Casa Isabel

I didn’t stay here, but I did try the iced coffee, which was delicious and well worth recommending. The only facility I used was the downstairs CR. Honestly, it could use an update, but I was perfectly happy with the coffee.

I’d been referred here for the low prices, and the stay included a plated breakfast each day. The cafe deserves credit, though: the food is delicious and made fresh to order, and their brewed barako coffee is really good. I cut my stay short because the rooms were damp, dark, and cramped. You have to share a restroom, where the water was yellow and the pressure weak, possibly because it’s on the second floor. The rooms are upstairs by very steep steps, which felt like a safety concern. The bathroom door knob was broken and cracked, so I had to be careful not to cut myself. There was no Wi-Fi.

The breakfast changed every day, and the coffee was freshly made. I enjoyed my stay, too: the staff were helpful and friendly, and the location was great. It’s a nice, basic hostel with everything you need.

The breakfast was good, and the woman who made it was very kind. That was the one bright spot in a horrible stay. After five months of traveling in Southeast Asia, this was easily the worst place I’d slept. At check-in they asked for my passport and a 500 peso deposit, but didn’t explain how the hostel worked or what the house rules were. They gave no suggestions for things to see on the island or information about renting a motorcycle or bicycle. My room was small, dirty, dark, and smelled musty. The walls were wooden sheets instead of solid, so you could hear everything. There was no Wi-Fi in the rooms, only in the kitchen. The bathrooms were disgusting, always wet and dirty, with cockroaches, and they were never cleaned. There were a shocking number of mosquitoes all over the property, and they never sprayed. The thought of dengue or malaria was frightening. For the quality, which felt nonexistent, this was overpriced. It wasn’t worth the money.