Oslob New Village Lodge — Hotel in Oslob

It’s a nice place to stay for a few nights. It’s very unique with it’s Japanese garden type aesthetic with a bar area. There’s even a pan in the middle where you can experience a hot bath like you are being cooked. The staff here are really helpful and really dedicated to making your experience lovely. Plus they have a cute, hardworking staff member there so that’s always a plus! 👍||The area is also close the whale shark tourist attraction and Tumalong falls by car (about 10-15 minutes). If you don’t have a car, the staff will help you plan a tour which includes getting transportation for those tourist areas.||The room was decent. Booked a double bedroom on the 2nd floor and it was really nice looking. Also they do have fair room service food pricing and they cook it fresh. Really loved the quiet atmosphere of this lounge, especially at night were it had a gorgeous view.||Pros|- Fair pricing for the type of room and experience you get|- Close to the whale shark and waterfall attractions |- Staff can help you book tours if you didn’t plan ahead|- Quiet and relaxing outside with a Japanese garden aesthetic|- Rooms have AC and hot water|- Staff are very helpful and will attend to your every need||Cons|- The Wi-fi is pretty spotty depending on which room you book, especially on the rooms on the 2nd floor. Sometimes it would find the wi-fi network and then immediately then can’t find it. 1st floor rooms seem to be more consistent with wi-fi compared to the 2nd floor, but some of the 1st floor rooms have a communal bathroom and shower (kind of like US colleges) There is probably a dead zone in the first rooms of the 2nd floor. Getting a stronger/additional wifi extender/receiver probably can fix this|- I don’t if it’s just the room I booked, but there were only 3 channels on the tv cable and none of them were watchable. It was kind of surreal since I never seen a lodge with that limited of a cable selection, so don’t plan to be watching cable here when you stay. The good news is that none of the tv ports are blocked off so you can technically connect a HDMI cable if you have one to the tv and hook up an external device like your laptop or Apple TV and watch tv that way.||Despite these flaws, I really enjoyed the 1 and half days that I stayed there. It was a place where you can truly relax and meditate after you visit the tourist areas. The wifi issue and the cable issue really didn’t bother me much since this is place you would usually stay for about 1-2 days max to see the attractions...

I have to give one star. Not because the rooms are that bad. They are enough for a weary traveller, who needs to lie down for a night. But my problem was with staff, maybe it was even the owner, according to the attitude.

When we arrived, everything was good, lady was nice and helpfull. We asked for a scooter, for 4 days. Said, we are going to Moalboal and back. First, they wanted 700 pesos/day (for a piece of garbage, sorry...) but we agreed on 450/day. Regular price is 500peso/day btw. Offered them to keep my country ID, but they said that the photo of my passport is ok.

Next morning, when we wanted to go, another lady stopped us (the one with attitude) and said, we have to leave our passport there. Of course i didnt agree and i dont understand how anyone can let, willingly, someone strange have their most precious document. Anyway, i said, i dont agree and that i want to cancel it, if my ID isnt enough. Then they wanted to rip me off some of the money, saying, i have to pay portion of the agreement. They wanted 450 pesos (for like 12 hours and only 1 km driven) but after i said, we can call the police, we agreed on 200 pesos.

Then we left, without saying a word. Walked about 100 metres and found a guy, who was renting scooters for 500/day (in muuuch better condition) and now it wasnt a problem to only have my ID.

I write this long piece of review, because it really pis**d me off. We had some plans and for a while we thought, we will have to plan it all from a scratch.

I understand, someone is affraid, that some other person can steal their scooter, but you cant agree on something, take the money and then just try to rip someone off the other day.

One star is for the bad feelings, we left...

Really can't say much about our stay since we were only there for about 4 hours. The room is clean and the place is ok for the price. Since we arrived at 4 am due to the long bus queue, they were considerate enough to just charge us half of the room rate. They respond timely on my queries through messenger and they offered swim with whakesharks for a fee of Php 500 plus Php 100 transpo. All along, I thought that they will be assisting us with the tour but instead after we were dropped off at the site, we were endorsed to Arlis, boat operator, and we're on our own. We informed the driver from the resort that we're also going to Tumalog Falls and he said that we just have to inform Arlis so she can send him a text message and he'll pick us up. We paid Arlis for the whaleshark activity and we got our number. She then suggested we go to Tumalog Falls first since there's still 100+ before us on the queue, we agreed, and she then hailed a multicab (the driver happens to be her father) and we were charged Php 100 per head and we were dropped off near the highway then another Php 50 habal habal ride to Tumalog Falls. When we got back to the resort we were asked to pay Php 150 transpo per head (which was originally Php 100), we just paid it because we've already waited for almost an hour for the staff to get the approval of the resort's owner for the 50% off of the room rate and we don't want to wait for another hour just for the Php 50. This would've been a more pleasant experience if not for the hidden charges and if they were hands on with the tour, provided...