ASTORIA CURRENT - blue sky, turquoise water & white beach!

Dear Readers,

As you already know by now, I spent October 2017 traveling around the Philippines, focusing mainly on the islands of Palawan & Boracay. On my previous blog posts, I’ve introduced you some hotels in Palawan.
On this blog, I will tell you about my second visit to Astoria hotels, namely Astoria Current. On my next blog post, I'll introduce you to Astoria Boracay. All Astoria hotels have some common features like lovely, fresh colors in their rooms and amazing, high-quality service. However, since they all have a bit different locations, they also have special features that others don't. Each of these 3 hotels had something I found particularly intriguing. 

Arriving to Caticlan and transfer to Boracay

After we flew from El Nido airport to Caticlan island, Astoria Current’s staff member was waiting for us with a sign right outside the airport’s exit doors, wonderful! No extra waiting time spent, no problem with having plenty of luggage, everything was taken care of.

For your information, it takes quite a while to get from plane to the exit point of the actual airport building as the runways are not right next to the building. Passengers are taken by bus through the village to the actual airport to collect their luggage. If you already have a hotel booked, transportation has been most likely arranged, thus, after you've gotten your luggage, they'll take you to the harbor, wherein they collect your passport details for the coast guard for security reasons. But it is all quite simple, just do what they tell you to do.

So, since we had our hotel’s representative there waiting for us, we got all the formalities sorted very quickly. Then a couple of men carried our (heavy!) luggage to our boat, which, by the way, was very comfortable one as it also had a roof above our heads, whereas so many boats didn’t so you get soaking wet if it rains. Ocean & those waves were quite rough, for which reason I was even happier for having that better boat underneath us. It only took about 5 minutes of boat ride from the island of Caticlan to Boracay island. When we got to the shore, someone from Astoria Current was already there to greet us, we were able to see Astoria Current's transportation van from the far. The transportation process had been made VERY easy for us. Considering of all the steps I guess it could be more complicated but I think it was because of our high-quality hotel that everything was so smooth.

There aren’t that many roads on the island of Boracay so those few main roads are quite busy so even though it’s only couple of km from the port it takes about 10-15 min to get to the hotel, and since I love seeing new areas, I found it to be a positive thing that it took a while to get there, as it gave me better understanding of the island's streets.Astoria Current is located at a back of the main road, which at first seems like a bad location, but it actually is a good thing as you can’t hear the traffic noise to your room, which is a great deal, at least for me.

When we arrived at the hotel, there were a couple of lovely staff members as well as hotel’s front office manager (now I think he is a GM), Butch to greet us along with "Ferdie" (that's how most people called this incredibly kind and caring man). We were offered welcome drinks and lovely shell necklaces. After that, they introduced us hotel’s areas and also we got to meet with the head chef, Chris so that we were able to share our dietary restrictions.

Ferdie & Chris

So far, nothing but positive vibes!

About the hotel in general:

Astoria Current was designed to keep up with the trending style of today’s millennials, Gallego Architects and Interior Designers, Ivy and Cynthia Almario of Aterierl Almario delivered a resort that is appealing to pretty much everyone, in my opinion. It has very fun and playful vibes.

This over 7000 m2 resort is located at Station 3, but still has very quiet feel inside the rooms. However, since the location is in the middle of all the action, it provides hotel’s guests with an opportunity to try out all kinds of water activities. It is quite obvious that it is that one “must do” thing on the island. 

Rooms

Astoria Current has 200+ luxurious, uniquely designed rooms. The style probably closest to avant-garde décor. All of the rooms and suites are fully equipped. They have A/C, cable TV & DVD players, safety deposit box, big enough to fit in your laptop (which I truly appreciate!), minibar, rain shower and complete bath amenities, I specifically enjoyed their complimentary skin & hair care products. Also, all hotel guests were given slippers as complimentary gifts that were waiting in the room - I loved the idea and the fact that complimentary items were actually useful!

So, after all the introductions and formalities, we got guided to our poolside room, which had the perfect location, easy access to the pool; about 5 steps from the door, easy access to the restaurant as well as to the beach. I specifically enjoyed the fact that you can’t hear any traffic noise in your room.

