12 for 12: Marco Polo Ortigas (with Club Access), Valentine Dinner Date at F1 Hotel and Buffet Breakfast at Cucina

2016/02/14. It's valentine's day and we're spending it with an overnight stay at Marco Polo Ortigas. But first, we'll be having lunch at Dong Juan at Mother Ignacia in QC with my parents, Chea, Thirdy and Tita Fe.

Thirdy at Marco Polo

My parents went to church so we just met them at Dong Juan. As usual, it's packed, so my parents had to park a little bit farther away. Good thing Chea, Thirdy, Tita Fe and I, arrived earlier so we managed to have a room all to ourselves. By the time we left, there were a few people already waiting.

Our nook at Dong Juan

Iced Tea

Calamares

Sisig

Fried Rice

Pasta (with truffle oil yumm)

Ribs

Salad for the 'rents

Mug dessert

Chea and I agreed this time that the food didn't taste as great as the first time we ate here. Probably because there was a party going on so the cooks probably weren't able to prepare our food quite well. We ended up spending 2,000 pesos on pork ribs, a pasta dish, salad, sisig, a plate of rice, a dessert, and two servings of iced tea for 2 adults, 3 seniors and a 4 year old kid who barely ate. Ouch.

After that, my parents went home, while Chea, Tita Fe, Thirdy and I headed of to Marco Polo.

Along the way, we dropped by Cubao to get one of those MyPhone my28 android phones from Smart and Myphone that only cost 888 pesos and comes with 100mb free data every month. Since it's dirt cheap, I decided to get one as I need some of the apps that doesn't work with my BlackBerry Passport anymore (facebook, youtube, viber, etc).

Elevator lobby at the 3rd floor

Nanay Chea and Thirdy waiting for the lift

Inside the lift

We then headed straight to Ortigas. The parking entrance is at the back of the hotel, so went in and upwards to the 3rd level.

The reception desk at the 24th floor

Waiting area fronting the reception desk

To the left from the elevators is the main restaurant, Cucina

Another waiting area between Cucina and the reception desk

The reception area is on the 24th floor, so from the 3rd floor, we had to take the elevator. As soon as you get off the elevator, you'll see some seats. Off to the left is their main restaurant, Cucina. To the right is the reception desk. Fronting the reception desk is another receiving area, with a bar, and the children's playroom at the other end.

Thirdy excited to go in

So while Chea was inquiring with the reception (seems that everyone is staying late and/or extending their stay), Thirdy and I went to the playroom dubbed the Piccolo Kids Club (which I think refers to the musical instrument and not the green guy from Dragon Ball Z).

A small slide

A couple of feet from the slide

Panning to the left where Thirdy is already picking up some toys

The room is pretty small. Probably just around 8 square meters. Good thing there were just 2 kids playing at the time, along with two adults. They managed to fit in a small slide in there, which is Thirdy's favorite. It's just perfect for his size.

There's a TV too so you could watch some movies.

After a few minutes, Chea came in and told us that the room wasn't available yet but we could already go to the Continental Lounge so we can try it out and probably get some free drinks.

Another restaurant on the 44th floor

The lounge is at the 44th floor so we had to take the elevator. Only one set of the elevators can access the higher floors, while the rest can access the lower floors.

Club access! Yes!

The Continental Club lounge is bigger than the one at Seda. It's far longer and wider at that. Aside from the main hall of the lounge, there's a smaller area which can probably be called a library as there are books lining the walls, while there's also a meeting room, complete with a desk and swivel chairs.

Reading area

A meeting room

The view. That's the Medical City and Rockwell Ortigas if you're wondering

Thirdy making tampo because he wants to go back to the playroom

The rest of the lounge 

Playing with my new burner phone

Free drinks

We sat at the chairs near the meeting room while I fiddled with my new phone and drank some juice.

Finally! We have a room. 3901.

The door from within. Cabinets to the left, and bathroom to the right

Beside the cabinet is a small bench with drawers

The sliding wall. With mirrors!

After a while, our room was still not available so we were upgraded to a single bed suite at the 39th floor. The main difference with our room was that it comes with a sliding wall so you could hide your bed from a very small receiving/dining area (it barely fits a small round table and two chairs).

View of the room from behind the sliding walls

The layout is pretty much the same as most modern single room hotel or condominium units (sans the kitchen). The small hallway to the room has the bathroom to the left, and the cabinets to the right.

