I've always wondered what it's like to stay inside Aloha Hotel because whenever we take Roxas Boulevard, we always pass by this hotel, which has a wonderful location just across the Manila Bay near the Manila Yacht Club, and it even has a Chinese restaurant, Sze Chuan House, at the lobby area.
We are grateful for Zenrooms.com for giving us an overnight stay to any destination of our choice on their website and when we found out that Aloha Hotel is listed, we decided to grab the chance.
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| Aloha Hotel Lobby |
Lobby
Their lobby was pretty charming with an old feel to it. I also noticed there were plenty of Buddha statues around. They were also selling some plants, small statues, and they have had a mini-store where you can buy some essentials like napkins, shampoo, snacks, etc. I bought a napkin pack there (Modess pack) and it costed me 100 pesos (yikes!).
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| Plants for Sale |
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| Their in-house store where I bought a Modess pack worth P100 (ouch) |
Check in
Check in was actually a breeze since there were no other guests around. I just noticed a lack of professionalism from one of the receptionists (there were 3 of them) because when I told one lady that I would be checking in, she didn't talk to me, but instead she cued the guy beside her to kind of process my request. It gave me a slight negative impression, but still I was all smiles since the other receptionist guy was nice.
Room
We stayed in a deluxe room (city side) so we were a bit saddened about it, but we're still open to see the good side of the room itself.
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| View from our room |
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| Bed Room Quite spacious room with two bouncy and clean single beds. They also provided two thermos pots (for hot and cold) and glasses/mugs. TV reception from their small Promac Flat screen TV was kind of fuzzy. |
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| Mini Bar When I opened the ref, small insects suddenly appeared and flew around. I just ignored it because we weren't getting any drinks from the mini bar anyway. |
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| Bathroom. We were only given a free hand soap. Aside from the hand soap and 2 towels, there were no other bath amenities given such as shampoo, conditioner, tissues, toothbrush, etc. I guess that's why the mini store is present in their lobby so you can buy them instead. |
Pros:
- Keycard security system in all rooms.
- Spacious room. My kids got a lot of room to jump and run around.
- The mini bar was fully loaded with snacks and drinks, plus their prices were okay.
- The two single beds were quite bouncy and clean.
- Their free WIFI was quite fast. The 4 of us were using our own gadgets (cellphones and laptops) and yet the connection was steady and fast.
- Cable is present. Cartoon Network was included so my kids were happy.
- Shower rose was a rain shower type.
- Clean towels.
- Strong water (hot and cold)
- Room service prices were lower compared to other hotels we've stayed with previously.
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| Cafe Felisa's Menu This is the same menu (and price) for their room service. Unfortunately, we weren't able to try it. They do serve an all-day breakfast to its diners and hotel guests. |
Cons:
- As we were settling in our room for almost an hour, we received a phone call saying that they assigned the wrong room to us. It was such a hassle because we already started unpacking our things and then all of a sudden, we need to repack again to move to another room. I was hoping they would give us a better room, but it was just the same one except there were additional Zen Rooms pillows on each bed. We received no apologies from the staff about it nor any incentives.
- The new room given to us had a fly inside and we had to let it out. I also killed one mosquito.
- Their air conditioning system was quite old and not centralized. It failed to keep the entire room cool enough for us. My daughter sweating during her sleep because we slept far away from the air con's side.
- There were NO complimentary robe, slippers, bath amenities (except for hand soap), and coffee/tea. We received better freebies from our previous AirBNB condo staycation. Thankfully, I brought along some shampoos and soap for us.
- No hot/cold indicator on the taps. Hot water is present, but not consistent.
- Additional hour for late check out costs P167.
- Their fire alarm went off at around 11 PM. My kids got scared. We called reception right away about it and we learned that someone smoked in a non-smoking room. They told us just to stay in our rooms and don't panic. The alarm stayed on for about 20 minutes. We also heard people who got out of their rooms panicking and getting angry. It was the first time we experienced such an incident. Although it was not the hotel's fault, but my husband and I didn't get a good night's sleep afterwards. We received no apologies nor any notice from the hotel staff afterwards.
- No one assisted us with our luggage during check out.
We were already warned that Aloha Hotel is an old hotel and we told them that we don't mind if the hotel is quite old because we have stayed in old hotels before such as Century Park Hotel, but we just didn't expect the fire alarm incident, which really gave a negative impact on us especially the kids.
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| This is us after checking out and while waiting for our Grab ride. We were ready to get out of the place and move to our next hotel, which is Midas Hotel. |
Recommendation:
For thrifty travelers or for anyone who doesn't mind the cons I just mentioned, this might be a good place for you. Its location is indeed just walking distance from Manila Bay. Plus, the Sze Chuan House Restaurant offers good Chinese food. But for family travelers who are looking for some relaxation and leisure stay, we simply wouldn't recommend this place.
Aloha Hotel
2150 Roxas Boulevard, cor. Quirino
Ave., Malate Manila, 1004 Philippines.
Ave., Malate Manila, 1004 Philippines.
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