Sarabia Manor: Worst Hotel In Iloilo City

I had been visiting Iloilo City on a regular basis for the past seven months and I’ve been passing through the street where Sarabia Manor Hotel is located whenever I go and visit SM City in Iloilo City. The facade is nice and had been improved since I first visited Iloilo City on the mid-’70’s.

If I remember right, I first visited this place when I was still in College/Academy. I did not stay here but I had the chance to eat at the Lobby Restaurant together with my uncle and some guests. I was impressed on the beauty and simplicity of the place then. Later, when I was already a mid-senior officer in my work, I had a chance again to stay in this hotel for at least two days for an official business. The rooms are nice with the standards of hotel rooms at that time in the late ’80s.

Twenty years plus after my last stay in this hotel, I decided to make a reservations for rooms for visitors from the United States. I reserved two rooms for my visitors to stay for an overnight.

Aside from the two rooms, I also made a reservation of a room for myself and my staff just to experience again my stay in the ’80s.

I have observed that the rooms are old already and need more lighting to make the room brighter. I guess, the rooms need a brighter color paint. The room amenities were very spartan and simple. But the worse experience and complaint was the old air-conditioned equipment they have in all the three rooms my visitors and my staff occupied. The air-cons only produce cold air for at least two hours and after that, the air coming out is an ordinary warm air, as if the air -con is just a simple electric fan. I made a complaint with the front desk officer and a maintenance guy fixed the problem. The air-con produced another one hour of cold air but later transformed into an ordinary air which made the room warmer. I had to put off the air-conditioning system for a while and opened the sliding door at the balcony to let the fresh air from the outside enter the room.

Feeling bored not to be able to sleep because of the air-con defect situation, I decided to have a physical workout at the hotel’s gym. The hotel’s gym is Clark Hatch Fitness Gym which is located at the nearby building where another hotel restaurant is located. I had almost two hours of weight lifting and using their treamill and weight machines. The gym staff provided me with towel and some assistance. The gym has the basic equipments but they are old and some are lacking like the free weights and machines. I just concentrated on doing dumbbell exercises for the arms, made some lunges, and concentrated on machines for lateral & vertical pulls, sit-ups, and leg press. I did some running and brisk walking on their treadmill. The small gym have at least two small TV sets hanged from the ceiling overlooking the swimming pool. The gym was hot and needs some ventilation and circulation of air inside.

I was surprised when I was about to return my towel when the gym attendant told me that I have to pay a fee for the use of the gym. The attendant explained that the gym is not totally part of the hotel but hotel guests who would like to use the gym would pay 20% discount from the daily workout fee for the gym. I ended paying One Hundred Forty Pesos. I am not complaining about the amount I paid but in my stay with hotels, the gym should be a part of the hotel and guest’s payment for his stay in the hotel should cover the free use of the sports facilities of the hotel to include the swimming pools.

Later in the evening, I’ve decided not to bring my visitors and my staff to have dinner in another restaurant outside the hotel. So, we had our dinner at the hotel lobby’s restaurant. We were dismayed to know that the air-con of the restaurant was out-of-order and the waiters had to bring out a big electric fan directed to our table. I can’t complaint much after the strings of frustrations I had since I checked-in with the said hotel. We patiently had our dinner with the little discomfort that we had. Anyway, the electric fan dedicated to us was enough for me not to perspire and cough. The food served for dinner? It was average!

Back to the room, the split air-con became erratic again after two to three hours of cold air. I was able to sleep but not soundly because of the warm air being produced by the air-con later in the early morning. It was good we left the hotel not eating our free breakfast.

My guests and members of my staff complained also about the air-con in their respective rooms. I told my staff to officially make a complaint about their old rooms, old air-con equipment, and their “paid” gym.

On my part, I felt I was embarrassed by the complaints from my guests and staff. I should had decided to make a reservation with the other competing hotels within the city but I thought the old Sarabia Manor Hotel that I knew when I was younger had been able to maintain, if not, improved its services. But, I was wrong. Reliving history at this time means disaster, frustration and embarrassment.

This will be my first and last time to set my foot at the Sarabia Manor Hotel and I will not recommend to anybody to stay in this hotel.