The room smells fresh and clean as well as the hallway plus good internet. The longganisang hamonado is so yummy except the scramble egg. I prefer sunny side up. The room rates is good. Will return again and highly recommended to friends. I already booked my friends here.
We stayed here as our home was flooded because of Typhoon Tino. Really comfy beds. Location is close to Parkmall with so many dining options. There is also laundrymat, 7/11, salons, dimsum house, bank, and almost everything you need to weather a literal storm. We loved it so much we extended our stay for another night!
I'm sorry, but the musty carpet smell ruined my experience. It smells as if the hotel hasn't shampooed the carpets in 20 years. I asked to change rooms the first night, but that didn't make much difference. Such a small room window meant that I couldn't air out the room.
The smell was so fetid, that I'd cover my nose with the bed linen just to sleep. I was tempted to sleep in the bathroom where there was no carpet, or even just book another hotel.
I can't recommend this hotel to anyone, and I won't be returning unless they remove or replace the carpet, as I doubt even a shampoo job would remove odour this bad. They've had complaints about the carpet before, so I can't see this happening.
And that's a shame, because the decent interior design and amenities provided is on par with that of a 4 or 5 star hotel. It's too bad the hotel managers will scare off potential guests just to save costs on shampooing carpets.
I can't always say positive things about the service, either. While the staff are polite, I'd ask them to fix my safety deposit box while I was out and it never happened. I'd have to keep reminding them to supply me with water, a little cumbersome since I really didn't have a direct way of communicating to housekeeping. There was a phone line, but calls weren't answered.
Regarding location, you'd think it's a prime location given its proximity to Ayala Mall. Just be warned that the hotel is positioned between major traffic jams (see the photo). These traffic jams didn't just occur during peak hours, either. Otherwise, the rooms weren't as noisy as it looks.
ผผู้เข้าพักalways looking forward to our stay here. staff is very friendly, so many restaurants to dine to, you can explore your options really well. also the breakfast spread is really good. definitely will be coming back again everytime we will be back in cebu. Thank You!
GGioTAll bookings at Nustar Resort include breakfast and access to the Executive Club Lounge located on the 23rd floor of Fili Hotel.
Mini-Bar is complimentary with a selection of 2 local beers, juices, and sodas. Nespresso machine with 4 capsules. TWG tea. Bottled water is unlimited. I appreciate the fridge being very cold.
Gerlain Paris branded bathroom amenities, as well as bath salts for the large bath.
Afternoon Tea (2:30 pm - 4:30 pm)
Light snacks with a limited selection of savory and sweet bites, they need to improve on this.
Evening cocktails and canapés (5:30 pm - 7:30 pm)
Excellent food buffet. I like the lechon quesadillas, jalapeño cheese poppers, and siomai. I appreciate the bartender crafting cocktails from a menu of drinks.
I understand the hotel is still brand new, but they need to do multiple inspections before releasing the room to guest. Vanity mirror was dusty from construction.
The Butler service was very attentive, many thanks to Ice (Butler) for making my stay pleasant, he would escort me to the pool, and even breakfast buffet at Fili Hotel bypassing the crowd at the entrance.
Breakfast Buffet is at Fili Hotel which is extensive and one of the best in Cebu. The problem is the crowd, while Nustar Butlers will escort Nustar guests to a table, there’s no dedicated tables for Nustar guests, which confuses the restaurant staff with seating assignments. Alternatively, the breakfast buffet at the executive club lounge is quiet but with limited options, they should have an a la carte menu to expand options like other international luxury hotels.
The security at the lobby entrance is wildly inconvenient and inconsistent, every time you enter you need to prove you’re a guest of Nustar and not a guest of Fili or a ****** player. It’s weird that they are sometimes overly strict and many times just ignore people passing by. Guests have a keycard to use elevators what’s the point of the guards that have a list of people’s names and room numbers, if anything that’s a security risk.
The pool service is lacking. Shared between 2 hotels and the upcoming grand summit. The pool area lacks service of a 5-star hotel, towels need to be claimed at a towel hut. My expectation is that there are staff that will setup loungers with towels for guests. And since the pool facility is shared with the muncher large Fili Hotel it can get crowded. Fortunately, Nustar has a private infinity pool which was closed my stay.
Nustar Resort has potential to be Cebu’s most luxurious hotel, they have the hard product with their spacious luxurious rooms, but they need to improve their soft product - the service from the butlers are outstanding and personal, but everyone else seems to be lost. For the asking price of 250-300 usd per night there’s a lot to expect.
Nustar is primed for excellence but falls just short of achieving refined luxury. I’m hoping Nustar partners with Marriott and rebrand under Luxury Collection. Or even Hyatt with Unbound Collection.
TTable_for_3We just returned home from Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan. It was our first time in Cebu. It was a short but great trip.
The highlights:
Accommodations: We chose Crimson because we frequent high-rise hotels when traveling and decided this time we wanted a villa/bungalow type of room. No hallways and no elevators. Crimson checked those boxes. They also accommodated our requests for a king bed and first floor room.
Activities and amenities: Our daughter loved Crimzone and the children’s pool. It was hard to get her to leave. The Saturday foam party was fun and the pool staff were engaging. My wife and I both availed the spa and wow, we can see why they won an award for Best Value in Asia. The price was affordable while the quality of service was top-notch.
Food: The buffet breakfast was good and had a lot of variety. My favorite item was the fruit and veggie smoothies. Who knew bakchoy and mango blend well together? But it was the attentive staff that really made breakfast a great experience. We tried the 24-hour room service and I swear the chicken club sandwich was one of the best I’ve had in my entire life 5/5!
The lowlights:
Here are some reasons why we are not giving Crimson an excellent review.
1. Overpriced/low quality food in Saffron during ala carte dinner. Our first night we arrived in the evening and were hungry. For two people (our daughter is a toddler) we paid over 5000php for an appetizer, 3 entrees, one beer and one bottle of water. Honestly, the price would be ok for this amount of food if the quality was better. I would suggest Aka or Enye for higher quality food although we didn’t try either. Saffron was empty that night and we found out why.
2. Distance to places/sites. Crimson is quite far for shopping or eating at other restaurants. We hired a private car for 3 hours and was only able to visit two sites and one pasalubong store. Luckily it was only moderate traffic on that Saturday. 2500php for a sedan for 3 hours was reasonable.
3. The gift shop is waaaay overpriced. 950php for a small tube of sunblock seemed very high even at a resort. We also wanted some souvenirs, but there wasn’t much variety at all.
4. Our room needed some TLC. The paint in the nice tub was chipping, the caulking in the showers could use a refresh and there was a huge ipis (roach) in the closet. Luckily we spent most of the time outside the room.
5. No floaties or life vests for toddlers to use, even for rental. Despite having almost everything else, this would have been a nice touch.
6. We came to Cebu for mangoes and lechon, but Crimson didn’t offer these items and again, because of distance, it would have been nice to have some at the hotel.
The bottom line:
We enjoyed our stay and would definitely recommend it to others, however we would give them our full review so they are aware of the pros and cons.
Thank you to the wonderful staff that made up for the minor issues we encountered!
JJan MoreThe staff were so nice and accommodating. They truly cared for us when the earthquake happened on the night we were sleeping in our rooms. We used the stairs from the 5th floor post incident fearing for the aftershocks…we all stayed by the under renovation pool to stay away from the building in case it collapsed. The building swayed so much with the 6.9 magnitude..it was scary. The staff were calm and kept us all comfortable despite being scared themselves too. They helped us all moved to the 2nd floor after midnight post safety inspection.