Over our 11 day vacation in Cebu, we had reservations to stay at the Radisson Blu Cebu on three different dates: Day 01, Day 04, and Days 08 to 10 nights. I guess one could say we’re experienced guests at the property after this vacation! The hotel is rated as a 5 Star establishment, located right in the heart of Cebu City, and regarded as one of the better hotels in the city.
Our comments!
The hotel looks and feels like one of those grand traditional hotels with a huge lobby, multiple function and banquet rooms, amenities, multiple check-in rows at the reception etc. The hotel is situated about 11 km from Mactan-Cebu International Airport – a relatively quick 25 minute drive by car away, and is very hard to miss as one travels down Sergio Osmena Jr Boulevard.
The property is a pretty busy area, including the aforementioned main road, an international container port, a bus terminal, and – most significantly for us – a huge shopping mall, the SM City Cebu. That the hotel is located literally opposite the mall is a huge benefit: there is a very wide range of F&B options in the mall. Do be mindful though that on weekends, the dining crowds come in early and queues form fast. There is also retail for everything a traveler would need: including groceries from a large supermarket, mobile phones, accessories if you’ve forgotten something, laptops, and cameras. There is even a shop that sells drones, including updated models from DJI.
Check-in is mostly painless, but it took us a while each time. The reception is usually busy with guests, given how many rooms the property has. I also got this sense that the property did not pre-prepare documents for guest reservations beforehand, which might be the reason why check-in took a while each time.
We booked the same class of rooms at the Radisson for our three reservations: a Superior room with two twin beds. We were allocated an 11th floor, 7th floor, and finally a 15th floor room respectively for the three reservations. The first two reservations had two twin beds, while for the last reservation, front desk upgraded us to a slightly larger corner room of the same class, but with a king-sized bed and an additional day bed. The kids are getting older, so the twin beds can only just about fit the four of us. So this will likely be one of the last few trips where we can get away with finding single rooms for all of us! That the room was a decent 35sqm in size was also a very welcomed change, compared to the typical small rooms we routinely had in Japan.
The bathroom has a shower stall and adjourning toilet as a single unit, but is large enough that guests won’t be having to squeeze past each other while using both facilities. Our unit didn’t have a bath tub – not that we use these things anyway. Water pressure from the shower head was great, and the usual range of conditioner, shower foam, and shampoo is offered. In-room TV was a decent wall-mounted screen of perhaps 46″ and offered cable channels, including Cartoon Network. In-room WIFI was fast, and we had no problems with multiple connections. One thing though: the in-room WIFI doesn’t look very secure: there is no password and we got warnings on Windows of it being an unsecure connection. You’d want to be mindful of this and employ the usual protection layers as needed, e.g. VPN. Finally, the room also has a security box for valuables.
We encountered service lapses, and specifically centered on housekeeping. Our three bookings were for four guests. But on our first reservation, we were allocated a room that had been prepared for single occupancy. We called housekeeping to bring up additional bathroom slippers, then called again when we discovered that there weren’t enough bath towels. The slippers arrived quickly enough, but not the towels. After ten minutes, we called again, and waited for another 15 minutes. Nada. This was in the late afternoon and the kids were getting hungry, so we headed to explore SM Cebu City and get dinner, but popped by the reception first to follow-up on the housekeeping request. Thankfully, by the time we’d returned after dinner 2 hours later, the additional towels were in the room. But still.
On the second reservation, we pre-alerted the reception at check-in our experience from the first reservation, and the counter immediately called housekeeping to ensure there were sufficient towels, so all good.
On the third reservation, we did the same pre-alert: and housekeeping delivered three towels even after informing reception that we needed four. Our third reservation also involved a 4D3N stay, but towels were not replaced on the second night, possibly because we’d neatly hung them out to dry, but there was no signage informing us what (not) to do if we wanted towels replaced. Yep, housekeeping is clearly a hit and miss thing in this property.
Would we recommend this property though? It’s a qualified yes. Radisson Blu Cebu gets most things right, the rooms are reasonably large and clean, and the hotel has that huge advantage of being literally opposite SM City Cebu.