Part 1| Review| Hotel H2O: Your kid Addicting Staycation

When you were younger a vacation would be going to a beach as close as Puerto Galera or maybe take a trip to Puerto Prinsesa, if you are feeling a little more adventurous then you could hike Maria Makiling, or let's say your team building activity of swimming in Pansol, Laguna or Antipolo.

Now, if you are a mother with young kids who both have an eccentric attitude sometimes the so called "stay-cation" is all the vacation you need.

For my birthday, my hubhub surprised me with a stay-cation at Hotel H2O in Manila. He knew that I had always wanted to try their aqua rooms and it has been 2 years of a craving.

No typhoon could hold us back and we trotted off to Luneta Park, Manila using GrabCar for the first time.

I was excited as I watched the GPS do a countdown of minutes as we neared our destination. When we pulled up to the entrance I was a little surprised that there was immediately the pay parking entrance and Mr. Rogelio (our GrabCar driver) was given a card, according to him, if it's a drop-off or pick-up then you need not pay a fee. We saw a sign of Hotel H2O assumed it was the entrance and entered only to learn we had actually entered their concierge and the hotel entrance is still after a flight of stairs. You can also take a service elevator to the main entrance, this is where the ticketing area is and you have the entrance to the Sea Lion and Symphonic Water show to the left and then you'll see two entrances with Hotel H2O on the left and Manila Ocean Park of the right. The actual hotel is located on the 3rd floor itself.

We were greeted by a spacious lobby and a modest reception area, I say modest because it was small with 4 computers attended by the front desk staff for both check in and check out. If you are checking in on a weekend expect a lot of people (regardless of the weather). After which seemed like 20 minutes we were then given our room key card.

Corridor leading to the rooms, love this area!


The jellyfish room

The jellyfish room and yes, the bathtub is outside the bathroom.

There are two corridors going to the rooms, one near the reception area and the other which goes pass the Club Lounge, we had to take the latter, the corridor was long and it took us a while to get to our room since room number 3128 was at the end of the corridor. Upon entering the room, we were greeted by jellyfish, a spacious room with a weirdly exposed bath tub. My spirit was kinda dampened since I really wanted the tropical fish room and our room was so far away from the lobby. I called the front desk to ask if they would have an available Tropical fish Aqua room instead (I was lucky that day, that they did - they do not usually succumb to these requests, I also explained the fact that I have two small kids and it's not feasible being too far from the exit).

We were transferred to Tropical Fish Room near to the Front desk area, the room was much smaller but then the kids squealed in delight seeing the view. I have never seen the little boss so happy.

The room had a complimentary Mini Bar with coffee, tea, peanuts, cookies, one can of soda and a bottle of water.

The bathroom only had a shower this time complete with needed toiletries.

The bed was a king size (smaller than the first room) and a Samsung LED TV, phone and a large desk to work on with an outlet area to plug in your phone or laptop.

There's a remote control for thee blind's that cover the fish tank.

We stayed in most of the time since my princess was sick with a fever, but I got my chance to roam around. I felt a little lost since although there was a large map displayed outside, I really would like arrows pointing where to go. There were food establishments inside, like North Park, Gerry's Grill and others plus food kiosks like Quickly and Wendy's. Just before the hotel elevator entrance is a small coffee shop called Green Bean which serves organic coffee.