“BE WARNED. Henna Scam?”
Although it's location is tagged as Station 1, it's really amid a residential area, so it would be quiet because locals tend to be asleep at night. It is not a minute walk to the beach, you will pass by a good number of stores, a basketball court, a church, a mexican restaurant apart from a beachfront hotel. So that's false advertising.
Rooms have huge glass doors& windows, and though it has roman shades, it DOESN'T really cover much. very small bathroom (our toilet even has a leak!). I hated taking a bath because the water is very inconsistent. i could understand if its only the pressure that's inconsistent, but the temperature goes from very hot to very cold on its own. the TV's way too small for the price (15-17 inch?), remote doesn't work. No security box whatsoever provided.
We stayed in Boracay for two days airfare and hotel booking generously paid for by my husband's boss who was staying at a rented house with his family. The minute we checked in, we deposited our bags in the room, left our keys with the reception and immediately left to maximize our stay in the island. Oh, our companions wasn't able to check in yet as at 1:30 their rooms aren't ready yet. We went back at around 3-4am to get a nap, had breakfast at 7am.
By the way, the food is way too expensive--continental breakfast consists of 2 slices bread, anchor butter in individual pack, a dollop of jam, and coffee (or juice). that's PHP150 . if you want to upgrade, you can add either 3strips of bacon or ham to this or a filipino breakfast (choice of adobo, danggit, hotdog, daing with rice) for a nifty 100Php + 10% srvc charge. Or you can cut the crap right then and there, walk a few steps out of the place and get the same meal for 60PHP.
Hey, going back. after the meal, we went out again, enjoyed the banana boat and flying fish, had a henna at around 11am, had our lunch, experienced Zorb. If you had that before, you'd know that you'll be very wet inside as they put bucketsful of water inside to make you slide with the ball. if there is any henna left to rinse, it would've been removed there. we went back to the hotel to change and went out again, had a massage, went back to the hotel at 3am.
The morning after, we we're already pressed for time as we still need to travel to Kalibo to catch our plane. when we got back, the receptionist followed us to check out our rooms. I guess she's very good with her job because she went straight to the pillows, took it out and was demanding us to pay for henna stain.
This is not our first time to have a henna tattoo, heck i sometimes make my own whenever i get my hands on available henna. i know when a henna stain is new, and the first casualties of henna stain are bed sheets. she presented a henna stained pillow case that has already been washed, WAY DIFFERENT from what any of us had on, saying that they don't know who we allow to get inside our rooms. which is stupid as they have our keys for 80% of the time as we deposit it at the reception whenever we leave.
She kept saying that if we don't pay for the stained pillow case, it would be unfair for them because their manager will make them pay for it. Which is stupid because it is unfair to us to pay for something we didn't cause.She was arguing that they cleaned the rooms right before we checked in and that they gave us clean sheets then. I argued back asking who'd take the time to check each every pillowcase/bedding/towel/sheets upon checking in. I also argued that the stains have been washed already, she was claiming that these are caused by new henna stain, before washing. i was already causing a racket, as I had to ask my other companions to leave ahead of me and my husband as we'd already miss our flight because of this.
She left to check with her manager (who's suspiciously doesn't even bother to check what the racket was) as i was already threatening to go to my solicitor to consult regarding this, as i'm already suspecting a scam. She went back and asked for us to pay at least half of the charge. Did I mention that the said pillowcase seem to be made out of very thin cotton used for cheap uniforms, cheesecloth like? And the price they ask for the stained pillowcase would be enough to make pillowcases for all their rooms???? Nothing special about it, it doesn't even have any markings for their inn (it's so not a hotel.)
For principle i didn't really want to pay. I wanted to have another tattoo, and show what a newly henna stained pillow looked like. I hated that it was very impractical as since it is a peak season in boracay now, it will be very hard to book for a return flight, and I only have limited time off work. We were forced to pay half, and vowed to warn everyone of this place. This is too long already, and hey, i haven't even mentioned how we suspect they enter our room while we're out!
Room Tip: Book anywhere but in Escondido.
See more room tips
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC