Intermission: The Highs – Oriental Legazpi stay and The (extreme) Lows – Misibis Bay stay of Legazpi

I’m home!  (“,)

The Highs

With my quick Legazpi When It Sizzles post on this blog’s Facebook page on Friday, some of you have been wondering where I was when that photo was taken.  Setting: Our room on the fifth floor at the Oriental Legazpi.  I would like to commend them on this blogpost for making our three days stay in Legazpi worthwhile.  Such a good offering for accommodation, tours and adventures! ^^,

A special shout out goes to Sir Rodel from the Front Office/Bell Service (Oh, my, I do hope I got his name right. He did so well as a lobby boy a la Grand Budapest Hotel.  “A lobby boy is completely invisible, yet always in sight.” ~M. Gustave).  He made us feel cared for, listened to and important … that we didn’t need to be a celebrity to be treated like one. \m/

Room service was scrumptious; the food priced as it was listed on the room service menu.  Ahh, creamy tinutungan na manok, I miss you already; delightful dessert platter of choco mousse, pili panna cotta, and blueberry cheesecake; comforting soup and arroz caldo, and deliciously filling carbonara pasta at the breakfast buffet; simply reinvigorating pandan tea welcome drink.

Stunning, stunning Mayon; the thrilling ATV adventure to the lava wall  (Thanks, Sir Chad and Sir Adong); an enjoyable city tour (Many thanks, Sir Jun and Sir Rey; and more tasty eats of pinangat and Bicol express (but, of course) from Gilian’s; and the inventively refreshing ice cream flavors of sili, malunggay, pili nut, tinutungan na bigas, and salabat from 1st Colonial, I’ll look back on all of these with fondness. =D

Snippets from our ATV adventure, city tour and the foodstuff we eatsplored in Legazpi (“,)

The Lows

It was the first portion of our trip that didn’t go very well.  (That’s an understatement, mind you.)  (Thank the gods, we planned our trip out so that we would be moving to where civilization was at The Oriental Legazpi for the last three days.)  Simply put, this made for the worst vacation I’ve ever had.  Setting: Misibis Bay.

(For the detailed account of my dream that quickly turned into a nightmare vacation at Misibis Bay, click here. Brace yourself though, I didn’t realize I typed up a 4 pager in Word format. =b)  It’s not Misibis Bay to me, but the Bay of Misses. Sucky, suuuuuuuuuuuuucky service. (I can’t put enough U’s to emphasize how badly I wanted to teleport back to our beloved city when I was there. *sigh  “I left my furry lovies, especially in a time when I sensed the other was going to have a series of seizures again, alone, for THIS?”, I kept thinking to myself.  I wanted to be there when he came to.)

It’s been two days since we got home and this is the first trip that I’m not excited to post photos of in my social media accounts. I didn’t want to advertise this farce of a resort any further.  What’s making me furrow my brow is that I’ve been to other hotels that did a colossal and phenomenal job with their service and never did they claim to be a SLH, five star, luxury or whatever.  I guess this is just a place that’s tooting its horn. Darn, I feel so bad I fell for all the hype.

I refuse to be one of the horror guests that staff, tour guides, and various workers we’ve come across in our previous trips, talked about.  But how can I not be demanding when I spent thousands for the luxury treatment and not even the eraser on the pencil left in the room’s executive work desk did squat?  (My gosh, I could’ve used that moolah for more food adventures in Baguio or maybe another fun giveaway for you, my foodie friends.)

I shudder at the thought of this so called luxury island getaway having full occupancy and that they’re even going to build a hundred more sea view rooms on their property.  (A hundred more? Gee whiz.  They couldn’t put two in the right room, how much more if they have to handle droves upon droves of people =customers paying with cash they made by the sweat of their brow? Stinking, no good, money grubbing resort! *argh!)

I fear there have been many with a bad experience here who didn’t air it out and are just charging this to experience. I tried my very best to restrain myself from screaming my head off and making a scene at this overrated resort as well as in writing my lengthy play by play TripAdvisor review but I can’t do it any longer.  I’ll charge this all to experience, too, but not after a bit of it goes into the blog.

If someone planning a hassle free vacay will be doing research about this tourist trap online and this post gets more traction on search engines and it helps others think twice about spending their hard earned money on Misibis Bay, I can rest easy.  Thinking of staying at Misibis Bay, dear traveler?  BEWARE! Please, PLeaSe, PLEASE, don’t join the ranks of people who are majorly regretting staying at this resort.

The Recuperation

All rightie then.  The charging to experience, begins.  (My, what a bill that ran up.) =S

Back to the Baguio food quest in next week’s post.  =) Till then, afoodionados!