Villa Solaria

Staying at this lovely resort is where I first fell in love with the island. The staff are wonderful, and the manager and owner are some of the kindest people around. It’s a cheap stay with free use of the kitchen and plenty of toilets and showers. And there are five cute puppies!

We got a bunk for 350 pesos and were lucky to find one when we walked in. It’s a lovely, quiet place, not too hot, and mosquitoes weren’t a problem. The toilet and shower are only okay, but I’d have happily stayed longer, even weeks, if a room had been available.

The second visit is why I’m giving this three stars. We arrived without a booking, and the owner said he’d have two beds for us in an hour. When we returned, he said he’d given them to people who came in after us. That didn’t feel like a fair way to handle it. My first visit, when I booked through Booking.com as a solo traveler, went smoothly: beds were available, the staff were friendly, and the bunk bed was affordable. That one was a five-star experience, but the second time basically didn’t happen.

It seems this place may once have been much nicer, but under the new owners it has gone downhill. The room I got was the only one left, a six-person room with no windows, and there was no running water. My girlfriend and I started itching while in the room and found red bites on ourselves. The front desk told me to wait for the manager, so we left after two hours. When I returned later, I was told he’d used the money to buy food and a new water pump. I tried again the next day, but he wasn’t there and the property had no power; our room had also been rented to someone else. On my fourth attempt, he said he’d spoken to the owner and would refund only half of the 14,000 pesos I’d paid for an hour’s stay. We both went to the clinic in Dapa, where they said the bites looked like fleas or bed bugs. The new owners seem greedy and are letting the place fall apart.