Matinloc Island Resort Reviews

Oh, nothing to do there and then if you do do something they nickel and dime you to death 

Mantiloc resort is a paradise. If you are looking for a relaxing time in a unique spot this place is for you. The staff are so kind and helpful, they make it an amazing stay. The half day boat trip is also well worth it and one of the best parts of our trip. The menu could do with being expanded, with more vegetarian and vegan options. Also a barista coffee option would make it perfect., though a nespresso machine was a available upon request

The staff there are attentive and caring. Really worth to go visit them. Thanks for the lagoon tour

Wonderful beach and resort. The staff are very helpful. The food is great. We ordered private dinner and the whole experience was perfect.

So I don’t normally write reviews, but this hotel was so shocking I feel like I need to say something. I’ll start off with the good points: 1. The water is pretty. 2. The regular staff are very nice. The bad points: 1. The location is awful. They do not make it easy to leave or do anything. They offer a free boat ride for all arrivals and departures. Anyone who wants to leave the island can join this boat ride for 1,000 pesos (but be careful because the staff will not emphasize the fact that it is only this price one way and that it’s per person. So it’s actually 2,000 pesos). If there are no boats for arrivals or departures, then you must pay 9,000 pesos one way. 2. The activities they offer are astronomically more expensive than on the main island. We wanted to go island hopping. On the main island, the group tours are about 1,500 pesos and the private tours can be negotiated down to 7,500 pesos. The island of the hotel offers group tours for around 3,000 pesos (which is only if they have more than 8 people signed up—in our case, there were not even 8 people on the island so that was out of the question). The cheapest private tours for island hopping are about 16,000 pesos. The crazy part is that the hotel is right next to the blue lagoon so they could at least offer more reasonable prices. Side note: these two factors forced us to leave a day early because what was offered on the main island was still significantly cheaper than what the hotel offered. 3. We overheard the director of the hotel screaming into the phone very aggressively and unprofessionally. 4. Our toilet did not work and it overflowed. The staff did not manage to fix it or really tried to fix it. 6. The food is not good at all—which is not surprising as I’m assuming they only had one chef cooking the food since it always took forever to arrive. 7. The wifi was not good. 8. The first room we went to smelled like mold so we had to move to another room which smelled better.

The resort is in a great location with a small but quiet beach and a nice house reef outside. Beware that some units require walking up a lot of steps and the ones set away from the beach have a lot of mosquitoes around. The staff are super friendly and nice although the service of the hotel could be more attentive i.e when lying on the beach you don’t get asked if you want drinks. Room cleaning was only done once in our 7 day stay and only because we asked for it. Towels are not automatically offered to beach goers all the time. The restaurant is pretty slow with almost an hour for food to arrive sometimes. The food itself can be nice depending on what you order. Some is pretty good actually…others a bit average. Pricewise, this isn’t a cheap hotel and I feel that if you compare the price to resorts in other tropical beach locations around the world, you get much better service in other places like Sheratons, Marriotts and Hiltons etc. that said, overall I would still recommend Matinloc for the great beach and reef.

The hotel needs an update. Rotten boards by the pool, sticking boards in the rooms, the general tiredness of everything you see around. It all ended with the fact that one of the friends simply broke his leg, tripping over a protruding board. In addition, the hotel has a very strange management that does not want to do anything for the guests. Another problem is the lack of alternative nutrition. The level of service and food in the hotel's only restaurant is disgusting for the price.

Facilities: very complete, all requirements met Hygiene: The customer service is very attentive in cleaning, even if we check in suddenly, there is no problem at all Environment: I'm tired of saying the word "beautiful", it's worth a visit Service: I am most satisfied with the service, which is very considerate and makes you feel that the money is worth it, and every staff member is very enthusiastic Pick-up service: I didn't need to take things with my hands during the whole process, and they were already waiting for us in advance, which was very considerate

The location of the hotel is very good. In EI Nido is a rare good location, there should not be many such islands. The beach is very clean and of good quality. Food needs to be improved. Staff service is very good. Recommended.

Made Tripadvisor account for this! It was really agreat experience in this resort, I do have Pros and Cons on this resort and lets start with Pros Pros 1. Workers are very friendly and the hospitality is phenomenal. 2. Its in secluded island so you have to take a boat to get here from the main town, its very quiet and peaceful 3. Great beach and they have a sand bar where you take the kayak for free to explore 4. Food is great and breakfast are free 5. Bed are comfortable and have jacuzzi inside the room as well 6. They have infinity pool and another pool which is saltwater Cons 1. The boat are not included in the price, and they need new speedboat, water was getting into it and they have to use a bucket to remove the water. 2. the loading dock is 9/10 dangerous, so if you are handicapped, I dont recommend, they have to carry you and pray you get there safely 3. Sand Bar has trash on them. They need to clean that island, i almost step on broken wine glass 4. Room plumbing are broken, toilet is leaking and the faucet is loose. 5. If you have Tour boat from outside source, they cant dock on this island (but I think this is El Nido policy so Im not sure) you have to pay the hotel boat to get into the mainland to meet your tour 6. They have their own Tour Boat but its sooo expensive 7. Food are ok, especially the korean cuisine, its not good.

