Mabolo Royal Hotel

We booked this hotel because typhoon Tino affected us. The room was decent, but it had no table or kettle for heating water, and only ONE chair. There weren't any slippers like hotels usually provide, or rugs in the room and bathroom, so the floor got wet and messy, especially by the bathroom. We had to buy slippers ourselves to keep things hygienic. The bathroom had mold and a clogged toilet, and the bedsheets made my whole body itch. I'm not blaming the staff, since they're responsible for cleaning, not deciding what goes in the room.

Cheap, yes, but even a 1 star hotel shouldn't serve guests like this. We didn't feel comfortable sleeping without a second lock, and the balcony door wasn't locked either. We were too tired to complain about that because we figured nothing would be done and we'd only get stressed. When we asked for bath towels and hangers, they asked if they weren't already in the room, even though that was why we were requesting them. We asked twice for pillowcases and also requested toilet rolls, but none arrived. We also asked for a bathmat. Check the photos and judge for yourself. There were stains on the bed and saliva on the pillow. We were supposedly upgraded from a Deluxe suite to a Family Suite, but they just used the same booking and opened up the extra bed.

November 2025. The location is great, and the night shift lobby staff were genuinely pleasant, but the price felt only fair for what was a basic, 2-star stay. The room was spacious, though the squeaky bed, old AC, worn towels and sheets, and stale smell made it less comfortable. There were no drinking glasses or slippers, and the Wi-Fi was slow. My keycard stopped working, so they gave me an old-fashioned metal key. Guests also can't leave the keycard in to keep the AC on when stepping out. The biggest drawback was no hot water.

We had a good location near the airport and not far from places to eat, but I would never return to Mabolo. My dad booked four rooms for one night before our flight, and things kept going wrong. My first room had no hot water, so I took a cold shower; after we told the front desk, they moved us. The replacement room had a dirty pillowcase, which we had to ask them to change. There was also a cockroach on the ceiling. Someone came with a broom and small ladder, swatted at it, and it flew into a corner. He couldn't find it, noticed a hole, then covered it with a plastic bag so it wouldn't come back out. The new room's door was hard to open with the key, and twice we had to go downstairs for someone to let us in. My sons' room had dirty linens, so we asked to have them all changed. Their room had no hot water either, and they showered in ours. It also had a cockroach, which my oldest son killed. I'll upload a picture. The hotel is old and needs updating, with rusty bathroom fixtures and stained chairs and sofa. The worst part was that staff did nothing to compensate us for all the problems and inconvenience. After dropping us at the airport, my parents went back to speak with the manager because they didn't want to spoil the trip further. They were told, “we just fumigated,” “no one foreigners have had this experience,” “maybe this was sabotage by some disgruntled employees,” and “we promise not to let this happen to other guests.” Those were all terrible responses. The least they could have done was refund two of the four rooms. Things go wrong, but how staff handle them matters.