Enter the cabinet

Just a couple of drawers

The cabinets has the usual flat iron and ironing board. I didn't notice a safe deposit box, and wasn't planning on using one anyway.

Sliding door. No locks!

Bath tub

His and Her sinks

Toiletries

Bath robes in the bath room. Nice. Im used to seeing them in the cabinets

Toilet with an enclosure. 

The shower

The bathroom is average in size, with the toilet and the shower in separate glass compartments. There's a phone beside the toilet in case you need to call someone while doing a number 2. There's a bath tub too, with handlebars which is pretty nice to help you get in and out of the tub. The entire room's tiled in one design from the floor to the walls so it looks pretty clean and nice.

Kitchen counter

Small table

As I mentioned, there's small round table with two chairs , in front of a small kitchen cabinet that had the coffee maker.

Thirdy trying out the bed and pillows

Small TV

We have a big queen sized bed which Thirdy likes a lot with bedside tables at either side, and a long bench at the foot of the bed. And of course a work desk and a tv fronting the bed

Chair

View of the Ortigas concrete jungle

There's a chaise lounge chair by the window (with an arm table), in case you want to sit by the window and admire the view, which was some buildings within Ortigas Center. Chea was disappointed as she wanted the Metrowalk view. She wants to transfer to another room when we get the chance.

Going up for snacks

Later, Chea's sister and nephew arrived. Justine will be the one to take Thirdy along for a swim. Chea and I went back to the Continental Lounge to get some snacks.

Looks like somebody (a lot of them) beat us to the food)

A bit pathetic compared to Seda. They were constantly putting in new food

Coffee area. The inner area is where the cocktails were supposed to be. 

They only had some pastries available, a little bit of fruit and ham finger sandwiches. It was a bit disappointing especially with what we had when we were at Seda Hotel. While the lounge at Seda was a bit more relaxed with people actually wearing casual clothes, here it's a bit uptight as people here probably use the area for meetings and discussions.

My very small and disappointing snack

Coffee jelly. Pretty ok

There were also no available computers for use as compared to Seda. You could rent a laptop per the attendants, but I didn't want to pony up cash just so I could blog a while. I am getting disappointed by the minute here.

Since there was barely any food, we finished quickly and went back to our room. Thirdy was back in the room as the main pool was too deep, and the jacuzzi was too hot.

We transferred rooms to the 38th floor since Chea really wanted the Metrowalk view.

Around 6 or so, we left the room and headed to F1 Hotel in Taguig. There's a valentine dinner there with a performer and someone gifted us tickets for the event. Tita Fe went home along with Chie and Justine, so it was just Chea, Thirdy and myself.

Ceiling of the elevator area. Fancy

Chea registering us

The trip was quicker than we had imagined, so we were there a little earlier than 7am.

Guy scratching his head while waiting for the time to start the photo booth

Awww. 14. Because it's Feb 14.

There was a main registration booth while there was another one for DealGrocer. Apparently, some of the tickets were offered at Dealgrocer for only 1,800 pesos from the original price of 2,999. That's a nice deal right there. A 5 course meal and wine at a hotel and a show to boot.

Side of the place, with a projector

Thirdy just woke up. He's grumpy the first few minutes of waking up.

The stage with a piano

We wanted to make the most of our stay at Marco Polo so we wanted to leave early. We were told that we could already eat even though the event starts at 7:30pm. We were given bread while waiting.

The menu for the night

Some bread to tide us over. Mostly Thirdy.

The ticket

Thirdy back to his jovial self

So we asked the waiter to start serving us our food.

Salad with vinaigrette

Pumpkin soup

We started with a light salad, followed by pumpkin soup.

What do you call this?

After that, the photobooth was already open so we took the chance to have our pictures taken while there were barely any guests.

Lobster! But a bit small though

Ma litid

Later, the main course was served. I opted for the lobster thermidor, while Chea went with the Beef offering.

Ice Cream Mango Crepe

Then for the dessert was a crepe.

We declined the wine and just drank water.

We were finished before most of the guests arrived, or the show actually started. Like I said, we wanted to leave early so we could go back to the hotel. We were told that the performer was Vanessa Monot, a finalist in the talent show The Voice Philippines.

Since Chea and I never watched the show, we weren't tempted to stay and watch the performance. And to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the meal. It was a hotel and I was expecting dishes I could not get from restaurants.

The lobster was ok but small, and I could get that at any seafood restaurant in the Metro. The beef was heavy with tendon. And not in a good way. And Crepeman has better crepes than what we were served.

