I reviewed Marand Resort & Spa in La Union, on Luzon Island, so you can decide if it is worth it.
To find this place, type "Marand Resort and Spa, La Union, Luzon" into Google Maps.
The price as a walk-in guest is 3000 PHP per night. I just checked on Agoda, and they were also priced around the 3000 PHP mark.
The rooms were clean enough.
The room has a safe and a fridge but no water boiler.
Their internet was usually pretty good.
Their TV is a bit small, but it is OK. They had a good selection of TV channels. There is no Netflix, but you can use a USB stick if you have downloaded movies and TV shows.
The bed was good.
The shower has hot water and decent water pressure.
The staff is usually friendly. They do not comprehend the danger of their swimming pool (more about that longer down), and I once had a bad fall where the staff on-site just laughed. I damaged myself badly and was obviously in trouble, so I cannot brag too much about them.
Housekeeping keeps the room clean enough—room service per request.
It is supposed to be a breakfast buffet, but if fewer rooms than 30 are rented, you only get a set menu. I know it was over that limit for one of the nights we were there, but we still got a fixed menu for breakfast.
They have on-site parking for cars, swimming pools with slides, a small restaurant, and a bar.
You need a vehicle to go to a 7-11 or to restaurants.
Jessa and I will never return to this place for two main reasons:
1: The swimming pool is a dangerous, bacteria-infected area that should have been closed immediately. Half of the people do not shower before they enter the pool. At least 25% of the people in the pool wear cotton clothes. Top that up with the fact that the pool is full of people; it is a dangerous area to avoid at all costs, something Liam and I found out the hard way. Liam had a sore throat and diarrhea for over a week. I had for a few days longer than him. It is doubtful we got that somewhere else, as it happened the day after we had been in there before we spotted how nasty it was and stopped using their pool. Also, this is precisely the kind of sick a bad pool will make you.
I wonder why the owner of the resort let this happen. At some point, someone can be dangerously sick from this. Also, the cotton fabric inside of a pool will slowly clog it and make a demand for a very costly repair.
I also question the amount of chlorine in the water. It seems like they use very little compared to other pools.
2: The poolside puroks are for rent, so if they are all rented by locals (and they always were), there is no place for hotel guests to sit, and we can only go swimming and go back to the room. I already paid 3000 PHP for the hotel; I don't want to spend more sitting at a pool I cannot use. However, I would have loved to sit there and enjoy the scenery, as it is a beautiful place to sit. Unfortunately, that was never an option.
Since we only had a fixed menu and no buffet, and since we had to sit in our room and not at the poolside in the puroks we thought were for hotel guests, and the fact that the pool is only for enjoying the view and too dangerous to use, I feel 3K is overkill. The rooms are nice, so I think 2K would still be an OK price to pay to stay here.
The accident where I hurt myself was from sliding on the stars on the walking path. They are crazy slippery, even if it is not raining.
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