Mangrove Resort Hotel — Hotel in Olongapo

I might be marking this a little harshly.

First the good: The staff are all very helpful & polite, the pancakes for breakfast were buttery, fluffy & delicious (honestly one of the best pancake's I've ever had), the menu (especially the coffee) is incredibly good value for money especially by hotel standards, the views of the bay are amazing and it's ideally located. The mango colada I had poolside was also fresh and on-point.

Now for a disclaimer: A lot of my complaints may be due to coming out of the covid era as local tourism is just picking back up and things may have fallen into a bit of disrepair over that time and places are likely struggling financially to do all the necessary maintenance.

With that said the shower (although with good water pressure) had a pully system that was either broken or hard to use, so that to get water out of the shower head you essentially needed to manually hold it open forcing you to shower practically one handed. Also on the second night our air-conditioner had an electrical fault and the concierge didn't wear a mask when checking it which freaked my wife out. The lack of air-conditioner meant that we needed to move rooms, which wasn't ideal, given we were just settling in for the night. The rooms weren't sealed very well so you can hear all the conversations and movements outside and in adjacent rooms and the wifi was also terrible in our room/s (like non-usable terrible) which was inconvenient, but the staff did inform us of this before we paid.

Finally, we had dinner there on the first night and the service was really good, and the food was very reasonably priced, however I wish they had put the cheese for my pasta amatriciana on the side so I could control how much cheese I wanted, instead of just piling it on, although admittedly this is a very small complaint. My wife was also upset her pinakbet bagnet had no pork (although I'm pretty sure the waitress did say they didn't have any pork dishes at that time). I should stress we both thought the meals were good value for money.

To be honest I would stay here again and definitely would eat here again in the future, so make of this...

Went on a quick trip before the peak of people for holy week break. Peaceful and not chaotic ad there were less people. The room we booked was by the pool. It was spacious. The pool was filled with people during afternoon but it was not so noisy in our room. You will hear people in the pool but not so clear and you can still have a good nap time. We went here with my 2 yo, btw.||The place is almost at the end, if not the end, of the “long beach”. So, if you’re planning to have other side trips in Subic, manage your time well.||You cannot bring in food and drinks, but we are allowed to have our daughter’s snacks and own water. Their food were also good and good for sharing. We liked their pancit. They have complimentary bottled water for the max number of person per room, though ours was not given upfront, we have to asked for it in the reception. They said it was forgotten when they cleaned the room.||They provided robes, towels and tissue paper. Other than that, no other toiletries provided like sanitary kits or dental kits which usual hotel by its kind provide. The shampoo and body wash were not even filled.||I don’t see it as a 4-star hotel as describe here, probably 3 will do. We always have to asked for something that should at least be in the room.||Our room has separate toilet and shower area. Shower area doesn’t have door, just curtain. It does not have a tub, but they provided us pail when we asked coz its kinda hard to bathe a toddler with just shower given that it only have a curtain before your bed. We do not want to sleep in wet bed. 😂 The bed was comfy and good to sleep with.||The pool water is refreshing, cold but not so cold. The baby side of the pool has warm water due to direct sunlight. It has a small beach area. Not really swimming friendly as there was a big boat parked at the side aside from the gray platform where the motor boat was parked on the other side. There were people that will offer you different activities like island hoping, jet ski, etc.||Overall, we still have a comfy stay and good food. The staffs were courteous...

First impression. Based on two people in the room. There were two standard-size bottles of complimentary water, but they were left on the table, so basically, it was very warm water when we arrived and not chilled in the fridge. Attention to detail would have been good for arrivals needing a cold drink. When we asked for cold water, some was poured from a jug from the bar fridge, but again, it was not cold—disappointing first impression.

Room. The room was clean and tidy and gave an excellent first impression.

The Bathroom, the sink had slow drainage and a faulty showerhead - maintenance were quick to fix the issue.

Housekeeping 9/10 very good. A clean room each day throughout our stay.

Hotel policy, so not a housekeeping issue, there is only one small sachet of coffee, milk powder and sugar per person, per day. The sachet would only really give half a glass cup of adequate coffee. No option of a tea bag for tea drinkers.

Hotel policy, breakfast. There is not option to include a breakfast during the stay, like a buffet breakfast option - for example an additional fee like other high quality hotels offer. Here has a old system (in my opinion) of pay per items, so a breakfast, one or two coffees, could end up costing quite a lot during your stay - and possibly explains why we never saw the restaurant very busy.

If the hotel included a inclusive breakfast option I am sure it would be popular and also increase revenue. If they also did a half board ie breakfast and dinner, again I am sure that would be popular and increase revenue.

Reception. Reception staff were friendly. Quite attentive and helpful.

General. The WiFi was ok, it cut out a couple of times but after a reboot of the router it was ok. There was no mesh WiFi so if you went from one are to another you had to put the code in for that access point. A bit inconvenient but it worked ok once...