After our AMAZING dive trip at Moalboal with Asian Belgian Dive Resort (check out our review here!) we spent a night at Solea Mactan Resort to wind down, relax and indulge in a fancy resort for a night before heading back home to reality 😦 Solea Mactan Resort is located near Mactan-Cebu International Airport hence we decided to spend our last night of the trip there. It is a 4-star resort that boasts not 1, 2, 3 or even 4 pools but 6 amazing pools including 2 saltwater pools. This was the main attraction for us and we had lots of fun pool hopping and a wonderful night at the rooftop bar.

1. Transport

The resort is located at the South end of Mactan itself and is pretty inaccessible other than by private transport. As we were transferring from the Asian Belgian Resort (which was rather secluded as well) we book a private transfer that took us right in to the resort. When we were departing, we booked a Grab which is really common in Cebu and much much much cheaper than the private airport transfer offered by the hotel (1000 php or $26 SGD). Not sure why the hotel would charge so much considering it is only a short distance from the airport and the grab only cost us about 300-400 php. We recommend you to take a Grab or a taxi as it is much cheaper and the money would directly go to the people who actually struggle to make ends meet. We ended up giving extra tips to our grab driver who was really nice and friendly (and a mother of 4 btw!) and still managed to save more than half the cost of paying for the hotel airport shuttle. The ride to the airport itself is about 10-12 km but traffic congestion in the city is bad and you will need at least 45 mins to 1 hour to arrive at the airport so do take that into account as well!

2. Food

We arrive at the resort at about 2.30 pm and decided to try out their in-house Earth Restaurant. We ordered the Waves Cordova Pizza (smoked salmon pizza) for 499 PHP and it was so large that two of us could share it and still felt satisfied after. The pizza is a thin crust pizza that is made to order and freshly baked in a giant oven. The crust was crispy and thin just how I like it and the toppings on the pizza were fresh and generous. We paired this with a glass of Mango Shake and it made a perfect mid-afternoon summer meal 🙂

The Earth Restaurant also offered a 1-for-1 buffet dinner for 1,200 php which is a really great value dinner option if you are here. We had plans to have the buffet dinner but we were still really full from the afternoon pizza and decided to skip it and head for the rooftop bar instead! The rooftop bar itself had its own food menu options but also served food from the Earth Restaurant at a slightly higher price. We ended up ordering 2 cocktails, 2 mango shots and some bar food for a very reasonable price. We enjoyed our time at the rooftop bar enjoying the scenery and definitely did not regret skipping the buffet for this!

As we had booked our room without the breakfast, we decided to call in room service as there was no extra charge for in-room dining and we were basically just lazy. We ordered a omelette each and it was HUGE. I guessed they used about 3-4 eggs for a single omelette and we were bursting by the time we were done. The cafe latte we ordered was strong and delicious as well and we were really full and satisfied without having to jostle with the rest of the breakfast crowd.

3. Rooms

The room we stayed in was clean and bright, which makes the stay really pleasant. The beds weren’t too soft (A cause for backache), or too hard. The air-con temperature could be adjusted in case we were too cold, which was often the case.

Although there was a bathtub, it was a little hard to bathe as we had to be a little careful — the water splatters EVERYWHERE. Maybe it would have been better if there was something that prevented the water splashes out of the tub when using the rain-shower. 😦

4. Facilities/Activities

The main attraction at Solea Mactan is definitely the 6 pools for both kids and adults to relax and have fun and it was where we spent most of our time as well. There are floaties (GIANT ones as well) available for rent and lots of space to float around just having fun 🙂

5. Service

Staff members at Solea Mactan were all courteous and polite always having a smile on their faces and we did enjoy our time there. Our requests were always quickly fulfilled and staff members were knowledgeable and willing to help which definitely made our stay really enjoyable!

Our Rating:

Room – 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Food – 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Service – 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Shower power – 2/5 ⭐⭐

Facilities – 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

 

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