's the first time we've booked a hotel..A day before we booked a room in Cebu's Jpark. We KNOW that we are supposed to pay for extra person. And we had to bring our nanny since it's a long trip so WE HAVE prepared for the extra cost. I just don't understand why the supervisor must be called. We literally had to wait for the supervisor to come marching down the lobby and talk to us rudely without extra care for where we came from or how long we travelled. I say rude because she didn't even know our names yet. I just felt like they're after money too much. She talked for probably 2 minutes only to shut up when I said "okay" bluntly because I was expecting EXTRA costs. I just wasn't expecting for having been explained to without even having water or welcome drinks looking so haggard after 9 grueling hours of travel. And in a gruesome untrained manner. I would give 1 star but I would love all families travelling to see this. My view of the hotel went downhill from there because the supervisor had to be there from start to finish also to explain that the other room had an extra person charge which I didn't care for at all. They responded to a comment about having a target market, oh well, if you aren't welcoming to pure filipinos, I don't think you will go far and succeed. I wish your hotel the best. I also work as a remote Software engineer for a US startup and if our team ever asks for recommendations in Camiguin for a work offsite or team building, I would gladly point them to Paras :)

As a family: It's not the most comfortable room because of the restroom / bedroom design. There's almost no privacy except a moveable wall. If you're bringing a nanny, my husband found it uncomfortable to use the toilet as the rest room is not separate.

Restaurant and breakfast: I feel like the rude managers are a thing here because on the night of my daughter's bday, we were served by a not so pleasant waitress. I shyly asked for a birthday cake and kind of expected people singing hbd for my LO. Oh well she just brought the cake to our table plainly :) Maybe our family was just not the target market.

Next time: I would stay at Paras which is nearer the tourist attractions and white island ferry. You don't have to travel 20 minutes to get to Mambajao/Yumbing (we greatly underestimated this one and thought it's a small island how far could it be). We went to Utopia cafe and yeah 20 minutes - feels small but already a lot of time if say you wanted to relax in the resort's pool (That's 40 minutes of roundtrip time you could dip in the pool)

Again, not the best for families but probably great back when my husband and I were still dating.

FYI in our stay at Jpark, we had to pay 3k extra for early check-in and a 1k room upgrade and per night cost P15K but the reception calmly explained it to us without having to call a supervisor :) He even tried to upsell us to the Pororo room which was $148 more but it was soo calm and well done and not forced that I didn't mind because he also gave us cheaper options :)

I also asked for connecting rooms which they said yes they have. But i'm not sure if they understand. Adjoining is different from connecting. Because a connecting room literally means there's a door in between. Bottomline: we were given adjoining room - we had zero time to complain because we had a long itinerary and day ahead and was so tired already.

If you're looking for the best for your family...it's overrated and def not the best especially if you also want to explore the island and be...

Firstly, Nouveau is NOT the luxurious, high end resort that it claims to be. It is not the equivalent of Atmosphere in Dumaguete or Amorita in Bohol. Having traveled extensively throughout the Philippines it is well below the level of the aforementioned resorts, let alone being at a Shangri-La, Crimson, Hyatt level.

In terms of the design and physical feature (grounds/rooms/swimming pool) then it is absolutely picture perfect as you’ll see from my photos. 5 star views with gorgeous sunrises.

