La Salangane Caalan Beach Villa

STAY AWAY from this place!! We arrived on January 1st after booking and fully paying for 2 rooms back in November, only to be told they had just 1 room available. The owner was by far the rudest person we encountered during our entire trip. Her solution to their mistake? She suggested that we can sleep on the floor - imagine on the very first day of the year. To make matters worse, when we arrived at around 8:00 p.m., there was already another guest inside our room. Due to yet another error on their side, we had to wait while she packed her belongings just so we could even see the room. Getting there was a disaster in itself. The hotel is not accessible at night because of the tides, so we were forced to walk 20 minutes with all our suitcases through the water. Everything got wet, we were exhausted, and after all that effort, we still didn’t even have the rooms we had paid for months in advance. As two couples, we insisted they find a second room for us somewhere in the town. Availability in El Nido was extremely limited, and when they finally managed to find another place, we were forced to pay for the room again, plus cover transportation costs ourselves. A complete disaster from start to finish. This experience caused enormous stress and ruined what should have been a special start to the year. I would strongly recommend booking elsewhere!

The only positive aspect of this place is its beachfront location. When we arrived at the town square, the host arranged a tuk-tuk for us. Upon arrival, we were told we had to pay for it ourselves. We later learned that many other accommodations in the area provide complimentary transfers to and from the town square for check-in and check-out. We had booked a four-night stay. First night: Acceptable, but the room had an old, very noisy air conditioner with no remote, and the shower pressure was extremely weak—almost a trickle. Second night: The electricity was disconnected. Every surrounding property immediately switched to generators and had power. This property did not. Staff worked until midnight trying to start their generator but were unsuccessful. We had no air conditioning, no fan, no lights, no way to charge our phones, no hot water, and no ability to boil water for tea or coffee. The room was pitch black, hot, and full of mosquitoes. We tolerated it, assuming the issue would be resolved the next day. Third night: Still no electricity. I messaged the host to complain, but we were again expected to stay the night in the same conditions. Fourth night: After raising the issue more firmly, we were finally moved to Reef Strand Hotel, just two minutes away. I wish we had booked there from the start. Spending three out of four nights without electricity in a paid accommodation is unacceptable. It felt as though the property was unprepared to operate properly during outages and expected guests to tolerate conditions that fall well below basic standards. I would not recommend staying here.

There are so many negatives I could say. But I will briefly describe my experience with the hotel I booked for 2 nights on New Year's Eve: 1) We were greeted and put in a different room than the one we booked. 2) While we booked 2 rooms, they had 1 available and as an excuse they told us that they had already sent us a message about the issue while I had not received anything like that. 3) In this other room the drawers were crooked and broken, it was old and the ceiling was dripping water. 4) As if all this was not enough the owner forced us to pay extra money to stay in another hotel. No trace of professionalism and organization in this hotel. I do not recommend it at all!