Here are photos of various rooms and room types at the resort:

Our room had great, fresh, bright colors, two large beds, kitchenette (tab, microwave, and a small fridge as well as tea and coffee making facilities). There was maybe slightly less storage space than I anticipated (well, I always travel with too much stuff, I admit), but we managed just fine. 

The bathroom was clean, big enough for our purposes and I appreciated excellent water pressure as with long hair it can sometimes be a problem in some hotels.

This one was from our room

Pool and the Whitebeach

The pool area is quite special, very luxurious with that beautiful 25-meter long pool and sunken sunloungers in it. There are also 8 built-in aqua seats with jet-massage nozzles. WOW! 

Btw, there’s also 40 m2 children’s pool so easy to have fun with kids too.
We both enjoyed our workouts at hotel’s gym. There was a receptionist there who asked your room number and sign your visit to the gym for their records and that was it, so easy.

(Unfortunately, we couldn’t try out the spa due to that cold we caught, after which no gym, no spa, just basically resting...) 

On top of the fact that the pool was quite unique with all these sun loungers etc, we really enjoyed it because there were times we had the entire pool to ourselves, which meant: play time! 

In the evenings, the pool had changing colors and underwater MUSIC, that was so cool!

However, I do have to say that the location of the hotel was probably the best part of it all; it is situated right at the world famous Whitebeach, which really is worth exploring. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. For some reason, the ocean has amazing turquoise colors and shades and the sand is literally white. I could have watched the ocean all day long. Unfortunately, though, the weather gods were not on our side, as it was monsoon season and for about 4 days it was raining heavily so not much joy of the beach area then. 

Sailboats 

Beach after the storm we had one night, it was unreal how much stuff got to the shore!

Restaurants, breakfast, dining, room service

Special mention for Chef Chris. My partner said that the meat dish along with the sauce on our first night was one of the best sauces he’s ever had in his entire life! I’m not that into the meat so I just say it was pretty good. But my partner in crime actually literally drank the sauce on the side, that was left after we ate the food! That for sure tells you something about its taste, right?!

Hotel restaurant a had pretty versatile menu but we only had our dinner at the restaurant maybe once or twice due to the cold we catch, so we ordered food into our room. 

The main restaurant is called Parasol restaurant, it served breakfast, lunch, and dinners. It is very 
open and you can feel that refreshing ocean breeze while sitting there. I have to say that the view from the breakfast area is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a long time. Even now that I watch my photos from this trip I can feel the warmth and the salty, hot air with a sea breeze. It was just fantastic. 

Outside of the main restaurant, there is a Parasol Beach Front restaurant. This entertaining beach lounge has one unique feature that not all hotel bars/lounges have: namely, people sitting here can watch the most incredible sunsets! They serve dinner here along with also selection of fruit juices, smoothies, and shakes. They also have fresh seafood grill right in front of the beach, food doesn’t get much fresher than that!

Inside the hotel area, there is also the Onyx bar lounge, which by the way has some pretty awesome smoothies along with cocktails and that cute ice cream booth.

What's around the hotel?

We needed to get ourselves some meds from the pharmacy, some daily items from the grocery store, an HDMI cable from a computer gear store, and no problem at all, they were all very close, all within 5 min walk. An excellent laundry service is right on the main road, 2 min from the hotel. I warmly recommend all of them, especially the laundry service if you stay longer. It’s super cheap, maybe 2-3 euros sports bag full of clothes! 

On the beach area, there are quite many locals trying to tell you excursions, handcraft etc. but they are not too aggressive about it. If you are not interested, just kindly say so and they’ll leave you alone. However, I truly recommend hiring one of those interesting looking, fantastic local sailboats and take a trip around the island and maybe ask them to take you to nearby Crocodile island wherein, you can also go snorkeling, it’s only maybe 30 min trip there. Prices vary a bit so you might want to compare a couple of them before choosing one. Boats may seem unstable and small but those who are captains of the boats and sailors in them are extremely skilled, and most of them have been doing it ever since a young kid. 

