the countryarch's perspective

With a well-written narrative description to accompany the room shots so enticing, it seemed fitting to showcase the beauty of the Boracay and Philippine native architecture, thus, my kid sis with my ate's consent and mine, after checking the web, booked a 4-day 3-night (Dec 29-Jan 1) reservation last October and paid in full three days afterwards for two cottages, tentatively for eight people. It was agreed verbally between the contact person Ms. Teresa Enano and my sister that if there are any additional persons in our company we are to pay an extra 100 per head per day.

So here we go, 13 all in all, two balikbayans from Canada (my Ate and my bro-in-law), my kid sis' fiance, an American Nepalese from New York, my Kuya Bong's whole family, my folks, and My bro-in law's nephew with his wife. It was my ate's first homecoming after 13 years.  She was excited and expecting the best in Boracay.  So as with eight others in our company.

Imagine to our surprise when we arrive yesterday at Diniwid Beach, looking for the Diniwid Beach Resort, and there was no Local who can point to us where's it located. Baka mali ang beach natin, my kid sis acted nervous. After almost 30 minutes of asking around, she finally found where it was, only after she mentioned the owner's name and the contact person listed on the webpage named Che-che.

And there we saw our place, after being led to an alley.  A shack of a house, absolutely different from what was advertised on the web.  Ano to, squatter's area? my Ate was furious.  The steps leading upstairs to our cottage was only about 18" wide, too steep, my folks in their late 70's would surely slip any time - that, if they can even manage to climb it at the first place.  The other cottage showed to us was more deplorable.  Instantly, we decided to transfer to a better location baka sakaling mey vacant pa sa tabi-tabi at this peak season of the year.

We were lucky to find a decent place at O-rinda nearby.  Negotiating if we can get a refund for the deceit the Owner did to us, we were met by her rough British husband who flatly declared a NO REFUND policy. He was firm, arrogant and insisted we deceived him with 13 persons in our company including two elderly folks when we only booked for eight persons.  He also challenged us to go ahead and sue after my older brother reasoned he failed to meet the end of the bargain while we complied with ours. It seemed that he owns the place and uses only the local as his front. 

The Local Tourism here is closed until Jan 2. We are to depart the island on New Year's Day so, there is nothing we can do.

Pictures of the place are posted here to prove the difference between their advertised "suites" in the webpage.  This place is just beside the Microtel Resort.  Will be posting more photos when I get back to Manila. It really is disappointing, locals like us are duped by false advertising from unscrupulous foreigners such as this. I hope the Department of Tourism can do something about this anomalous practice.

http://www.boracayisland.org/diniwid.shtml

http://diniwidbeachresort.com/index.htm