Flying Fish Resort — Hotel in Poro

SHORT VERSION:||-seriously off the beaten track||-NO INTERNET, NO CELL RECEPTION, NO WIFI||-They don't accept credit card||-toilet leaking sewage onto bathroom floor||-broken tv||-aircon cottages were sweltering hot, even with the aircon blasting for hours.||-daily power outages, no generator (they provided lanterns)||-water shortage (if you like to shower after swimming in saltwater or flush toilets or wash hands after using the CR, don't come here). ||-no room service--get ready to sleep on sandy beds and run out of toilet paper.||-beautiful location.||||LONG VERSION:||This place has a great rating on both TripAdvisor and Agoda.com. DON'T BELIEVE IT. This place must have changed ownership or management or both. I have stayed at many hotels and resorts in the Philippines, all in this same price range. This is the only one I have had to give a negative review. The frustrating thing is that the facilities are really nice and the location is stunning. It has the potential to be a fantastic resort, but the manager/owner clearly just doesn't give a plug nickel. The rest of the staff was friendly and helpful, it was just so clear that the deficiency here was management. Here's a summary of the good and bad:||CONS:||-This place is so far off the beaten track, be aware that once you're there, you can't just leave and eat a meal somewhere else or find different accommodations.||-NO WIFI, no cell service (we use SMART and GLOBE). Once you're here, you're stuck. It's like the Hotel California.||-Our toilet leaked continually onto the floor of our bathroom, and I don't mean from the tank. Yeah, this was actually sewage water. My kids kept stepping in it and tracking it into our bedroom.||-Our TV didn't work. ||-There were 3 power outages in the 3 days we were there. I realize the infrastructure on Camotes may not be up to par, but seriously, this place apparently doesn't even have a generator.||-They ran out of water. There was still a drinking water dispenser in the kitchen, but we couldn't take showers or wash hands or flush toilets for a while. ||-They did not provide water bottles in the room. For a resort in an area with water that isn't potable, it's pretty standard to provide water bottles in the rooms. ||-The air conditioners can't handle the heat load in the seaview cottages. With the aircon running constantly (except for the 2-hour power outage of course) it took almost 24 hours to bring the temperature of the room lower than the outside temperature. Seriously, these tile rooms function like ovens. The least they could do is turn the aircon on 12 hours before the guests arrive so the rooms aren't so hot.||-No room service. I came back at the end of day 2 to discover our room hadn't been cleaned. These cottages are surrounded by sand, and we have 4 kids. They don't even provide a broom and dust pan (something which other hotel rooms in similar settings often come equipped with). In the meantime, we of course ran out of toilet paper, since it didn't get replenished. That was a FIRST for us. Never have we had to go request toilet paper form a hotel before. On day 3, before we left for the day, I requested they clean our room. They said yes, but asked that we leave our room key outside our room so they could get in. Seriously? The management doesn't give the cleaners a room key to clean? So I have to leave my room key out there for anyone to use? Unbelievable. ||-No brewed coffee. It's on the menu, but don't believe it. NO BREWED COFFEE. We're Americans, and seriously, we were dying from coffee withdrawal. They serve instant coffee with breakfast.||-CLINCHER: They don't accept credit card. Again, I can understand this if it were some cheap, backwater motel or sutukil, but this place is billed as a RESORT and solicits non-filipino guests. We were 5 adults and 4 kids and we stayed 3 nights and ate almost all our meals here. We went to check out and they tell us we have to pay the full bill in cash. We're talking a bill of 500 USD. Well goodness, of course we brought a lot of Php cash, but we didn't bring THAT much. Again, something they should warn guests about ahead of time. The owner cut our bill down, then followed us all the way to the ferry terminal so we could hit up an ATM and pay the rest of our bill. Unbelievable.||-They ran out of several foods on the menu (no springrolls! so sad.). ||PRO'S: ||-They have a 2-person kayak on the beach that they let guests use. It's really really fun.||-It's a beautiful location.||-The facilities are really beautiful, just need some attention from management (trimming trees, turning down the radio blaring from the kitchen/dining room, repairs and maintenance of grounds). ||-The quality of the cottages, beds and bedding is really good. Cottages would be great if the aircon worked better and if the toilet wasn't leaking. ||-They provide free pick-up from the ferry terminal. HOWEVER, it is a jeepney. So if you're kanos not used to riding in the back of a jeepney for an hour over very rough roads (unpaved in a lot of places), you should make other arrangements. My dad is 6'3" so he had to hunch over just to fit inside the jeepney. When we went over bumps, his head hit the ceiling of the...

SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM

WE SHOWED UP AND LEFT!

This is not a HOTEL this is a mans property that built a few cottages and then put some mismatching sheets on the beds and called it a hotel. There's no staff just his mistress and her rude son who looked like he was ready to fight me and told me to go when I told her I was dissatisfied with my room. Bugs 🐜, no tv, no wifi. All she did was laugh when he told me to leave I explained "it's not funny" and I was not surprised to hear that me and my partner were the only people one so called "resort". There's NO front desk and it's so dark I hit my toe trying to walk to the main building it was the weirdest thing. No hot water I had to take a cold shower, when asked if there's hot water the lady I charge said it would be 1100 pesos upcharge!!!! Way to nickel and dime your customers buddy!!! This place sucked. I told them for 1700 Santiago offers everything way nicer they could care less. I asked what can you do for me, she said ask the owner in the morning. I couldn't stay and such a poor room. They use clever marketing on agoda to appear booked saying last room however it's a crappy room with out aircon!!

Bottom line you will be disappointed!!!!

I don't recommend visiting here. This place shouldn't even be on agoda it's a danger trap for people.

First, arriving at night the gate was closed and there are no lights and no name identifying the place as a hotel, we almost crashed our motor because of the poor bumpy dirt road

Second, the scammers put the rooms listed as last one to develop buzz when it's completely empty because it sucks

Three, they nickle and dime you 1600 for aircon 2200 for hot water shower and sitcom then 2400 for hot water archon and view when u can have all that for 1700 at Santiago and better service and real hotel vibe with pool and everything! :)

Fourth, no lighting place is empty you cannot find the place no signs no lights the workers have no uniform you feel like your just wondering on somebody's property, and the woman's...

Horrible place & management - be warned. We booked a Seaview Cottage room for $52 for a weekend trip, arrived after a long journey, and they put us in a tiny moldy room (with lots of insects crawling around) in the back of the property - without saying anything about how we had paid for a better room. I then asked (had to ask repeatedly to get an admission that we didn't get the room we paid for) about the "Seaview" cottage, and they finally told us they sold it to someone else. It looks like a large group came in and they "bumped" us. No loss for them; too bad for us.

We then had to wait for a very long while for the manager to wake up and talk to us, and he couldn't care less that we traveled the long journey or that we made a prepaid reservation. No apology at all. Then he gave us a refund, but used the bad hotel exchange rate (we paid online in USD) - so we lost money on the reservation itself. And of course, we had to pay for transportation to their remote location twice (there's not even a sign outside their resort, so we missed it the first time) and wasted hours overall dealing with this mess.

The worst part was the manager's attitude: he didn't offer any help in finding another hotel. His attitude was of absolute indifference and didn't care to apologize for screwing us. We wasted the rest of the day to find another hotel. Thanks, Flying Fish, for ruining our weekend vacation and our Camotes experience. They cheated us out of a prepaid reservation. They're just greedy people who don't care anything about customers or honesty. Seriously, trying to pass off a basic moldy dirty room hoping that we wouldn't notice that we paid for a better room facing the sea? Oh, and they do false advertising in their listing online - they don't have WiFi. What kind of people run a business this way??

Horrible customer service and a...