The Podium Boutique Hotel

It was such a relief to find a hotel with a reliable water supply in the Philippines. My one complaint is the customer service around extra items. They asked for 50 pesos for a towel and another 50 for a floor mat. I said that if I had to pay for the mat, then I needed someone to wipe up the water that had spilled. A few minutes later the mat arrived free of charge. I can understand charging for a towel in case guests take it, but for a floor mat too? Sigh.

We booked two nights through Agoda, expecting the buffet breakfast to be included, but at check-in they said there was no breakfast because we had booked on Agoda. That was a real letdown. There was no early check-in either. We won't book here again or recommend it.

The room itself was okay, but the hallway and the room next door were noisy enough that we could hear people talking. Around midnight, the guests next door had a bonfire party, and my partner struggled to sleep. It wasn't a good place to rest. The shower also drained so slowly that we had to pause and wait for the water to go down, otherwise it rose around our feet. We'd traveled from Eastern Samar, reached Manila at about 7 PM, then rode on to Baguio from 11 PM until 4 AM. We had asked the hotel about checking in early, but they said it was fully booked. When we came back at 11 AM, the room was still occupied, so we waited in the lobby until 2 PM. Even though we'd been there for hours, they only began processing check-in two minutes before 2. Starting earlier would have let us get into the room right at the scheduled time. Our Agoda booking didn't include breakfast, so we went to the restaurant on the second floor to buy food. It was open, but they wouldn't let guests without breakfast included eat there. That was disappointing and seemed unreasonable. We left at 9 AM because the property is far from the city center, including Session Road and SM, and coming back later just to check out would have been inconvenient. Lots of guests were checking out early too, which made us wonder why early check-in had been ruled out because the hotel was “fully booked” when rooms were already being vacated in the morning.

The mountain views are lovely, including from the restaurant, and the food was decent. Staff were nice, and having private parking was handy. Sleep was another matter. There was no soundproofing: on the first night an event meant chairs and tables scraped overhead while loud music went on until 11 pm. The next evening a live band played late, and even dogs barking or neighbors coughing outside came through the walls. The Wi-Fi was poor, extra floor mats or pillows cost more, and the restroom smelled a little moldy. The AC was leaking. Not an ideal stay.