We truly enjoyed our stay at this fantastic hotel. Also, lovely Ms. Joy from the Astoria Palawan hotel came for a visit as she also manages this hotel. She actually took one of the staff members with her to the Palawan island to work there for the Astoria Palawan. I was truly happy to see Joy again and can’t wait for our reunion one day in the future. Astoria hotels really feel like people that work for them are one big happy family. It is so unique to see everyone so happy when working! Even the people, whether they were adults or kids - locals I mean, smiled at you when you met them for example on the beach. This really felt like a happy place and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the way this resort's wonderful managers lead their staff!

Lucky for us, this was not our last destination. We had 6 days left at Astoria Boracay, which is maybe 5 min walk and 15 min drive from the Astoria Current hotel. Astoria Boracay is much smaller and more intimate. Based on our wonderful experiences at Astoria Palawan and Astoria Current, we couldn’t wait for our next stay. 

So, on my next blog, our third and final hotel of this trip, namely Astoria Boracay will be featured.
Thank you for reading. Hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction. Stay tuned, next blog post regarding another Astoria hotel will be posted in January/February. 

Thank you for following and reading my stories. 

Make sure you follow also 
@AstoriaPalawan and 
@AstoriaCurrent on social media!


To check out Astoria hotels’ latest special deals, click here: 


Astoria Palawan's Promos: 
ASTORIA PALAWAN hotel's promos: (click this to open the link)


Astoria Current's Promos: 
ASTORIA CURRENT hotel's promos (click this to open the link)


Wishing you all lovelies
     Prosperous and Happy New Year 2018! 

ASTORIA PALAWAN - Peaceful gem!

Dear Fellow Travelers, 

It is time to introduce you to one of my favorite hotels during my trip, as you know, I spent 4 weeks in October in the Philippines.

My first island destination was Palawan, which totally surprised me, it was much more versatile than I ever anticipated. Also, much bigger and way more challenging as I imagined... Which is a good thing when thinking about the journey afterward but at the moment struggles may feel overwhelming - but always so rewarding once everything is sorted.

Ok, so far our trip had lasted 5 nights (3 in the city of Puerto Princesa and the weekend in Sabang). Again, we were driving around the island (well, if you can say that as there's is only one main road and some side roads) with our gigantic rental car, SUV 4x4 Mitsubishi Montero Sport. We decided that this trip will be more of a spontaneous journey rather than having it all well organized and all prebooked kind of trip.

After the weekend in Saban and returning thereof we got back to the main road, we again got our internet connection back, YAY, and since we had no place to stay the following night and not hoping to drive all the way to Port Barton that night, it was time to start browsing again. I soon found out that there aren't actually that many hotels with good quality after the Puerto Princesa that would be reasonably priced. Problem? No, just a challenge to be overcome.

Besides, I've always been a strong believer in things happening exactly the way they are supposed to happen, therefore, I felt confident that something will come up. All of a sudden, I see this beautiful hotel on the internet, called Astoria Palawan.

This was a 4 star hotel, part of Astoria Hotels and Resorts. Its former guests had written some amazing reviews so all good so far. ...checking out Google Maps I realized that it's only 8 km away. However, we had already learned that not everything is what it seems to be. Therefore we decided to check out the hotel first before booking anything.

Right before we turned to the hotel premises we noticed that there's also a waterpark in the area. This has to be a sign, this might be the one.
It is always such a relief to find a place to stay (that meets my standards I mean, of course, you can find hotels but I prefer hotels with a bit higher quality).

You couldn't just drive into the hotel area. There were gates and security personnel that checked you and the car out before you could enter, which was assuring, operations here are well organized - always a positive sign.
They let us through and there we were, blocking half of the front of the hotel with our huge car and we weren't even guests yet. However, by the looks of the patio of the reception area, it was quite promising, we got our hopes up quite quickly. Also, the actual reception lobby area was really nice and I absolutely loved the white-blue colors, after all those are Finland's colors too!

I walked up to the reception area and explained that we would like to check out few room types before making the decision and also wanted to hear their prices for their rooms as depending on the hotel, in comparison to OTAs' (Online Travel Agencies) charge they can be heaps better or worse.

We checked out a couple of room types with one of the receptionists and got back to the reception area. We really had good, positive vibes and felt like this really could be the place for us as we were looking for a clean, high quality, peaceful resort and this certainly met our expectations.

