Father’s Day Special

My family started our Father’s Day celebration early this year. A month ago we planned to use my dad’s City of Dreams gift certificate for a 3D2N staycation at Nüwa Hotel (previously known as Crowne Hotel). June 15-17 weekend was the only common availability of everyone in the Lim Family, including my sister and her husband, so we reserved 2 rooms immediately. Lucky enough, two weeks prior to this, President Duterte announced June 15 as a regular holiday in observance of Eid’l Fitr.

Hello long weekend staycation!

Spiral Buffet at Sofitel

We tried the BDO AMEX 50% promo at Spiral, Sofitel Philippine Plaza where we enjoyed a delicious, sumptuous buffet lunch. Too bad I forgot to take photos of the countless plates I’ve had, and only got to save this IG story of the cheese room that I captured before diving in to the buffet spread.

If I remember correctly, I started with a plate of cheese and cold cuts, followed by fresh salad and smoked salmon, tomato soup, a bowl of laksa noodles (this was so spicy I caught a flu after! Weird, I know!), plate of baked mussels, beef brisket with mashed potato, lamb, tempura, steamed crabs, dimsum, bibingka, ice cream, and fresh fruits. Whew! My tummy is such a bottomless pit (Disclaimer: only during buffets).

We finished eating at half past two in the afternoon and took a walk around the Sofitel garden. It’s been awhile since we’ve been here as a family. The pool and giant slide looked the same but the garden seemed to have underwent the most number of improvements and renovations HAHA. Nonetheless the hotel ambiance remains top-notch and marvelous.

Nüwa Lobby

A warm, Asian-themed space with huge chandeliers greeted us in the Nüwa luxury 5-star hotel lobby. We arrived fairly early (because my dad likes being first in line) at 11am. The rooms were not ready yet so we just left our bags in their cloak room and headed to Sofitel for lunch.

After the heavy heavy meal, we came back to City of Dreams to check-in to our deluxe double and deluxe king rooms (connected via a connecting door), and finally unwind for the rest of the afternoon. Despite the weeklong habagat and rain, it was a blessed holiday weekend that the skies were clear most parts of the day.

Deluxe Double Room

Our 53 sqm room had 2 queen beds with very cozy sheets, one large TV screen, a daybed, and a bathroom with rain shower. The wireless internet was exceptionally fast – speed test indicated 100 mbps download speed!

Each side of the bed has a reading light and electrical outlets. The only thing I think was not fully through throughout the room’s design is the lighting system. The room has several pin lights and lamps, but there is only one switch “ALL ON/OFF” for all of them, and none for each of the lamps or small lights (unlike other hotels we’ve stayed at). The other light present is the floor night light.

I wish they’d redo the electrical wiring to separate the light switches and think of how it would be helpful to have a small light for someone entering the room just to get something without waking up the other person sleeping.

The hotel was well-maintained overall, except for a few things:

• The small daybed beside the window already had stains on the seats
• The ceiling had traces of water leaks (maybe from the rain since we stayed at the top floor)
• The shower door gasket was also quite loose already

My favorite part of the room are the iPhone speakers and the very comfy bed. I get too lazy to move whenever I’m tucked inside the warm sheets. It was indeed an eat-sleep-repeat weekend for me. On another note, I also loved the pillows because they were firm enough to hold my head in place.

Pool Area

With the gold-colored buildings surrounding the pool and garden area, it feels like you’ve suddenly teleported to the Las Vegas strip or Macau in some glitz ‘n glam world. The thing that sets Nüwa hotel apart from its sisters Nobu and Hyatt is the fact that it has its own facilities– pool, spa, gym.

Nüwa had one large pool, which was shallow at 4 ft only, then one kiddie and one heated pool. Apart from the outdoor jacuzzi, there was another one inside the spa. I tried both and prefer the outdoor one where I could enjoy the fresh air and mingle with other people at the same time. The indoor one was also quite suffocating because of the contained heat.

Since my goal was to simply relax and unwind, I did not get to spend time in the fitness gym anymore (Also because they did not have a yoga room).

Activities

Being a family of competitive, like-minded individuals, how could we let a Scrabble game pass?! For 2 straight nights, we played Scrabble – our ultimate bonding activity! We also watched Masterchef Australia 2016 and bonded over the new Shakey’s Angus Beef pizza (so gewwddd and it’s only Php 541!) and mojos.

Of course this is City of Dreams so we also went inside the casino several times for dinner, and to get a few bottles of water :)) My sister and I played a couple of games of Big Small (Sicbo) with minimum bet of just Php 100 and won a few hundreds, while my dad went to his usual spot inside the Signature Club.

Service

Before I forget, I wanted to rant about the not-so-5-star service here.

A couple of things:

1. The check-in took a while even if we arrived at 11am, and went back at 3:30pm. They told us they had to do more ‘room inspections’ and this was already 1.5 hrs past the standard check-in time.
2. I requested for makeup room on our 2nd day and expected fresh new bath towels for 4 people. They only gave us 1 towel and a bathrobe. I called to ask for more towels since we are 4 people in the room. After 20 mins, housekeeping rang the doorbell to give me a tissue roll, clearly not the bath towel I’ve asked for. But when I asked, the staff said they were fully booked and some of the towels were still in the laundry area (understandable but this is the first time I’ve encountered this).
3. I asked Shakey’s to deliver my pizza and mojos order. I’m aware that hotel guests have to go down the lobby to pay for orders and pickup the boxes for safety reasons. What I did not expect though, was the strict policy of the “no motorcycle on the driveway policy”. I was already in my pajamas and bedroom slippers and the doorman wanted me to go out, walk outside, and meet the delivery boy! That really pissed me off. How hard would it be for them to just watch the motorcycle for 5 mins, have the delivery guy meet me at the lobby so I can pay and get my food? 🙁 I ended up waiting 10 more minutes because the guy had to park the motorcycle in the other building and walk back to meet me.

I hope they’ll improve on these points and maintain the 5-star service that they claim to have.

Apart from these, I’m both happy and tired from what has transpired over the Father’s Day long weekend. ‘Til the next family vacation!

xoxo