Planning for the trip for Coron, we were looking for a decent place to stay. The problem we had is that most of the places that are written about in blogs are lodges. Excuse me for sounding snooty – but for vacations – I want to stay in a hotel so I can have all the comfort that a hotel brings. Lucky for us, in one travel magazine, we stumbled upon an advertisement of Coron Gateway Hotel. It’s new and reviews that we found in a couple of travel blogs were fairly positive. Moreover, we did find the price attractive: 11,000 Pesos (around 200 USD) for a 5 day four night stay inclusive of all meals, airport transfers and a tour of Coron Island and other local Coron town sites.
The hotel was our home for five days – and my verdict: it seems to be the best that the Coron town can offer. The resorts and hotel which are better are located in Islands or away from the town. However, service and the location has a lot to be desired.
Here is a picture of the room that we stayed in:
It actually has the same design as a hotel we used in our last Bangkok trip. There are auxiliary windows from the bath which one can open to have a more spacious view of the room.
The view from the deck is also wonderful. It actually stands on reclaimed land and they made sure that you get an awesome view of the Islands at Coron Bay.
The hotel staff, including the resident manager are all polite and helpful. However, it seems like if you leave a reminder ( example wake-up call ) at the front desk, they don’t seem to act on it. Good Customer Service is unfortunately one of those that are missing in the hotel as well as the other establishments in Coron. Coron Gateway Hotel is already one of the establishments we’ve been in with better service. The House of Queens actually have to remind itself that we are on vacation and we should clear our minds of negative thoughts. We were generally successful in that – but we do hope that it improves for our next visit.
The hotel also comes with a restaurant. Food is fair – but we actually thought that we can’t eat squid for every meal. On our second night at the hotel, we were going to be served our fourth squid dish and we opted out. We ordered a different dish and the restaurant actually did not charge us for it recognizing that we weren’t too happy with the regular squid dish.
Pictured above are a couple of squid dishes we were served.
One last word of warning. When we read the review of the hotel, we were fully aware that the hotel is close to the town market. What we did not realize is that the market is actually located behind the hotel. This means that if your room is located at that side of the hotel, you can expect the usual WET MARKET smell when the veranda doors are open. Another peculiarity is being awakened by squeals of pigs in the morning while they were being brought to to the slaughter house.
At the beginning of this post, I did mention that when we were searching for a place to stay for our Coron trip, Coron Gateway Hotel was the best choice. We have seen the lodges and the other hotels – and for the size of its room and the amenities it came with, I still think that it is the hotel of choice within town. I just hope that what we were told about the public market being relocated does come true. Otherwise – it will definitely be a hard sell for tourists to book a hotel next to the public market.
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