Hotel Review: Oakwood Premier Joy-Nostalg Hotel - Manila, Philippines

On our visit to the Philippines in November 2015 we had the pleasure of staying at the Oakwood Premier Joy-Nostalg Center Hotel in Manila, which boasts a Traveller's Choice Award from TripAdvisor, and is the #2 top-rated hotel in the Pasig District.



Something that was a bit of a culture shock for me while visiting the Philippines was seeing security guards in front of the hotels, restaurants, and almost every establishment we visited! However I was told that it's quite normal for there to be security guards in most places, and in my experience they were always kind and helpful people who greet you when you approach.

Studio Executive room layout

This hotel offers rooms which are considered residences, and are as big as a condominium suite (well, the smaller ones anyway). Basically, if you're staying in the Philippines for an extended stay, this hotel gives you all the comforts of home that you'd be missing. We booked the Studio Executive room, which is the smallest room offered but felt like the biggest hotel room you've set foot in.

This is the view from the front door, which walks straight into the kitchen, followed by the living room and bed.

There kitchen is fully stocked with cutlery, dishes, pots and pans, and anything you need to cook. There's a full-sized fridge, a glass top stove, and even a dishwasher!

There's plenty of room around your bed and sitting area to relax.

Beside your tv there's a small den with a writing desk, and my favourite addition of this suite - a washing machine!

Since we were visiting 7 countries in our trip, we specifically packed our clothing so that we would be able to wash our clothes once a week, which I usually do by hand. However, since we found this hotel, we decided to save some energy and see what having our own washer would be like!

Interestingly, it's a Samsung branded dual washer-dryer with Arabic translation for some reason. It's quite small so you could only do a few articles of clothing at a time, and we quickly realized that if you pack it too full, the clothes will come out of the dry cycle quite damp. Nevertheless, I was very happy to have this machine at my disposal and have a suitcase full of clean clothes for the next stop on our trip - Japan.

This picture doesn't do the hallway leading to the bathroom quite justice, but there's a huge closet with mirrored doors, as well as a small closet with shelves opposite.

The bathroom was massive and cavernous. There was a tv in there, and also controls for the standing shower which could turn into a sauna with steam if you so wish.

There's a wooden bench in the standing-shower for sauna-ing.

If you've paid for the breakfast buffet, you'll be greeted by friendly staff in the morning with your name and room number taken, then offered tea or coffee at your table. Later on there was a bit of a blunder when we were approached by staff and informed that we only paid for one person for breakfast in our booking, not two. But after a quick explanation, they acknowledged the mistake and they quickly corrected the situation.

This buffet had every breakfast item you could imagine, but unfortunately no halal meat items. So we settled with a couple veggie items, breads, and eggs, which was still great.

Location

17 ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City 1600,
Philippines



One of the other pros of this hotel is it's location: It's a 5 minute walk from the SM Megamall, the most popular mall in Manila which is quite massive, and which recently launched a Halal Guys spot in their food court!



We had a great stay at the Premier Oakwood and were grateful to have experienced what it was like to stay at a top-rated hotel at a reasonable cost. If you ever have the chance, definitely try staying at this hotel or other Premier Oakwood locations worldwide!

-Maryam

___________________

Oh no! You've reached the end of the article!

No worries, check out more posts from our World Trip here.

Or be sure to Like our Facebook page to stay on top of travel tips and flight deals!