Ticao Altamar Boutique Resort

The resort itself was good, but I wasn’t told about the corkage fees. They were very expensive, 150 per person for meals, including snacks. The drink and liquor charges surprised me too, since the rate varied by type and was calculated per ml. My family and I won’t be coming back.

That beach is beautiful, the rooms were clean, and the staff were friendly. It’s the nicest resort on Ticao Island, and I’d highly recommend it.

I’ve been to quite a few islands around the country and stayed at plenty of resorts, inns, and other places, but I’d never written a review before my visit to Altamar Island Resort. After two nights there, I felt moved to write one. It was the best resort I’ve stayed at in the country, leaving aside the very high-end places. What stood out most was how well the whole property was kept. It was clean and clearly well maintained, and there was always a staff member around to help. The people were friendly and welcoming, which is a big part of why I’d want to return. Altamar beach resort also gets a mix right that many island resorts don’t seem to understand. It has an Asian look, with Western comforts.

The view was beautiful, but my family and I left very disappointed with the service. I booked through Hotels.com in March and tried to contact the resort repeatedly through May without getting a reply. They finally answered just hours before check-in and didn’t know we were coming. They said Hotels.com had never contacted them. There was no set food menu or price list for the suggested dishes, so we had to ask. They hadn’t even priced the banana-que or turon. We were charged 115PHP for one tiny saba as banana-que and half a saba for the turon. There were no sodas or distilled water on site either. Lunch was supposed to take 20 minutes but took two hours, and the snacks were slow too. Staff kept asking us the same things about dinner time and where to serve snacks instead of passing the information along. The bathrooms were dirty and flooded, so we had to squeeze into the rooms we’d paid for. Garbage bags were still scattered along the beach. The boat only carried six people per trip, something we hadn’t known, and that wasn’t convenient for the elderly. Aside from perhaps five other guests, we were the only group there. Nobody wore masks, and there were no temperature checks or other COVID precautions. There was a blackout in the middle of the night, and the resort had no automatic generator. We couldn’t reach the front desk: there were no phones in the rooms, and nobody answered when we called on our personal phones. Hotels.com couldn’t reach them either. We walked through complete darkness to the front desk and found nobody there. Eventually we found an employee asleep, woke him, and asked him to turn on the generator. The staff were unfriendly. When we asked to have lunch by the beach, one woman said, “Relax lang, I'm in charge of that so I know what to do,” then didn’t seat us there. We also complained about the flooded bathroom and slow service, even though we were practically the only group they had to serve. They rudely asked, “How much did you pay?” They required payment in cash at the resort. We also had to pay for the extra people, even though they weren’t given proper accommodation, we hadn’t requested additional toiletries, and they didn’t get any free food or drinks.