Hotels in Subic are a moveable feast; what is good at one time may not be so next time. Unfortunately most of the hotels in Subic that get reviewed on "tripadvisor" are the "resort hotels" along the beach at Barrio Barretto. The problem is that Barrio Barretto is to some extent a "tourist zone" and that is a phrase that carries a special meaning in Filipino English - it does not mean "family friendly". The single male tourist in search of "rest and relaxation" is often less picky about his hotel room than a family will be. We have just stayed, as a family, in two nice hotels in the Freeport Zone, the Mansion Garden, which is a couple of months old. and the Court Meridien (built as the Courtyard Hotel but had a run in with Hyatt over the name!) The Mansion Garden: http://www.mansiongardenhotel.com/ is new and quite well constructed using expensive materials. The first room we were given had an aircon that would not work; it took almost an hour culminating in my doing my Angry Englishman act to get this sorted and get us moved to another room. The minibars were not stocked but they would turn the fridge on if asked. TV good, wifi very patchy. Very clean. Food (brreakfast) in cafe extremely disappointing. This hotel is clearly aimed at weddings and conventions and can be noisy. Front office staff helpful. A 24 hour convenience store is in the building. Non-smoking and some single rooms have no window< if there is a bar I could not find it; maybe they are still building it. I think that if it gets sorted out this hotel is potentially excellent, subject to the noise issue. Because this hotel was fully booked later in the week we moved to the Court Meridien: http://www.courtmeridian.com/ Nice arrangement of rooms off open passageways with a view over the courtyard which contains some actual grass and a children's swing and climbing frame. This was popular with the youngest member of the party. Rooms were clean, minibars stocked, breakfast was somewhat better. Front of house staff lost a lot of points and generated another Angry Englishman scene by keeping Kay, Kieran, and our niece Crystal, whom we were borrowing for the weekend, waiting in the lobby for almost an hour and not letting them into the room when they arrived back from Quezon City for the weekend. Since they had been told, twice, that Kay and two children would be coming, I insisted that they apologize. which they did with a very bad grace. Good TV and wifi. Both hotels sent laundry out and returned it 24 hours later clean but un-ironed, charging by the kilo. Fwiw, I am told that the Magellan Hotel is "no longer what it was" as the Australian who owns it has left his girlfriend to run it and the consequences are the usual ones, but I did not stay there myself. On the restaurant side of things we ate at Vasco's, near the Magellan and the tanker terminal, which does a good breakfast, at La Tavola, quite acceptable Italian, a goodish Japanese, Sakura, corner Times Square and Sta Rita Road, the always-excellent Texas Joe's Steak House and the phenomenally-expensive-but-almost-European-standard-fine-dining The Castle.
Good info, thanks. Very useful to my upcoming travels. Where is Texas Joe's steakhouse? Is it what once was hollywood steakhouse?
