Originally Posted by
rxziebel
The Hyatt you are staying at is brand new! It is connected to the City of Dreams casino complex, which offers a shuttle to the Mall of Asia which is less than 1 mile away. Of course with traffic that can take up to 1 hour to reach.
The IC is a nice place but older. It is located within walking distance of 2 large malls in Makati.
Taxi's are easy to find and cheap. From IC to Mall of Asia is usually less than 200 pesos ($5) on the meter. From the Hyatt, the shuttle would be best.
Hope that helps a little.
Thanks a lot. We booked the IC while the Hyatt was not able to answer my email.
The Philippines are until now a nightmare.
Terminal 1 of MNL is welcoming like Wladiwostok 1975. The first scam was the money exchange at the PNB The Philippine National Bank at the airport. I changed 100 USD which are appr. 4.400 PHP but received only 3.400 PHP - a loss of 25 %.
The next scam was the fake narcotic investigation officer. Two young guys in uniform written in big letters on their back "narcotic investigator" were walking around with funny small dogs. One of them seemed to be very friendly and was smiling on us. After money changing at the National Bank he was standing at the exit door and smiled again and asked if we need some help. Yes we were looking for a taxi. He was pointing to a woman on the other side of the street and was waving to her. We went to her and she confused us while she wanted to know to which Intercontinental we wanted to drive. In this moment I did not realize that there is only one Intercontinental in Manila. After some talking and some reading of our reservation she said that we are lucky because our IC is nearby. She charged 2.800 PHP and was writing a receipt. The driver dropped us at the IC and of course he forgot to give us the receipt. The hotel told us that a taxi is normally 400 or 500 PHP even the hotel limo would be cheaper.
The drive from the airport is horrible, dirt, shacks and 3rd world conditions I have seen only in Africa.
At the check-in we got an upgrade as valued RA from a deluxe room to club room - with no club access. Club access for RA is 3.000 PHP ++ which is around 80 USD. The first room was on the 6th floor: dark, smelly, dirty spots on the carpet and a real old bath tub. I went back to the reception and the girl found me a junior suite with a tiny bathroom worse then the first room. The vue was horrible. Directly in front of the window were huge, ugly and rusty intake sockets of the building´s ac. Unfortunately I cannot load up pictures here.
Try number 3 - after I contacted the duty manager - is a decent room (1206) they call it a suite but it is just a bigger room with bathroom which is state of the art. Not worth the 170 USD plus 80 USD for the club. Tomorrow we move to the Peninsula.