If I paid for the dinner myself (at 2,999 per head), I'd probably be swearing my head off. But since it was just a gift, I just feel bad for the people who paid the whole amount. But maybe they were there for the show?

Anyway, we left before anybody even anybody stepped onto the stage, got into our car, drove out of BGC and through a McDonald's drive thru to buy Thirdy a happy meal, and back to the hotel.

We transferred rooms since Chea really wanted a view of the Metrowalk.

View of metrowalk at night

Our new room. 

It's exactly the same sans the sliding walls

We slept early (it was a little before 10 I think), but I kept waking up the entire time.

Soon, it was 8am, so we went down to the 24th floor where their main resaurant, Cucina, was situated.

Heading in for breakfast

The eagle's due to them having a branch at Davao

Our table. Nice view.

Cucina had a nice view of Ortigas, being located so high in the hotel. One side of the place is just peppered with floor to ceiling windows. It's a little bit small, but better than Discovery Primea.

There weren't that many offerings. It's almost the same size as with Seda. Just enough for you to have a decent breakfast.

Juice

Fruits

Salad counter

Okonomiyaki! Ranma!

Japanese food

For soup

and noodles

Thirdy's favorite breakfast: Champorado

Eggs and omelette

Pinoy servings

South Asian offerings

Fresh noodles cooked on the spot

Bacon

Cereals

Bread pudding tastes like soft french toast. Put some vanilla on it!

Waffles

I went with the usual bacon and eggs (omelette), a bread pudding, and some california maki. Again, I'm not a heavy eater. I wish I could've tried some bread but I was already full.

My first haul

Thirdy and his champorado

My second haul

My third and last haul

All the food selections were OK but you'd be disappointed with their juice offerings, having only three: Grape, Apple and Orange.

Back to our room

After that, we went back to our room and I went back to bed, it was around 9am. Chea and Thirdy were going to the pool. I woke up at around 11am, and was surprised that Chea and Thirdy weren't back yet so I went to the pool area.

On my way to the pool area

Thirdy and Chea already drying up

Long pool

There's a guy watching the pool but he's not wearing swimming attire. Is he supposed to be the lifeguard and save people? Or is he supposed to guard the pool? Tsk tsk. Get your priorities straight Marco Polo

View from the pool

While waiting for Chea to take a shower, took a picture of our keycards

Receiving area on the pool level

I found them already drying up. Thirdy and Chea took a quick shower, and then I brought Thirdy to the playroom while Chea prepared our stuff so we could go home. We were allowed a late checkout, I guess since it's Monday anyway.

Thirdy back at the playroom for the third time

This guy is really a bundle of energy

We left a little past 12noon and headed home.

So how's our stay? Pretty nice but a little disappointing.

The room was pretty good. Decent sized and modern. The bathroom was nice even though it's just average in size. But the glass partition between the shower and the toilet was nice. There's a speaker in the bathroom so you could hear whatever's on the TV. It's kinda funny since you don't get to see what's on the TV, you just hear it.

Another complaint is that the main bathroom door doesn't have a lock. Again, there was a time that Thirdy wanted to come into the bathroom to see me, while I was doing a number 2. Lol.

I'm a bit disappointed with the Continental Lounge. The afternoon snacks were too few, and were mostly pastries and sweets. And then we were told that we couldn't bring the free drinks there to our room.

At Seda, we did it most of the time. We went to the lounge to drink, and bring another one to our room to drink later so we didn't need to go back to the lounge. Also, there weren't computers we could freely use. At Seda, we were able to use Macs.

I really couldn't help comparing it with Seda Hotel actually especially if you get them with Club Access.

The location of Seda is better as it's besides Serendra and with lots of retail and food establishments. There's a mall, Market Market and SM Aura, although it's a bit of a walk.

With Marco Polo, Metrowalk is across Meralco Avenue and you'd have to walk to the far end before you get to a pedestrian crossing. But if you want malls, there's St. Francis, Megamall, Robinsons' Galleria and Shangri-La nearby as well.

Marco Polo has a better pool (it's indoor and there's a jacuzzi too) and a playroom (albeit small).

But I kinda feel restricted overall with Marco Polo. It feels like its geared towards businessmen and everything needs to be prim and proper. While Seda, it feels more relaxed. So it's perfect for leisure.

So there. If you're a discerning gentleman (or lady), Marco Polo would be a good option to stay in Ortigas but I wouldn't recommend the Club Access option unless you're there for business.