Stay-cation: Ramada Manila Central

My daughter is on sembreak, but since my boss' retirement party falls right smack in the middle of the very long weekend of Nov.1-4, I cannot go on an out-of-town vacation during those dates. So you can just imagine how excited I was to learn that the celebration of Eid'l Adha is giving me another long weekend to spend time with my family.  I immediately thought it would be fun to play tourists in our very own Chinatown and booked ourselves  a 3D/2N stay at the Ramada Manila Central. 

photo courtesy of http://www.ramadamanilacentral.com

I usually course my hotel reservations through Asiatravel.com, but not this time. The hotel's own website was offering a 30% discount through their Mid-Autumn Madness promo, and it proved to be much lower than any online booking sites. 

TIP: If you are booking through the Ramada website, better join Wyndham Rewards first. It's free, you get to earn points, and you have a chance to get additional "rewards" such as these: :) 

Excited as we are, we were in Binondo by 11am. The hotel was fully booked, and so they advised us that they could only accommodate us during the standard check-in time of 2pm. We took the time to eat lunch at Wai Ying, buy hopia from Po Chuan Tin, taro yolk puff from Shin Tai Shang, and Hopia Ube from Eng Bee Tin. 

At 2pm, we went back to Ramada and was told upon check in that we were upgraded from deluxe room to executive suite (just like the email promo said!) This is how our room looked like:

But the difference between the two rooms lie in the bathroom. The executive has a bathtub and separate shower area, while the deluxe only has the shower area.

A glass wall separates the bedroom from the bathroom and is concealed by the blinds 

Plus points for the bidet, vanity mirror and overhead rainshower

The room itself is moderately sized, but has all the amenities you will need for a comfortable stay

writing desk

32" LCD with Global Destiny cable; mini bar

Inside this beautiful chinese cabinet are...

the safety deposit box, slippers, hangers and robe

And every morning, we were greeted with this view

The included breakfast buffet at the News Cafe is ok; nothing to rave about but not disappointing either. It has 2 kinds of bacon (baked and crispy breaded), which in my daughter's book spells g-o-o-d. 

My breakfast plate on the first day: crispy breaded bacon, chicken adobo, yang chow fried rice and scrambled eggs

Second plate :) 

You can order sunny side up eggs from the waiters

I had some salad with caesar dressing on the second day; and ate it with the crispy bacon :)

They start serving breakfast by 6am. We were there at 7am on our second day, and the place was packed with the tour groups. It was chaotic. I suggest you come down for breakfast really early, or wait until after 8am when the place settles down. 

We paid less than P6,500 for the two-night stay, which already included the P400 they charged for Trixie's breakfast on both days. Totally value for money!

Overall, our stay was what we hoped it would be. Binondo is only 30 minutes away from our house but it felt like a totally different place with a very interesting vibe. And Ramada provided us with a good base to explore the wonders of the world's oldest Chinatown.