JMM Grand Suites — Hotel in Manila

We had a 3 bedroom suite in Dec 2022 for 2 nights. Overall the stay was good, but the property is a bit tired||||Location is excellent, with Robinsons almost literally across the road. We were lucky to be on the 47th floor, with outstanding view from Makati around to Manila Bay. It was worth the wait for sunset before we ventured out.||||Checkin was a little slow, but the staff are friendly and helpful. Each guest is given a passcard to enter/exit the elevator area (its kind of like entering a subway turnstyle :) ), and there was a seperate card for the room entry (although I think both cards activated the room). Unfortunately we lost one of the cards, lucky it was only a P300 charge - and we found it when we got home!||On the elevators, there are 4 of them, they arent particularly quick but OK, but we found the doors close very quickly and try to close on you! Just a minor annoyance, nothing more||||I noted no issues with external noise intrussion in our brief stay||||Our suite had 3 bedrooms of reasonable size,1 had an ensuite the other 2 had seperate bathrooms which was good. I found the bed to be comfortable, and the linen of good quality. Each room had a window air conditioner, which was adequate (just good enough, but my room the airconditioner was quite noisy). My room had a tiny balcony. The ensuite had a small clothes cupboard, the other 2 rooms not.||||The bathrooms are tired but functional, generally clean but within the scope of being tired. Room lighting was poor, which probably was a good thing to mask the tiredness of the bathroom :) ||Linen was the normal small Asian towels, not particularly thirsty, but of decent quality. Basic soap/shampoo was provided. ||The water pressure was good, and the hot water was decent and plentiful (although my brother in law in another bathroon claimed the hot water stopped and started). Be caureful with the huge shower, the floor tiles can be a little slippery when wet! Mine had a nice rainshower type showerhead||Toilet has a bum gun ( :) )||Large mirror and there are powerpoints in the bathroom, but I didnt use them||||There is a small kitchenette, with a smallish but decent fridge. We didnt really use the kitchenette, so I didnt explore it much.||||The lounge/dining room is quite spacious. The view from both the small balcony and lounge windows was spectacular. It had a faulty air conditioner still installed, but the other room airconditioner (split system) operated quite well||It has a spacious dining table along with comfortable louge and other chairs. Like the rest of the suite its a bit tired, with some good furniture and some worn furniture. It has a flat acreen TV with cable TV access, although I hardly used it||One thing of note was many of the large floor tiles were loose and some with raised edges - I could easily see bare feet being cut or having a small trip on the tile edges.||||There were plenty of powerpoints throughout the suite for charging devices. Im not sure if there is WiFi, as I didnt seek it out||My wife told me the area was a little seedy, but I didnt note anything that concerned me.||||Overall a good stay, its certainly not 4 star (maybe a 3 star) - but its convenient, the cost was reasonable for its pros and cons, and it has the needed comfort that I would likely stay again if we need to stay in the area. Undoubtedly a refresh would improve things well, obviously the cost to stay...

This establishment refused our check in as they need a covid test result to be presented which I don’t have knowledge of such requirement and when asked where can we get tested they then advised us that they don’t have available parking space. They are declining my request for cancellation nor will issue a refund. My response to the customer support agent via email:

“I am disputing this given that it was the hotel who refused our check in due to the absence of covid antigen test result when I clearly emphasized that there was no notice about such requirement that can be found on the website nor being notified upon booking confirmation. Such should have been advised ahead so customers can prepare. More so when asked where can we get that test I was then advised that they no longer have parking space hence could not accommodate our request for parking. It is worthy to note that upon booking, I specifically said indicated that I need parking and even noted the model of my car which is Toyota Fortuner. The site itself specifies that the building has free parking so it is expected that parking is available. You have to understand that my booking is for two days and that parking is necessary for me. I could not just let the establishment advised me at the very last minute that they do not have parking without any sense of support on where I can find one. I will not agree that this will not be refunded as it’s not me who missed my due diligence, there was lack of coordination and alignment and I shouldn’t be penalized for such. Spending for almost $100 dollars on something I didn’t have the liberty to enjoy is not acceptable amidst this pandemic. More so, you just ruined our overall schedule and plan in Manila. We are due to have our medical exam tomorrow, August 25th at 6am, in St. Lukes extension clinic for our visa and we specifically chose this hotel as it is just walking distance to the clinic and you all have the audacity refuse our check in even when we are flexible on getting tested. How dare you decline our request for cancellation nor refund when it is you who failed to execute your responsibilities to your customers. I will not agree for this not to be refunded as there is no such thing as people getting free or easy money these days so stop being insensitive and get...

We found JMM Grand Suites rather shabby and not well maintained.  On check-in, we noticed that our room door to the outside was unlocked and not lockable.  Our in-room safe, likewise was not working. We notified the front desk of those issues and they moved us to another room.  The second room had the same deficiencies, an unlockable outside door and broken and unusable safe. When we discovered the same problems again, we were transferred to a third room.  We were able to lock the safe in the third room, but we found that the outside door was locked so securely that we were neither able to unlock it nor open it.|||On our first morning, we were directed by the management to move to yet another room, since the room we'd spent the night in was already booked by another customer.   Our fourth and final room had a lockable safe and lockable outside door!|||We took advantage of the breakfast included with our room after the first night only.  The hotel dining room is a small, poorly ventilated Spartan room directly off the parking garage.  All the breakfasts for dining-in and room service are prepared here and a few simple tables and chairs accommodate hotel guests in this 'dining room'. |||The soaps provided in the room were tiny bars.  The soap dishes in the bathroom were such low quality that it was challenging to keep the small slivers of soap from falling out of them.|||On a positive note, the bed was comfortable and the bedding and towels adequate.  The staff was generally hard working and courteous. I frequently wondered how they dealt with the numerous shortcomings of this hotel and the inevitable angry guests.|||I likely won't stay at JMM Grand Suites again.  The next time I'm in Manila, I'll be looking for a lot less frustration and a bit...