Are you thinking if BSA Mansion Condotel is good value for your money? Here’s my review.

This is my first ever article for my Hotel Review Truths Section under the Travelling Category.

I began writing this article since yesterday when we are staying at BSA Mansion Condotel. We family usually have these ritual hotel accommodations every December 31st of the year since me and my hubby would always want to shield our kids from the smell of the firecrackers during New Year’s Eve. Its a dual purpose for us, first for our kids’ health and second for our family bonding time. So let’s start this review now.

APPEARANCE

BSA Mansion Condotel is not on a modern hotel side. It shows its age through its outside and inside looks. The building’s corridors, reception desks, and elevators show proofs that it is indeed aged through time. But who needs a new building facade if you want to get the lowest price with a good amenities right? MY TRUTH: I am a thrifty and a practical mom. As long as the establishment meets my own set of criteria and budget its a gold one to me. I will share to you my own set of hotel qualifications in my future posts. Anyway, let’s go back to BSA Mansion Condotel. Though it’s surely worn out and has an outdated exterior the room itself is not. Inside the room, you will get the feeling that it’s well taken care of. I will explain it further in the next subparagraph.

ROOMS

We advanced book last November 2018 since we know that during New Year’s Eve all of the hotels will hike their prices if you didn’t book early due to its peak season/holiday period. We booked 1 Room for 4 Pax. When we get there this is where the surprise came – they gave us two bedroom suite that could accommodate 8 heads! Wow! We were only 4 adults and 3 kids to be exact so basically, the room is huge for all of us, we could have 1 bed each! The beds are in doubled decks style. I simply love it since this is my first time to have this kind of bed in hotels because it’s usually just single or twin beds in others. Pillows and bed sheets are neatly placed in each bed with towels. Though the room has four double decks it doesn’t feel cluttered, it still has enough room for movement and space.

The room has a dining table, a refrigerator, two flat screen TV, one comfort room and a small terrace outside. It also has kitchen utilities like an electric stove, a microwave oven, and cooking wares. In our room, it has a lovely black-laced lampshade. The design of our room is sleek and modern as you may say. Now we are going to the downside of this place.

SERVICE

BSA Mansion’s service I can say is not so good. First is everything you do here has an equal charge for their customer. Small things like a sachet of sugar costs 10 pesos and an outside call cost 20 pesos. They didn’t inform us about it from the moment we checked in. We thought those trivial things are free but sadly it’s not. I think the hotel’s management just wants to get more income from their customers because the hotel itself is not popular anymore.

And for the second downfall is about the breakfast arrangement. Since we booked for 4 heads we thought that the inclusive breakfast is for 4 heads also. In Agoda’s booking confirmation it stated the room is for 4 pax and the breakfast is inclusive. It doesn’t specifically express if it’s for 2 or for 4 heads. So we assumed and we booked it based on the posted hotel room offerings of Agoda. I thought BSA could help us with it but no. So we just end up ordering for 1 additional breakfast and we four share the 3 breakfast and other foods that we have. The breakfast is plated and delivered to our room, food tastes good especially the beef tapa that I chose. It comes with egg, rice, and drinks.

SWIMMING POOL

Yes it has! And the pool is crystal clear but very cold (grrr…) but all of us dip in it because there are no other people in there but us! Hahah! The pool locates in their penthouse at the rooftop. We enjoy the scenery of Makati’s tall buildings.

CLEANLINESS

Room’s overall cleanliness is acceptable. Bed linens and towels smell good. But one negative note is we saw a dead cockroach on the bathroom floor. We are responsible guests so we call housekeeping dept. to borrow a broom and dustpan and we sweep the floor whenever there’s dirt.

CONCLUSION

Though BSA Mansion Condotel is an old hotel it can still serve well by giving its clients an excellent service that is expected to every hotel all over the world. It’s not the hotel appearance or the style that matters but most of all the good service that the hotel could give. If the hotel could be more adaptable to their customer’s needs then it means something or everything to the customer’s satisfaction. After all, a good hotel experience translates another customer booking in the future, right?

LAI’S RATING

3 stars

Do you have other hotel experiences that you want to share? Put it in the comments section!