Quite a few food options at the Shangri-La Mactan (one of the best Cebu resorts for kids), breakfast is served at couple of restaurants, Acqua, in the Ocean Wing, is smaller and has less people, Tides, in the Main Wing, is larger and has more selection. Breakfast was okay, nothing great but perfectly fine considering the price.
One thing to know, the food at every restaurant, including the pool bars, is rather slow. You won’t get anything quick here, even sandwiches and snack like things take 30 minutes. Ordinarily, this would put me off and give me ample room to do my scone, but the service here is fantastic, the staff are as friendly as any hotel in Thailand (which I think has the best service of anywhere in the world). You’ll get a good morning with a smile from all of the staff, regardless of who they are, and they remember your name and your kids names. That was probably one of the best things about this resort and what makes it one of the highest rated Cebu resorts.
Back to the food, the Chinese restaurant (Tea of Spring) is not bad, just don’t order the Peking Duck if you are from Hong Kong or China. I don’t imagine any Cebu resorts serving up magnificient Peking Duck so no complaints there.
Portion sizes are rather large, a hamburger will be enough for you and a child, unless you like to eat a lot. You can order things at any times from the pool side bars/restaurants and eat them by the pool, there’s limited menu’s but enough on them to keep you going hungry.
Go down early to the swimming pools (like around 8-8:30a.m should be fine) and stick your things on the loungers as otherwise you won’t get a seat. There’s signs saying they will take your things after 1 hours, but I didn’t see that happening so you should be fine unless you leave stuff unattended for hours on end. Same goes for the beach. The sun gets pretty hot here (and at all Cebu Resorts) so you’ll need some shade.
Go snorkelling during high tide, or in the morning, there’s way less people.
The resort is full of Korean’s, not that there’s anything wrong with that, they’re well behaved overall, reasonably quiet and nothing to complain about. I’d say 95% of guests were Korean. Not sure if this is the same at other Cebu resorts.
The Shangri-la shuttle bus from the airport is free with some packages. You have to wait for everybody to get on, so if you’re the first tone, you might be waiting 30 minutes. A taxi to the hotel is about `150-160 pesos, about USD$3, so think about that. When leaving, the shuttle bus only goes every hour on the 30 minutes, so 8:30, 9:30 etc…there’s no need to turn up to the airport 2 hrs beforehand, so consider also taking a taxi if the times don’t suit your departure.
When leaving, you need 750 Pesos Airport Departure Fee per person, so keep that in mind before spending all your money at the airport. The airport is undergoing some renovations, but it’s ok, exactly what you’d expect the airport at Cebu to be like. If you’re flying business or have access to the Cathay Pacific lounge, there is none, it’s one of those Plaza Premium’s and we all know what they’re like.
This is family hotel, if you’re an ageing Gweilo (Westerner) who has hired a 19 year old Cebu hooker to hang out with the pool, good on you, but you’re going to look out of place. I have nothing against that, (except come on, if you’re going to pay for it, at least get a good looking one), and that’s totally fine, but the Shangri-La Mactan is not really the place for this and you should consider staying at one of the other Cebu Resorts.
Check out is fast and efficient. It took 15 minutes to get a taxi so make sure you leave yourself enough time.
The Airport has a Starbucks and Crispy Creme BEFORE you go through customs. We had no delays or problems getting through immigration but that was before the holiday period ended. There’s not much to do or in terms of shopping at the airport, so don’t show up 2or 3 hrs before your flight unless you want to be bored out of your mind.
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