While we were chatting with the staff, this lovely, smiling lady comes from the back office to the front desk to greet us, and turned out that she was the hotel's General Manager, Ms. Joy Suarez.

Yes, her name was Joy and she really was that. She must be the most positive person I've ever met. So genuine and kind, and even though she was in a manager position, everyone seemed to love and respect her. I wish I could work with or for someone like her one day. Positive, supportive management is one of the key components to success.
She really brought joy to every day and every time I met her, I was filled with joy! Such a lovely person, I truly hope I meet her again when I - hopefully - return to the Philippines one day.

I introduced myself to Joy, told her about me being a travel blogger and an avid traveler and after some chatting, we ended up having an opportunity to stay in their One Bedroom Suite by the beach, which in my opinion had the best location, which I was naturally very grateful for.

While we took care of all the check-in proceedings, we were offered welcome drinks as well as lovely gifts; hats, Astoria Palawan beach bag and handheld weaved fan, which I particularly enjoyed in the heat and humidity of the Philippines' monsoon season.

We were told that the beach is under some nourishment at the moment but it didn't bother us at all. Registered guests get one-time access to the waterpark next to the resort, but we actually didn't even go there, don't even know why, I guess time just flew anyways in this lovely place.

Our stay was so pleasant that we ended up staying 3 nights instead of just one!

You may find out more about this lovely hotel here:
ASTORIA PALAWAN WEBSITE - click this to open


ABOUT THE HOTEL

Astoria Palawan is located on a 5-hectare mango orchard. 

Nature plays an important role all over the resort and as an eco-friendly resort, they have also modern Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) to recycle the wastewater, which I personally appreciate, knowing how some resorts really don’t care about the environment at all. Also, while building the resort green, sustainable building materials, practices and methods were implemented.

The style of the hotel is rustic in a way as wood combined with concrete has been used a lot, on the other hand, its design is very colorful, which makes it all look fresh and clean. Stones found in the area have been used also as a building material, which creates a very natural feel. I specifically loved the bathroom floor, I’ve never seen anything like that (And hey, I’ve visited over 260 hotels around the world!) - stones in the concrete but not leveled, stones were above the concrete, so that when you walk there you can feel each little round stone underneath your feet!

Astoria Palawan is part of AVLCI – Astoria Vacation and Leisure Club Inc. leading holiday ownership in the Philippines. If you are interested in finding out more about this, click here:

Information about the AVLCI (click here to open the link)


ROOMS

Astoria Palawan has 40 luxurious rooms. Their studio rooms are 38 m2, our 1 bedroom suite is 56 m2 and their 2 bedroom suites are 91 m2.

All of their rooms have either king size beds or two queen size beds. Suites have separate living and dining areas and of course all the modern conveniences, such as A/C, LCD tv, DVD player, internet access, kitchenette, complimentary coffee & tea making facilities.

Further, in our 1 bedroom suite had also microwave oven, induction stove, refrigerator. Of course there was also a bathroom, which was beautiful by the way! It had separate toilet nook, shower nook and bathtub as well as his and hers sinks.

I truly enjoyed our room, it was fresh, colorful, clean, spacious, it had its own kitchen, which I always appreciate due to my many food allergies. Also, the beds were excellent quality. We shared the patio outside with the other suite in the same building but we didn’t mind at all, you don’t really even think about that while there. Also, it was pretty calming to see the ocean when just chilling on the couch. 

BREAKFAST
Breakfast was served in the main restaurant, which provides Al fresco dining and indoor dining.

The buffet-style breakfast was quite good based on what I saw there and I'm pretty sure if there isn't something you want, it can be arranged. I didn't get anything from the buffet though as I got my very own breakfast serving, specifically prepared to meet my needs in terms of food intolerances etc.
I have to say I was particularly happy and impressed by the fact that my breakfast was exactly the way I wanted it to be every single morning. We even chose to sit in this same table everytime as you know me, if there is an ocean view table, that's mine!

I wanted egg white omelet, plain yogurt, some crispy bacon, fresh fruits and got them, delivered to my table every day, I didn’t even need to ask, also a pot of hot water was always brought to me without having to ask for it as I told them that I drink many cups of tea every morning. This may sound like a small deal but for me, who stays at hotels a lot, having a breakfast just like I wanted it is a big deal. I always say that one of the main things guests appreciate is effortless stay and that is exactly what it was over here.

