Mövenpick Staycation 2014

April 15, 2014

This is officially the trip where I have taken the least amount of photos even if I lugged my camera bag during the three days I've spent in Cebu. It's not because I didn't have anything worthy of taking photos. On the contrary, there were a lot of those moments: crashing a wedding reception, watching Pacquiao win the match from a TV repair shop at the oldest street in the Philippines. It felt like everything was in the "it's better to enjoy the moment" category of life.


To start things off, I finally used the Mövenpick Hotel Mactan Island Cebu 3D2N voucher I got from Agoda c/o Saab Magalona's Valentines giveaway. I actually didn't want to go this April since I have Boracay on Labor Day/Weekend but being that before this year I've never actually won raffles, in this case against a total of 8610 other entries, I just had to go before the voucher expires on April 30.


Checking in took longer than expected. If I'm going to be honest here, it took more than an hour because there was an issue with the voucher not being the physical voucher. What Agoda sent me was only a scanned copy, which was also the one sent to them by the hotel. Everything else was valid but it took so long to reach the person who'll approve the use of said scanned voucher. But since I'm a silver lining kind of girl, at least we still got into the room 2 hours before the official check-in time. I was stressed during the ordeal but yey for early check-ins!

I didn't get to take photos of the Deluxe room we stayed in but a quick Google search will lead you to a large number of blogger reviews with matching photos. I didn't think it was still necessary. I did, however, took a photo of their famed *Chopard bath essentials box set.


For food, we have tried ordering through the a la carte menu of the in-hotel restaurant, Sails, for lunch twice. First, during the first day and second, during the last day. The food was good but the price is, naturally, in standard hotel price. It was just so convenient to eat without leaving the hotel. They also served free appetizers with the lunch.

Left: Chicken Adobo; Right: Pork Tonkatsu | Photos were taken from the third day a la carte lunch in Sails

The voucher came with a free buffet breakfast for two people for two days. Everything they served was good but for me, what really made the breakfast experience was the staff being all-smiles the whole morning. It's so infectious, I tell you! I don't know about you, but it's really hard to smile that long and frequent. I'd like to think the staff must be really nice people to begin with to be able to hold that up.


Shortly after breakfast, we went to the beach to continue Music 101 from breakfast (read: I have been raised in a far from musically-inclined home. It was literally frowned upon to get CDs and tapes into the house that were not Christian songs. Basically, I've always been music-illiterate.) and to go swimming (read: more like dip in the ocean because heeey I still don't know how to swim) The cove, although not vast, was really, really nice. It was drizzling but people still went out, thanks to the big white umbrellas matching the beach chairs. 

And what's a beach trip without my signature Jenn Jumpshot? Of course, I just had to have one in the Mövenpick Mactan beach, too. 


Overall, the stay with Mövenpick Mactan has been great. The staff were all accommodating, the room service was fast, the cleaning crew was efficient, and they have free wifi all over the resort. I repeat, FREE WIFI. And to make things better, I've already said that we got to check-in early, right? I have to add that we were also allowed to check-out late! It's a perfect place to de-stress while in Cebu. I want to go back again, but maybe after I've gone on a Cebu trip exclusively for the beaches in the farther parts of the Cebu province.


P.S. If you've been following me on Twitter or Instagram, you'd know that there's another part of this adventure that includes me getting left by my plane back to Manila. I'll make another post about this blunder and my consequently 6-hour adventure before taking the next flight out.

P.P.S. (More like a disclaimer) Although this is a free hotel stay, everything I wrote here has been unbiased. I posted it willingly and was not asked to do so.   

P.P.P.S. (Sorry, last na!) There is now an existing Flickr set of my jumpshots called Jumping Around The World. (Go, check it out!) I thought since I've been saying I have a "collection" of jumpshots that started 8 years ago, I should at least have proof of it. I had a the photo that started this all but I'm having a hard time locating the photos during the 2007-2009. 


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2 comments

  1. Helga Gabrielle WeberApril 16, 2014 at 12:25 AM

    ANG GANDA NAMAN

    ReplyDelete
  2. SOBRA! Also, they have the best pillows!!! If I'll go back, it'll be for the pillows!

    ReplyDelete