Olympic Point (Tingloy, Batangas): A Fresh View

I have written two reviews for Olympic Point Resort – one written during the peak of my hot bloodedness on our first day there, and another, perhaps more objective one on the second day. I’m afraid to post the former as it has blood all over it. I don’t want to be ungrateful for the special treatment we received during the rest of our stay (thank you Olympic Point). So here is the second, I think more objective one, written April 8, 2012 on my Moleskine:

Okay, maybe I was a bit too harsh to say that this is one of the worst resorts I’ve ever set foot on. I mean, the waters are clean (although the swimmable area of the “beach” is very small) and the people are quite friendly. But still, especially considering that I think I’ve been to some of the best resorts in the country, service-wise, this place is pretty bad.

I’m trying to give an objective opinion about the place despite the perks given us by the manager and the owner of the resort himself – Captain Binay. I haven’t met him personally (although we will later) but my parents were introduced to him early today so that he could personally apologize for making us wait for two hours in the mainland of Batangas. We were asked by our contact to be at the port by 10:00am sharp and the boat left at 12:00nn. Later on, the boatman found out that the engine isn’t functional, and so we had to wait another 1.5 hours inside the friggin’ boat in the semi-middle of the sea! Good thing we weren’t too far from land yet. Imagine, we stayed in that uncomfortable boat and had to wait for the “rescue boat” for an hour and a half. When the big boat came, it “towed” our boat to the island – that was another 45 minutes. And we haven’t had our lunch.

Two words: terrible service.

No, three words: terrible, terrible service.

I do not want to put into detail the other inconveniences that this resort has brought us. But to set your expectations (in case you want to make the mistake of going there in the future), the rooms given us were very small despite my mom mentioning our number. Although I’ll give it to them that it’s quite clean, they’re sort of made of low-quality materials (ex. doors that seem new but can no longer be locked, curtain rod always falling when you try to adjust the curtains). When we got here, a lot of things were still missing in the room despite my mom’s constant communication with our contact – pillows, cushions, tissue.

Now, you might think that I’m being too meticulous and all, but truly, I wouldn’t have noticed these things had the service been satisfactory to begin with. They just sort of left a bad first impression, flaming up the fire of the critic in me.

In all fairness though, we have been given very special attention and care since we came. They cooked all of our food and served them in the pavilion at no extra charge, we were given an invitation to lunch by the owner (which my mother politely refused), we were given an invitation to drinks and food later tonight (which we feel obliged to accept), we were offered to checkout late (although we choose not to since we’d rather go home early), and we were given a free VIP boat upgrade going back to the mainland. All of this, in my opinion, in an effort to make our memory of our stay there brighter than when we came.

To conclude, I still do have a lot – and I mean a lot – of comments, constructive criticisms and suggestions that could possibly contribute to the improvement of this resort (oh, believe me, my observations can go as detailed as the height of their stairs’ steps that I believe is crucial to a resort’s family-friendliness). But detailing them here would be too time-consuming, and might bore the readers that I dream to have.

So, I guess, if any of you people managing the resort would ever stumble upon my criticisms online, here is my message:

Thank you for accommodating us and exerting effort to make our stay a relaxing one despite our first encounter. However, keep your eyes open and observe. There are still a lot your resort can improve on. More importantly, thanks for the Papaitan that just arrived on our porch table just now. I shall stop writing and start eating. 🙂

Now I believe you’d want to see some photos – because that is, after all, what matters most when it comes to travel posts. Don’t get me all wrong here, this is a criticism of the place, but not of the trip. We did enjoy our stay there, mainly because it is still a vacation with the family. And yes, it did add that we were given special attention. I will be posting some of our crazy photos once they’re ready! *hint hint to Nikka who was our photographer*

Olympic Point Island Resort is located in Tingloy, Batangas. More details on their website: http://www.olympicpointresort.com/