Ariana Hotel

We came from the USA for our wedding at Ariana hotel Dipolog, and I expected to be scammed in the USA, not here. Be very careful if you’re planning an event there. We held our wedding reception on the 26th of November and paid over 200000 pisos for the hall and 350 guests. At checkout, they said we’d only paid for 300 guests. I asked the lady we’d booked and paid with three times if the amount covered 350 guests, and she said yes. She also said that was why we rented the court yard. After checking out, we were told we owed another 30000. We’d originally paid 189000 for everything, left 200000, and then they asked for an additional 30000 at the end. Extra pillows were 150 a night. We had 3 pillows for 3 nights. What a scam. Make sure they don’t take advantage of foreigners.

Breakfast was good, though there wasn’t much of it. We didn’t use the pool, and it looked clean, but I have no idea why it closes at 19:00. The lobby looks good, then the room feels like going back to the 80s, with very outdated furniture. The window looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since New Years Eve 2000. The A/C was noisy even for the Philippines, and the water pressure was very low. I’ll choose somewhere else next time.

The breakfast was nicely presented, and I especially liked the Spanish sardines. The staff were excellent, warm, and accommodating. The room was relaxing, though I’d have given it five stars if it had a full-length mirror. I’d gladly come back.

The only real plus was being close to the airport. The restaurant food was pretty good, but expensive for Dipolog. I’d suggest gwandalan house instead, it was much nicer in every way and a little cheaper. There were a lot of problems: the room and pool were dirty, hot water lasted only 2 minutes, power kept going out, and Wi-Fi was poor. The employees weren’t friendly either. The front desk told me breakfast would be ready at 6am, but the restaurant didn’t open until 7am. There was no fresh coffee at breakfast, just instant packets, which I wouldn’t expect for the price of this hotel.