When you are visiting a relatively dangerous city such as Manila, it is important to find a safe haven in a city that can be very unforgiving for the uninitiated.
The Swagman Hotel in Ermita gets thumbs up for one main reason.
It is a place of safe refuge for the Western traveler who doesn’t mind paying a bit extra for the services that The Swagman Hotel provides.
When I visited Manila the first time, I was advised by those who went before me to book a room at The Swagman Hotel and to use all their transport services.
Not wishing to have my vacation spoiled by unfortunate incidents that could have been avoided, I decided to heed the advice of experienced travelers.
The rooms at The Swagman are really quite poor compared to other hotels in the same area.
To be honest, I only stayed there once and soon found better places to stay.
The Swagman Hotel does have some other favorable aspects to it and these draw me back to as a regular stop.
They have a great coffee shop called The Outback Café and this Australian themed coffee shop has pretty good food although it is expensive by Philippine Standards.
The Philippines is not famous for their great food, so it is comforting to be able to order meals similar to what you would get at home.
The Swagman also offers their bus service to the airport, and for an expensive price, you can even arrange to have them pick you up from the airport on your arrival.
Taxi drivers in Manila can be aggressive and often take advantage of inexperienced tourists so my advice is to take advantage of their bus service and avoid the pitfalls of dealing with tax drivers.
Fly The Bus is a private bus line that has a base in The Swagman Hotel. The buses ferry visitors to the popular city of Angeles three times a day, and while you can elect to take public transport for less than half the price, the relative comfort and safety of Fly The Bus makes it worthwhile, especially if you have bulky luggage with you.
They provide free and reliable WIFI at their coffee shop.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
then skip manila...why visit, if it's very dangerous, no good services, food, transport...etc. etc.... no problem, all you have to do is stay away
Who wants to stay away?
I like the place. What's life without a small amount of risk?
We stayed at Swagman Hotel for a night and we dont have a good stay in this hotel. I've been in many hotels but this Swagman Hotel is the worst hotel i've ever been. They dont check the room I guess before they let to check in us. We expect that everything is clean and fix before we check in. They dont fix the lavatory and the worst thing there is they dont change the beddings of the room where we stay. At about 2am I made a call and I asked them to change our beddings because we were not able to sleep and we keep scratching and she said she will change it later.. huh! Anyway she change it right away because I've been complaining in the phone. We stayed there for a night only. In the morning before we check out I was disappointed when we checked the first beddings we used a very dirty beddings no wonder we keep scratching and cant sleep. Well we pay right and expect for a right and a good service. Better not to stay in this hotel
Post a Comment