Islet View Pension House — Hotel in Oslob

First, I’d like to thank the owners of this establishment for being so welcoming and for working tirelessly to make the visit for my friends and I one not likely to be forgotten. ||I discovered the property on booking.com but was forced to discuss the final booking with the owners directly via email (issues with date changes on the dot com). Communication was regular, efficient and full of useful details to help me navigate from Cebu city down to Oslob. ||The building is roughly a ten to fifteen minute walk to the Spanish barrack ruins, an old church, several restaurants and a 7/11. The grounds are beautiful and well kept. The buildings are colorful to match the vibe of the place. It’s worth noting the wild chickens from neighboring lots get started early, but you’re up with the sun for adventure anyway. ||The room (single room was A/c) was clean, spacious and the air conditioner worked like a champ. There was plenty of table too space and a wardrobe for large luggage and hangable clothing. Hit water in the shower (relatively small bathroom). There was a balcony with furniture to sit with views of the sea. Sunrises from that balcony stole my breath away. ||Breakfast is offered at an additional charge and is made fresh to order. Personal favorites include the pancakes and no. 2 on the menu. There are dorm and family rooms available on the property and plenty of common area space for chillin after long days of sea adventure. Speaking of sea adventure, the owners can help arrange tours to neighboring islands, waterfalls and even snorkeling/diving with whale sharks in the area. Your gracious hosts will snap fun photos of your journey the entire way and make them available to you on their Facebook page for download/sharing. ||Tips: if traveling to Oslob bring enough local currency to sustain the trip. There is one arm in town that is frequently down or runs out of money. There are no exchanges around. Arms can be found in the towns before and after Oslob, but you’ll find those atms in worse condition. Additionally, the atms tend to be from local or government banks which do not have compatibility with most...

AVOID: the owners are liars. We trusted them to take us to whale sharks and they took this responsibility. Because of them we ALMOST MISSED THE SHARKS. Firstly, they said we should go there at 8:30 which we thought was late as we read many reviews that you should be at sharks in early morning. But they said it was totally fine and we would go together with another Italian couple at this time. We believed them. When we arrived to sharks at 9:00 it turned out to be the counter was CLOSED and they we were not recieving more people. But the owner did not tell us this info and we were thinking everything is fine. After half an hour we started worrying and asked him where are our tickets. It turned out that he did not buy them and did not tell us anything. He said maybe you could come tomorrow BUT it was our only one day in Oslob. He was standing there and doing nothing and not even saying sorry. We togetger with Italian couple talked to guides and they were shocked that he took us so late as everyone comes at 3-5 in the morning. We begged these people and by miracle they found the spots for us. We were saved due to our own efforts while the owner just left without any regrets!

Secondly, we needed to catch the boat to Panglao and the owner woman said it was broken and she would call them to ask. We were really worried. It turned out the boat was totally fine and I just do not understand why they were miscommunicating us

Thirdly, we left after the sharks watching and the owners told the Italian couple it was our fault that they took us to sharks so late. They lied again!

Finally, the hotel is basic, no hot water, it is very noisy and no nice restaurants...

Upon arrival there was no key for our room. They told us not to lock the door until the owners were back, but it didnt feel safe leaving all of our stuff in an unlocked room. We were told the owners would be back with the key at 7pm so we shut the door and went for dinner. At 7pm, still no owner, they told us they would be back at 8 Pm. After waiting outside until 8:50 pm the owners finally arrived. They were very rude (yelling) and the guy who told us 7pm started lying in front of us telling the owner he told us 9pm. Additionally, the owners told us we shouldve let the door open, if our stuff got stolen it would be “their problem”. At first they refused to give us a refund for the second night, but we wanted to leave, we didnt feel comfortable or safe anymore. Lastly, the owners blamed our reaction on the fact that we’re not filipino, so we also didnt feel respect towards us anymore because we’re foreigners. After, we locked ourselves in the room because we didnt feel so safe anymore. Suddenly after the conversation, the perfectly working WiFi was off as well, its just guessing whether this was purposely done or not, as it seemed like we were the only people staying there anyways. It seems like this hotel functions really well when everything works out, however when problems occur they are unable to fix it in a respectful and...