What this resort needs to work on is its customer facing procedures. I’m not having a go at the hotel or it’s staff who were mostly charming, but rather trying to help them create a better service for customers which will only go to improve customer relations and make the hotel more viable in the long term. breakfast - on one day we were served buffet breakfast, the following days was a la carte - why? some breakfast choices weren’t great (eggs) & items unavailable (apple juice) limited / no San Miguel / white wine availability? Buy this in bulk and store it! pool attendants - in similar resorts (eg Coast Boracay) they are constantly refilling drinks / handing out towels / moving umbrellas/ serving free water / ice lollies etc. At Nouveau they just sit on their backsides listening to music on their phones. How easy would it be to hand out a menu so that a customer can order and make your resort money? transport - this is a tricky resort to get to which adds to the charm but the hotel doesn’t make it easy for customers. We were quoted at 2,000php (35USD) to get from the Benoni port to the hotel (one way) - 3 adults, 3 suitcases. That is outrageous, particularly in the provincial Philippines. It’s a 12 min drive. We opted for the 150php (2.70USD) trike you can pick up easily from outside the port. tours - quotes of 4,000/6,000/10,000php for various inland tours and Marique Island are again outrageous. You can walk out the hotel, hail a passing van / trike and do exactly the same DIY trip (with guide) for a quarter of the price. In the case of Mantigue island we were quoted 10,000php for this 4 hour trip; we did it ourselves for 2,500php. The hotel needs to sort this out as it’s pricing structure is well out of touch with the actual price. staffing - this was our biggest gripe. Having been to various resorts for many years the staffing and knowledge / training at Nouveau was some of the poorest I have experienced in the Philippines. Waiters not knowing the menu, forgetting items from an order, too busy talking to one-another, not offering another drink when one is finished, not following up on things, generally just ignoring customers. Mostly they have a smile but I feel that they’re lacking guidance / training / the vital skill to up-sell. This falls on the manager / supervisor to improve this which will help boost guest satisfaction and hotel profits facility charges - 3 full paying adults staying for 4 nights should not be charged to use a pool table / ping pong table / sea kayak . That’s not the mark of a 5* internationally recognised resort. These should be a given and included in the price at booking. noise levels - the hotel has an issue with noise in the rooms. You can easily hear cleaning carts, other guests , outside noise when in a room - particularly those at the front of the hotel. Being woken up at 5am by the fish man on a loud speaker passing by on a tricycle was not what I was hoping for from my stay… deposit - 8,000php charge on credit card for deposit is too high for consumables, particularly when the minibar only consists of 2 cans of Coca Cola and a chocolate bar… staff getting together - I get that relationships are important in the Philippines but having 20 of your staff gathering around the pool bar at 10am on a Monday morning isn’t the mark of a high end resort. Especially when those staff are not being attentive to paying customers.

We won’t be back and we certainly will not be recommending you to our friends based on the service. Shame as the view, grounds and pool...

Me and my now wife planned our wedding festivities to be held here over a year ago. We just had our wedding last weekend and here are my honest thoughts:

Their management is the worst I’ve experienced in my life. Throughout the whole process not once did we meet the GM, face to face or online. It also seemed like he was avoiding us as we did (4) venue oculars and we never felt his presence. No email, no texts, no calls, nothing.

We agreed to buyout the hotel for a certain discount (it’s not that big) and were reassured countless times that their new wing with 25 deluxe and 25 superior rooms would be finished to house our guests and suppliers. We paid in full.

To our surprise and utter disappointment, around two weeks before our wedding they said they wouldn’t be able to finish the new wing with all our guests and suppliers booked already. We pushed back and they said that they’ll be able to finish a certain number of rooms. Because of our doubts, we decided to rebook our flight to come earlier (our welcome party was at Sep 26 and wedding Sep 27). By September 23, we arrived and as the date came closer, fewer and fewer rooms were committed and finally 2 days before the wedding, they said no rooms out of the 50 promised in the contract would be finished.

Imagine receiving your guests and saying that they would have to room with other people, or be bumped off to another hotel? My wife actually had the foresight to house our other guests in another hotel in anticipation of this, which allowed us to reshuffle guests in Nouveau, but with much difficulty and disappointment from our guests. At this point my wife had already broken down in tears. But being a top tier wedding planner, she powered through and made our wedding the best it could be despite the adversity.

It doesn’t stop there. We went there 4 times to make sure everything was aligned. To our shock and dismay, all the food for our wedding reception was cold and bland. It also came late. Imagine the embarrassment and shame we felt for inviting people to come all this way and celebrate with us, only to have their food mishandled, after us paying promptly in full and spending to make sure this exact issue would not happen?

And yep you guessed it, no GM in sight. Nouveau’s staff was grossly unprepared and unequipped for an event of this scale.

Don’t get me wrong, we love the staff. We’ve grown closer to them throughout the whole process but the sole decision maker ghosted us and didn’t have the balls to do damage control.

So much more has arisen because of the lack of professionalism: mix ups with transportation, billing, food, and room assignments. We had my wife’s family missing their roro because of the hotel’s lack of coordination, mistakenly charging bills that were supposed to be settled as a whole.

My family is from CDO and I’ve gone to Camiguin numerous times (I even proposed in Mantigue island!). It makes me sad because I love Camiguin and the resort, but this experience has been beyond traumatizing for days that should have been the happiest for us. There is only one person that is responsible: JEROME DELA FUENTE.

We’ve submitted our demand letter and you better make sure we’re...