Thunderbird Resorts - Rizal

Beautiful hotel in Rizal. Clean and friendly staff. Breakfast gets delivered to your door. The hot water is extremely hot. The resort has a beautiful view.

早餐什麼都沒有

Terrible experience is too understatement here. Check in is 2pm we waited for four hours and the room is still not yet available. Waiting hall, walang aircon or electricfan man lang, walang tubig, dugyot yung nga staffs tsaka yung place tsaka mga bastos at bobo yung staffs, di marunong sumagot ng maayos. Wag na wag kayong pupunta dito siguradong mag sisisi kayo.

Receptionist was very unfriendly and acted as if she was doing us a favour by speaking to us - couldn’t care less. This is the opposite to my other experiences in the Philippines. The room was nice but the view was the casino end wall - horrible. Breakfast was very poor - in room on bed (only 1 chair in room) or in the casino. Very limited choice for breakfast like bacon or corned beef with rice or toast (not both). Coffee was very poor and you could only have coffee OR fruit juice, not both Checked Olives restaurant for dinner - nobody in the restaurant except staff. Meals were very expensive - so we left and ordered a meal from room service. In the room only 2 coffee sachets for 2 people. No hand towels and very few TV channels. Casino looks old and tired. The food available was the same as the room service menu which was quite limited. Resort is mostly run down and closed for maintenance. The only pool available closes at 6pm!! The other one is empty with tarp sheeting around it, which looks like it has been there for a long time with no work being done. No info on shuttle bus departure point so we missed the bus and security couldn’t help us. He phoned reception and they told him that there was no 6pm bus - but I think it left from the Casino! The return from SM Angono was advertised on the leaflet to be at 8.30pm but my partner phoned to check and it was actually going to leave at 8pm. So we would have missed it and the next one was at 10pm. Why is it advertised on the sheet (in extremely small print, like size 6) at the wrong time? I am sure it was probably a great resort years ago - now, it is maybe ok as a Bed and Breakfast room, if you are not looking for a room with a view or a decent breakfast. We came from Scotland and stayed here on a recommendation from a local from Angono who uses the Golf Course nearby. We have updated him on our experience so that he will not recommend it again. It must be difficult to update and maintain such a large complex. However, if you don’t give a good experience to the few guests that you have then the business will not grow to allow for further improvements. Customer service needs a total review and retraining required. Views can be improved with gardens and the horrible walls could have murals on them to take away the look of a run down building. The resort has great potential- but management and staff need to care and they need to make guests feel special during their stay - not an inconvenience. We went to speak to a receptionist at 6pm after missing the shuttle but there was nobody on duty - they were on a break somewhere?? I feel the company needs to decide what to focus on for their business. Is it the rundown casino, good golf course or resort complex (accommodation, restaurant and pool). I will not return unless all these things change.

Our stay started poorly and got worse. Resort provides bare minimum guest services in the cheapest manner possible. When I made my booking I asked for a quiet room away from the pool. The first room they assigned was at the corner of the property next to an intersection. Three poorly muffled motorcycles passed by within 8 meters of our balcony within 5 minutes of arrival. I asked to be moved to a different room. After repeated calls, a new room was assigned. The new room was marginally clean and poorly maintained. The sliding glass door onto the balcony was rusted shut, the toilet seat was loose on one side. One, repeat one small roll of toilet paper was provided. When I called housekeeping - no answer. (No answer at Front Desk throughout our stay - was able to get through only by calling in from an outside line.) Was awakened twice the next morning. At six a.m. the guest upstairs started dragging furniture around. This happened each morning during our stay. At about 8 a.m., I was again awakened by very loud music from the pool area. A large speaker had been set up at one end of the pool and pop music was blaring out - insonifying three housing buildings. Apparently no one considered that people might be sleeping late. I recommend that this practice be stopped immediately. The music that appeals to hotel staff is not appropriate for a family resort. Music should be appropriate and at a moderate volume starting not earlier than 10 a.m. (Installation of fixed volume speakers around the pool would be ideal.) The Olives Restaurant is part of the resort complex. Food there is very expensive and of poor quality. Breakfast was included in our room rate, so we went to Olives the first morning of our stay. We found a buffet with steam tables full of old, picked over and very low quality food. (The whole food presentation was messy and looked dirty - no member of staff was to be seen.) We returned to Olives later in the day and found that the regular menu items were expensive and almost inedible. I ordered spaghetti with meat sauce that was the worst I've ever had in the Philippines. The pasta was way overcooked, the sauce was greatly over salted and tasteless. Place setting included one paper tissue. High prices and cost cutting seemed to be the overriding goals of Olives. One other issue with Olives was inappropriate music playing at deafening volume. The resort charges a "corkage fee" for food ordered from outside the complex. Pay it! In summary, this place is expensive and poorly managed. The only staff available to talk to are young and inexperienced. No one appears to be supervising what is happening around the property. All guest services appear to consider cost before service. I won't be returning.

All the staff were courteous. The room I got at the villa was spacious & very comfortable. Loved the huge pool. The breakfast buffet was excellent but it would be nice to have a couple more dishes to choose.