The entire staff was always very attentive, always smiling and not once did we feel like something was missing. If there was something we needed, it was delivered to us within minutes from asking for it.

The resort itself is quite intimate, the area isn’t that big and you learn to recognize the staff members serving you. I like that, it gives you a boutique hotel type of feeling.


ACTIVITIES:

When traveling I prefer hotels that can provide activities to their guests, even on a rainy day. Lucky for us though, it didn’t rain that much while we were there. We like to play pool/billiards so it was such a pleasant surprise to find out that they have a specific games room in one of their maintenance buildings. The room itself I think requires a bit attention, there's really nothing else there other than pool tables; it's got white walls, big windows and that’s it, but it was fine being just a room for the games. However, since the climate is quite humid, I’d set up some type of A/C instead of just a fan,  as the room gets a bit hot after few rounds. …or maybe it was just me as I lost every single round…

(Unfortunately, I just realized that I don't have a photo of the pool table!)

On the beach, you can go kayaking and paddle boarding, although might be best to do that when it's high tide until the beach nourishment process is done. After that, I'm sure, the beach is going to be spectacular, I hope I get to try it out one day!

There is a small golf course (not miniature golf though) green there, and since we are both quite competitive, we naturally had to had to try that one too. I loved the fact that the surroundings were so lush and green. 

We met with a local fellow after our little golf tournament. We were just wandering around and admiring all that impressive flora and all of a sudden I noticed the biggest grasshopper I've ever seen. It was way bigger than my index finger. It just kept chewing those leafs while we photographed it. I managed to even film its long jump to get away from us when it finally spotted us sneaking behind it. 

There was also children's playground next to the golfing area, I'd say quite conveniently located, maybe part of the family can play some golf when the younger ones are having their own fun.

The 39 m infinity pool area is just fantastic. I spent one entire day just swimming, floating and relaxing there. Very clean, well taken care of and easy to access. It also had beautiful view as it’s right next to the beach. 

Pool area is at guests' disposal from 6 am until 10 pm.

There was also very well equipped gym there. 

(Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, taken with another phone, not mine.)

They also had a nice little spa in the resort, very quiet though, maybe it needs more advertising so that guests realize it’s there. We realized it on our last night, I didn’t have time to try it but my partner in crime did and he loved his treatment there. 

You can also book various island and ocean-related excursions via front desk so life certainly won't get boring here!

Joyful Joy also offered us a boat trip together with another couple to the nearby sand reef but since that would’ve been our first morning we simply had to skip it as we woke up the minute we were supposed to be going already. It did rain quite a bit later that morning so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

One more thing; I have to say kudos to room service here. I tried in-room dining and everything was always spot on, which is not self-explanatory in every hotel. I can see this hotel aiming to the 5th star in the future. 

Our days in the beautiful resort were over sooner than we realized. It was time to check-out and head to towards new adventures. When we headed to our car we noticed that there were wonderful welcoming ceremonies taking place as there was a big summit about to begin in the resort. 

It was easy to tell that in this place everyone participates and does one's best in order to make guests happy to stay and sad to leave.

I want to thank you, Joy and your wonderful staff from the bottom of my heart. After staying at this lovely resort and getting wonderful recommendations for the rest of our time in the Philippines, I ended up co-operating with two other Astoria hotels as well. I will tell you all about them later, probably in January as the rest of the year is very busy travel season in Lapland.

If you ever feel like you'd be interested in staying at this lovely mangrove surrounded resort, make sure you say Hi to Joy for me. I'm sure you get some nice special attention if you stay as a guest in Astoria Palawan based on my recommendation.

Thank you, everyone for reading my introduction.
I also want to apologize for not presenting any meals. Unfortunately, #TRLT chat's FB group (click to open the link)our camera suffered some damage and our food photos were ruined. Not to worry though, there will be plenty of delicious Astoria hotels' dishes in my next blog when introduction Boracay's hotels!

Wishing you all very blessed holiday seasons and happy days!

Let's keep traveling, sharing our experiences and supporting each other.

Let's be kind and considerate of each other, the world is a much better place with kind people in it.

Take care!

Love,
Mia

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


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