I have to admit I had some serious anxiety about the location on the way to the property. I read some reviews that were very negative and for the price I ended up expecting the worst. Thankfully, that poor review was nothing like the experience I had. The property is amazing. This place looks like a fantasy land and had me asking questions about how it was constructed. In this review I am going to discuss several aspects of the property and will try to do it in order of arriving and departing. First off. Make sure you reserve your flight to the island prior to booking the hotel. The hotel has a super strict no cancellation/change policy. I took an AirSwift Flight from Manila Terminal 4 to El Nido. This is a very nice prop driven craft. If you are the type that likes to book your seat in the front of the plane so you can be the first to exit. That won't work on this plane. You enter/exit from the rear, so in this case sitting towards the rear will get you off the plane faster. It really doesn't matter as you might be bused to the plane in Manila and when you arrive at El Nido the van is not leaving until all passengers are mustered. The van that picks you up is not what you would expect from a fine establishment so don't let that cloud your judgement of the hotel. The van picked me up at the airport and drives you to a port office. From there you will take a short boat ride to the resort. Keep in mind it might be a while until the boat arrives. I was able to grab some lunch in town first. The driver will take you to a place that most westerners frequent. The boat ride to the resort was approximately 25 minutes. The ride was very pleasant, and the island and water scenes are suburb. The boat was decent and has two 150hp outboard motors which scoot you along quite quickly. Upon arriving at the resort, you are greeted with shell necklaces and a very refreshing drink. While I'm on the topic of drinks let me give you a stern warning. This facility does not have a bar and does not sell alcohol. Word to the wise. If you want to enjoy some alcoholic delights, talk to the van driver and have him take you shopping. I got the memo on this from the driver, but apparently other quests had the inside scoop because some arrived with enough drinks to have a serious party. I heard there are two reasons for this.... I don't know which is true. 1. Apparently, the owner does not approve of alcohol due to religious beliefs. 2. Some of the rooms are alongside the mountain and there are tons of steps to reach the highest rooms which you would not want to be climbing with a buzz much less drunk. The hotel does not seem to care if you bring your own alcohol and I noticed they happy provided ice some residents that had a few bottles of gin at their table. Check in went very quickly and the front staff will guide you to your room which was very nice. My room was about halfway up the side of the hill. I am in damn good shape,

You’re paying for access to the private beach. Food is bad AND double the price what you’d pay in town, rooms don’t cool down enough, no hot water in the shower, huge bees and flies everywhere, aggressive monkeys that aren’t afraid to bang on your window and show teeth, no bar like the trip advisor description says, didn’t see a library or rec room, the gym didn’t have aircon, ferry hours are limited, and you must pay $1000 PHP minimum if you want to go back to town during your stay. I’ve stayed at other resorts in El Nido and around Palawan, and I can confidently say you can find better comfort elsewhere. We felt misled and so uncomfortable to the point of leaving, but no refund for the nights we didn’t stay. I understand and agreed to the no refund policy before staying, but I was also being sold on a different experience/accommodation/hospitality/etc.

We booked our stay at the Mantiloc resort for our honeymoon. We had high hopes going in but ended up leaving 2 days early disappointed. The staff, and the hotel itself are both lovely. The food is not great (honestly, it’s just bad) and it’s double or triple what you’d pay in El Nido. My wife and I are vegetarian and there were very few options for us. Every other hotel we’ve stayed at all over Palawan were extremely accommodating, so if you have dietary restrictions… beware. There are monkeys, lizards and large bees on the island. One morning there was a large group of giant bees hanging from the patio right outside our door. The shower didn’t have hot water, the room didn’t have WiFi, the TV had only a few channels and given the wifi issues streaming was very limited. Finally, the island is 25min boat ride from El Nido and trips cost $1000 PHP per person. So if you’re traveling with a partner expect to pay $2000 PHP each trip you make to the island. At the end our stay we requested a refund given our experience and that we were on our honeymoon. The resort denied our request citing their no refund policy. We would have given three stars if we got a partial refund or even a sincere apology.

We stayed for four nights. We were received from El Nido Airport by Mantiloc Resort, then we moved from the airport to the port by an air conditioned van. When we got off from the boat, there was playing an welcome music, there were staffs who received us with a necklaces and welcome drink. They were advised that I’m 5months pregnant, so when we arrived to the resort, they offered to stay downstairs instead of going up 99 stairs, but they also offered to try it by myself. I finally decided to stay downstairs, and I think it was a good decision. Also we arrived to the resort at 8am and they offered to check in earlier. Very kind from their side since we were exhausted The staff was very kind and helpful all the time, our special thanks to Jed. He also called us last morning to wake up us before the breakfast time ends. He was worried all the time. The resort has nature environment and well cared modern building with two pools, one of them an infinity. Although i can imagine it should be very hard to bring stuffs from the land, we lacked nothing. We took a private tour, Estantula Island, Big Lagoon and Snake island. We doubed initially because of the high cost. Around 400 dollar for two pax. But I think it really worthed. Spacial thanks to Ninio, our tour guy. Very helpful all the time. We felt very cared. The lunch was also very special, with table, tablecloth, silverwares, variated dishes and also fruits. Thanks to the Korean director also, he came to us to offer any help, I asked him to exchange some korean wons to philippine pesos so I can tip the staff. Don’t forget to take some changes with you, you will feel bad when you don´t have ten dollars in your hand to tip the people. The highlight part: all the staffs saying us goodbye when we were leaving the island by boat. I will definetely come back when my son grows up enough