Bataan White Corals Resort Review, Morong, Bataan: Where Crappy Service Meets Crappy Food

I’m not gonna go ’round the bush and just tell you flat-out that this hotel is so lame and horribly overpriced for the kind of (non)service they provide, any modest hostel can so easily beat it on Tripadvisor.

Why did I say that? Here’s a concrete picture of what transpired during our three-day stay.


1. Rooms
Our red-tiled family bunk had 3 queen-sized beds plus an extra single-sized mattress, air conditioner, a CRT TV with fuzzy satellite cable service, an old painting, a buddy ref, a scrawny closet and a weeny, mirror-less, flooding bathroom that could fit a person and a half. The air conditioner runs a bit short for the room capacity. The floor space was meager for a family of six. The interiors, awash with dirt and old white paint, were run down, the lights dim, and lamps nowhere to be found. We slept in pitch-black.

Rooms on first floor.

If you wanted to eat inside the rooms you’d have to ask for monoblock tables and chairs to be squeezed in whatever small space was left in the room. If you as much as leave the monoblocks right outside, it’ll be gone the next minute. Happened lots of times with so many guests and too few dining sets.

Such room costs P9,000 a night. So it was peak season. So what? For a room that costs as much as a room in a 5-star hotel in Manila, you’d expect it to be just as impressive.


2. Food
We were happy the ‘rents brought food good for three days. Judging from the quality of their free breakfast, I wouldn’t count they serve anything decent. The second day they offered nothing but tapsilog. Everything else – oddly at 7am – was “unavailable”. We weren’t even able to eat the tapa because it tasted like dog freakin’ food. I kid not. Oh wait. I mean canned Wow!Ulam. But that’s like, interchangeable.

The third day they only served hotsilog and bangsilog. We went down to the in-house resto same time as before, and yet after 10 minutes, the bangsilog was already out. Hotdog was dry and tasted a bit sour. 

3. Service
Now this is probably the worst aspect of this self-proclaimed 5-star hotel. For a business that places itself in the hospitality industry, we did not at all feel that hospitality extended to us. Pretty sure the other guests felt that way too, judging on the way they obligingly munched on their dog food breakfast and confronted hostile restaurant counter servers.


One, their restaurant employs the most rude servers. Both times we were there, we asked for the menu. Gay server 1 said, “Walang menu. Tapsi lang ang meron. Wala na kaming ibang sini-serve for the day.”” I would appreciate the customary “po” and “opo”, but let that one slipped. 

Resto. Big space, but hollow service.

It’s free, yes. But that was also part of the bill customers pay for. And that part came utterly cold and horrible-tasting every time. Inedible, more likely.

This is also the first hotel restaurant I have been to where you are expected to self-serve ala-carte meals. Of course breakfast buffets are a different story. The service was too slow, and considering that the plates of reheated tapsi/ hotsi/ bangsi were already lined up on the counter even before you ask for a menu and how many free servers they have merely standing on the counter, I don’t see a reason for the delay. 

No room service, either – for free breakfasts perhaps, but I definitely saw roomed-in meals outside other guest rooms.

Yagit with lawlaw diaper.

So I get my fill and just bring it on my table. My sister decides to test: she approaches the counter and gay server 1 hands her her plate without muttering a word. When she asks if she’s the one who’s supposed to be bringing that to her table, server says, “Ah ipapadala niyo ba? Oy, ano (beckoning waiter), dalhin mo nga daw ‘to dun.”

Another customer approaches and rants that her meal is taking too long. Right after the woman turns away, gay server 2, without even bothering to leave the counter, loudly comments, “Ibigay niyo na nga daw ‘to dun sa negra. Nangingitim na sa galit eh, di naman bagay sa kanya!” 

For a while, I thought I was being Punk’d. 

Two, they do not exhibit accountability, even if it was their employee’s fault. My mother brought extra pillows inside the room. She had one covered in a brand spanking new pillowcase, a gift from Canada. On our second day, housekeeping personnel cleaned the rooms, but it was only during checkout that my mother noticed that the pillowcase was nowhere to be found.

Housekeeping claimed they have no idea where that pillowcase is. One even acted insulted that I dared ask (calmly, might I mention) if they had noticed that particular pillowcase in their laundry. 

One of ’em ladies defensively commented, “Tawagan niyo yung mga nag-OJT. Kasi kami dito wala kaming alam diyan. Wala kaming kinukuha, kahit tingnan niyo pa ho laundry namin.(Motions another personnel) Ipakita mo nga lahat ng nilalabhan natin ngayon.”

Short story is, pillowcase gone, not their fault. It was the OJTs who cleaned the room. Okay, so let’s just assume the hotel did not take these OJTs under their wing, so the hotel does not hold any semblance of responsibility for whatever consequences their employees have on guests.

My brother – who was in the room during housekeeping – said one of those ladies who claimed she wasn’t there the entire time was ACTUALLY one of those who cleaned the room. Arrogance and lying: great traits for hotel staff.

1. Parking space is HUGE.

Open space fronting restaurant.

Playground from the space across the kiddie pool.

Saltwater pool. Water hulled from the sea. Wasn’t able to try this one though.

Kiddie pool

Freshwater adult pool