City of Dreams Nobu Hotel

04/11/2015. We're heading off to Nobu hotel for an overnight stay. There's a 30% off promo right now so we're jumping at the chance. The place is very popular as of the moment and we're told that it's fully booked most of the time.

I'm also assuming that after a few months or years, there'll be higher rates. So it's best to try it out now while rates are still low and there's an ongoing promo.

But first, we had to drop by at Jollibee Eton so we can settle some of the payments for Thirdy's party this April 18.

We're heeeeere.

We arrived at 11am and left a little after 12noon and drove all the way to City of Dreams in Aseana. We got there around 1:20pm with a little bit of traffic along the way.

Thirdy waiting while Chea checked us in.

We stopped near the valet station. Valet parking is free if you're checked in, so we got off the car while the bellhop took our luggage. Directly across the main doors is the casino. There was a lounge band performing.

Pretty tablet

Sweet

Chea headed to the registration counters to the left and checked us in. The registration used tablets for clients to fill up and sign digital forms. Pretty neat.

Heading to the north tower

The ceiling of the main hallway is a bit low, with dimmed lights along the way. After checking in, we walked towards our room, to the far right of the main entrance.

Thirdy isn't scared of elevators anymore

Elevator lobby at level 8

On our way to to our room

Bright spotlight at every door

We got to the elevator and got off at the 8th floor. Our room is 8325.

Thirdy posing by the beds

Thirdy trying out the beds. No more cribs for this young fella

Soft carpeting

We went in and started taking pictures. We got the basic room, Deluxe. The room is a bit small, probably around 24sqm including the closets and the bathroom.

Entertainment center

Greetings from the television

We had two single beds with low headboards. At the wall opposite the beds is the entertainment center with the TV and a desk right below it which holds the personal ref and items such as glasses, kettle and others.

Lots of free fruits. We actually were given another full bowl a bit later

Yes, that is a bread knife in Thirdy's hand. Bad parents.

The prices. To remind me to be thankful for 7-11

There's a small round desk with two chairs near the window.

Our direct view. Thirdy kept yelling "Egg!"

To the right: The 6-star, 20,000 peso room a night, Crown hotel

View below our windows

The pool area, and Hyatt hotel, towards the left

The window itself spans the entire wall, but tops out a foot short of the ceiling. We have a nice view of the manicured gardens and the pools. You can also see the other hotels around the area. We were told that Hyatt and Nobu hotel guests are restricted to their own areas. Only guests of Crown Hotel can go to the other hotels.

Safe deposit box

Hangars

Flat iron and an ironing board

Thirdy O_o

The closet has what you expect from hotels nowadays, with hangars, safe deposit box, slippers, laundry bags and even an iron and an ironing board.

We all loved that sink.

Sweet towel rack

Very few free toiletries

The shower

Toilet.

Oooh. Bath robes.

The bathroom is also small. But it has all the amenities you'd expect minus a bath tub.

We rested in the room a while as I needed to charge my phone.There's free internet. You need to provide your room number and last name after launching your web browsers. Since we're here overnight, we got a 24hr pass. Visitors get a free 8-hour pass.

I checked the speed via speedtest.net and got 4.90mbps. Wow. That's the fastest speed I've tried at a hotel or any other establishment for that matter.

Happy Birthday Thirdy!

They all tasted great

Thirdy posing by his pre birthday treats

While waiting, we received a birthday treat from Nobu as it's Thirdy's birthday next week. Pretty cool. A little later, Chea's parents and nephew, Justine, arrived. It's their first time here as well, so we're gonna tour the place later.

Dreamplay!

We then went down to the Upper Ground level, to head to DreamPlay, a kids play center based on Dreamworks characters. But we were told that it was over at the South Tower and we were at the North Tower. So we went down to the Ground level, walked towards the South Tower, took the elevator to the Upper Ground level.

Just like the North Tower, there's a big sign saying "Casino" on top of the door. We thought we were lost again, but a family came through with their kids, so it looks like there's more than just casino beyond those doors. So we went through and saw the retail area of the City of Dreams.

Prego restaurant

Real men dont ask for directions. Or look at them for that matter.

I dont know what's inside there

Dreamplay ticket booth

You can't be a 5 star hotel without a Grand ballroom

I can't afford anything in any of these stores.

There's a lot of restaurants and a few upscale retail stores. We walked past them until we  found DreamPlay. We thought that it was very expensive, but there's a 2 hour option that's just around 400 pesos for the kids (still expensive), and half for the adult. Thirdy would be too tired with anything more than 2 hours. But Chea decided to take him there next week.

Thirdy wanted to go in

The character shop

Thirdy holding onto a Toothless stuffed toy

Dragons!

Kung Fu Panda!

There's a Dreamworks retail shop as well, with a lot of clothes, caps, plush toys, books, tumblers and whatnot. We thought of buying Thirdy a shirt, as they're around 500 pesos, but nothing caught our fancy. The caps look good especially Toothless and Shrek, but they were too expensive at around 900 pesos.

If these guys want in, so should you

After that, it was around 3pm, so we decided to have a late lunch/merienda. However, everywhere we looked, all the prices were expensive. Most meals are around 400 pesos. And with 6 of us, that's already 2,400 pesos. Ouch.

Erwin's

Corner table

Still, we couldn't find a cheaper option without going outside the hotel, so we settled with Erwin's. I'll blog about it on a separate entry.

