Evangeline Beach Resort ( Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte ) – REVIEW

Evangeline’s Beach Resort is the main highlight of our trip up north.  Glenn Tolentino (our tour organizer) booked us for an overnight stay in this wonderful resort.  It is located at the famous Saud beach in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte.

On the outside, Evangeline Resort seems pretty plain and ordinary but once you get to the resort’s main area, you will feel like staying in a high end beach hotel.

We were lodged at the beautiful Villa Ana, which was very quaint, homey and has a very relaxing ambiance.  It is the only Villa inside the resort that has it’s own swimming pool.

Villa Ana

Our room was at the second floor of the Villa, when we first entered the room, I was awed by the interior design of the room. It was very spacious, beautifully adorned with quality fixtures and furnishings, very much tropical ambiance indeed.  We even have our own relaxing veranda with a view of the swimming pool.

our spacious room

our bed

inside the room

our mini veranda

the view from our veranda

I was also surprised to find that the en suite bathroom was huge and spotlessly clean…a rarity in budget hotels.

the en suite bathroom

The room we occupied has aircon, personal refrigerator, cable tv, free WIFI connection, electric fan, telephone, and a small writing desk.

The exterior and pool area of the Villa is also beautifully designed.  The pool was adequately sized and very inviting.

entrance to the pool area

Villa’s exterior

The resort is also well-know for its restaurant called “Emohruo Beach Restobar” because of their unique and sumptuous menu line up.  In fact, it is the only full-packed restaurant in the whole shoreline of Saud Beach that other high-end resort’s restaurants like Apo Idon looked deserted and forlorn.

“Emohruo” means Our Home

They have a wide array of menu both local and international cuisine.  Although you have to be very patient at times when the restaurant is fully packed as the orders are freshly cooked.  The overnight stay also comes with a free breakfast, with really great choices and not the typical “SILOG” meals.

The Verdict

I definitely recommend staying here are Evangeline’s Beach Resort.  The resort provides premium accommodations, with value rooms that are light on the budget but heavy on comfort.  The service is truly excellent, they really make you feel at home and all the staff are very attentive to the needs of their guests.

Contact Details:

Evangeline Beach Resort

Saud Cove, Burayoc Point, 2919 Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte Philippines

Land Line: (+63)77 655 5862 (for receiving calls use only)

Smart Mobile Number: (+63)908 863 7564 (for receiving calls and text use only)

Globe Mobile Number: (+63)927 411 6284 (for receiving calls use only)

Suncell Mobile Number: (+63)923 205 7445 (for receiving calls use only)

E-mail: info@evangelinebeachresort.net

 

Review : UKL Ever Hotel (Laoag City)

Part of the Ilocos Tour Package I got from Mr. Glenn Tolentino is an overnight stay at UKL Ever Hotel in Laoag City.

UKL Hotel is a low budget hotel which has a very strategic location in the heart of Laoag City.  It is located near SM Savemore and just a few meters walk from the Sinking Bell Tower.

photo above taken from michiphotostory.com

The hotel is a five-storey building without elevators, so it would be quite a strain for those occupying the upper floors going up and down those flight of stairs.

UKL at night

They have a very small lobby area which could make you feel a little bit cramped especially when there are a lot of guests staying in the lobby.

UKL Lobby

the stairway

Some plus points of this low cost hotel is its free WIFI connection, airconditioned rooms, hot and cold showers, cable LCD tv, 24-hour security, and it also has its own small restaurant on the second floor (which looks more like a pantry to me because of the limited space).

We stayed in Room 411 which was a door away from the fire exit.  The room was spacious but very basic.  We had 2 double beds, a cable tv, aircon, telephone and private toilet and bath with hot and cold shower.

our beds

lcd cable tv

THE VERDICT:

Although the hotel was quite new and there is free WIFI, there were things I did not like.  First, was the toilet and bathroom in our room was kind of flooded as there were accumulated water near the door which made me quite uncomfortable when I entered it.  It did not help also that there was only one (1)  foot rug (which was wet) outside the bathroom door at the time when we first entered our room.  Aside from that, when I was about to lie down on the bed, I noticed stain marks in the bed sheets (the sheets were color white so it was easily noticeable).  I tried to smell the sheets, it smelled freshly washed but the stain marks made them look like it was used and not changed at all.  I even heard the same comment from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were staying in the other rooms.

I don’t usually get bothered staying at low-budgeted hotels as long as they looked and smelled clean to me.  But somehow, staying at UKL Hotel made me somewhat feel uncomfortable.  It was good that we only got to stay for one night.

Another thing I also didn’t like was the incident with the breakfast.  The room accommodation includes a free breakfast (which was a plus factor); they asked us the night before to order in advance the type of breakfast we wanted for the next morning.  When morning came the next day, they told us that breakfast will be served in the restaurant at the 2nd floor.  When we got there, we were disappointed to see a tiny room with few tables which were already occupied by a large group of guests and there were no more available tables for us to use.  We had to wait for a few minutes to allow the other guests to finish their meals before we finally got to have ourselves a table.  And when a staff came to ask us our room numbers to know our advance orders the night before, they told us they lost our orders and we had order again.  We ended up having  to wait a little longer for our breakfast to be served.  It was such a hassle since we wanted to check out early so we could start our tour earlier to be able to cover more places. In the end, we started our tour an hour later than our scheduled itinerary because of the incident.

To conclude, UKL Ever Hotel is a mediocre hotel, which is only good if you plan to stay for only one night.  The experience would have been better if the quality of service and facilities will be improved.