Stumbled out of bed and into a waiting car and made our way to BKK. No traffic at that time, so it took somewhere around 30 minutes or so. Check-in was empty, as was security.
Made my way over to the Royal Silk Lounge. They had a few bites on offer and overall is was a pleasant place to wait for a few before my flight.
After lounging around for a bit, made my way over to Gate D7, where a Thai 777-200 was waiting to take us to Manila.
Two jet bridges are always nice and appreciated.
First impressions were wow, this is quite dated but wow, what a surprising amount of room to move around in this cabin. This may be my first 777-200 experience and I found it to be extremely wide and roomy. The seats are comfortable for a quick two hour hop to Manila and Thai service was warm and welcoming.
Landed in Manila and had one more night at the Shangri-La. We checked out and headed two hours south to a two night stay at the
Farm at San Benito, a wellness resort and spa in Batangas.
Mixed feelings on this place. The location, setting, and hard product are really beautiful and done well. Wide open spaces with beautiful landscaping abound, along with a random peacock hanging around. Service is decent, but not too friendly and not really prompt at all. Check-in was a complete mess and had us waiting for over an hour after they reported our room as not ready. We were literally sitting in front of them for an hour and after asking them if our room was ready, they said "yes, it's been ready, we were looking for you but could not find you"...uhh, what?
Food is all vegan and well, I just don't get the vegan palate. It was pretty bad. We left the resort for lunch as we were all in need of some sustenance.
We stayed in pool villa 36. Beautiful room and setting. Perfect place to unwind and relax. It's a jungle setting, with a river running below the room, providing a soothing sound.
I'm glad we stayed, but it would not be a place that I would go back to. The food borders on inedible and the staff/service were not enthusiastic at all, almost to the point of dismissive. We checked out and made our way back to Manila, where we headed to the brand new Grand Hyatt Manila. What a world of a difference in terms of staff and service from The Farm.