After eating, we went back to our room and rested. Thirdy's swimming at the pool later.

After about 15 minutes, everyone went down to the pool except for me. I stayed in the room and dozed on and off. I watched everyone by the pool from our room whenever I woke up.

It was past 4pm when they finished and went back to the room. We rested a while before we all went out. Chea's family were going home already, but they planned to drop by S&R to buy pizza, and we decided to tag along so we can buy our dinner as well.

So we went to S&R, bought some muffins, a burger and a couple bottles of juice. But since it's already dark, we decided to eat out. I wanted to have some liempo or anything grilled, so I did a quick search for barbecues using Foursquare, and the closest one was at Aseana Power Station (just a couple of blocks away), called Pagkain Club. There were better choices over at MOA, but I just wanted a plain old meal, and didn't want to go all the way to MOA and deal with lots of people.

It's not about the taste. It's about the price.

I'll blog about Pagkain club another time.

On our way back. Traffic is heavy for visitors

So after eating, we went back to City of Dreams and got dropped off. We went straight to our room and went to sleep.

I woke up from time to time since it was too cold and I had to hit the bathroom. My biggest complaint during the stay was that I can't seem to figure out the AC controls. Even when I changed the temperature setting to around 22 degrees, the actual temperature still dropped to about 14 degrees.

View at night. Pretty relaxing especially with the lights off and the drapes drawn wide open

If I only drink wine, this would be a relaxing night with an awesome view

I couldn't figure out the fan only setting as well, since there were just two. One was the cold since the icon was a snowflake. The other one was a circle with an outer ring made of dashed lines. I assumed that was the fan only, but it was still too damned cold.

The only option was to turn it off completely. But then I had to turn it on again before it got warm, so I kind of slept lightly the entire night. Not to mention, I didn't notice if there was a remote, so I had to get up to the control panel near the bathroom.

At nobu restaurant

We woke up about at 7:20 am and went to the Nobu Restaurant which was at the same tower as our room, but on the 1st floor.

Nobu reception desk

There was only one other family at that time, so we were in luck. We thought that everybody else is awake and the place would be full, but our fears were unfounded. Guess everybody's staying in late. It took about half an hour more when people started filling in.

Like a bacon-eating-boss

The restaurant is very nice. Clean simple, minimal and very functional, typical of Japanese design. The same can be said for the buffet. There aren't very many offerings.

The dining area

As I keep on saying, I'm not a very heavy eater. Even with the sparse selection, I did find myself full after taking a sample from a fraction of the offerings, that I never got hungry until we got home by 3pm. And I only managed to eat a single piece of chicken from Jollibee and hardly any rice by then.

The pancake station. Made as you order

Bacon and sausage!

My plate

Still, some may find the selection too few. Chea told me that the breakfast buffet for two is roughly 1,400 pesos, so that's around 700-800 person. Some people would expect a wider range of selection for that kind of money.

pancake!

Champorado with tinapa flakes. Tastes very much like tablea

My second plate

Omelette

Black english cod

But if you come here for the taste, I think the price is worth it. Everything is delicious.

It's kinda weird that Thirdy doesnt look at the camera but he still smiles

After breakfast, we went back to our room and spent the rest of our time there. When we checked out around noon, I excused myself from Chea and took a quick look inside the casino.

It's pretty big. It has connections to Hyatt Hotel and Crown Hotel at the far ends. There were lots of cards tables, but a bigger chunk of the area were filled with slot machines.

At the middle, there's an area called CenterPlay where there with lounge bands performing. I think they perform 24/7 as I keep seeing somebody performing whenever we passed by the casino entrance.

Of course I cant take pictures as it's disallowed at all casinos.

Checking out

After checking out, we went to the valet area and got our car. We went to Greenhills shopping center first before heading home. I'll write about it on another entry.

Last shot before we left

So how's our stay? To be honest, even with the promo, the price was still pretty steep at around 7,000 pesos for a two person stay which included breakfast. The main amenity that you could only access if you were a guest was a pool. You could probably get better elsewhere.

The breakfast was delicious and is enough to fill someone. You could say that 800 pesos is cheap to eat at a 5 star hotel. The food was good, the ingredients tasted fresh, and service is superb. But with only a few dishes, you would be better off at Hyatt which is supposed to be the cheapest of the three hotels. We were told that the buffet is big and menu is more continental since it's targeted at businessmen.

DreamPlay is also not limited to hotel guests, just like the casino. So you can just walk in and play at the casino, or take your kids to DreamPlay.

And the restaurants inside are just too darn expensive for a big family to drop by City of Dreams, have a looksie, and eat at the restos. If you're a couple, and you want a quiet, semi fine dining experience, then you could probably try them out. But if you're planning for dinner, well, traffic for visitors going to the parking area is horrendous so either come in very early, or a little bit late.

So there is really not that many reasons for you to stay at the hotel except for the experience of trying out one of the hotels at the City of Dreams.

If they threw in a big discount at DreamPlay for hotel guests, then I guess it makes booking a room more enticing. Especially if access is limitless. Say, I could bring my kid to play for 2 hrs on the day that we checked in, and the next day before checking out.

But for tourists, it's a pretty good option. Nice view. Good amenities. MOA is just a bus ride away. Which they offer free to guests to several areas in the metro.

There's one that I always see at Megamall.

So there. I 'm not sure if we'd try Hyatt another time. As for Crown? Way too expensive for me.