Review: Sunshine Place Boracay

Our Boracay trip was something which we didn’t really plan thoroughly. Joie just booked a flight last February, and we didn't talk about it for months. I was so prepared to miss this trip given my erratic medical appointment schedules, and the fact that I wasn’t really that keen in going to Boracay. Barely a week before our trip, things got crazier with our respective jobs. Suffice to say, we had nothing for that trip except for our plane tickets. Although our trip wasn’t scheduled on peak season, we didn’t want to go there without any assurance that we at least have a place to stay for the night. Boyet and I were supposed to arrive in Caticlan around 1PM. Jeff and Joie’s flight happened to be two hours later. So given that we just needed a place to stay for the night, we all agreed to stay in a place with cheap accommodation. (We splurged a bit the day after when we transferred to another hotel. I'll tell you all about it on a separate post.)

Joie paid for the reservation fee to Sunshine Place just a couple of days before our trip. They charged us PHP1500 for a room for two. We were informed that the room is good for three people. Had we wished to all stay in one room, we needed to pay an additional PHP500 for the fourth person. Thinking that the PHP1500/night is not that bad, we decided to just book two separate rooms because that also meant that the four of us need not to share in one bathroom. Hehe. (Ang tagal ko kasing maligo. Chos! :p)

A photo of our room’s facade while standing at Jeff and Joie’s veranda

Sunshine Place has all the basic things you need to survive the night in Boracay. It has a comfortable bed, working air conditioner, clean bathroom and a cable TV with good reception. I immediately took a nap as soon as we arrived. That Cebu Pacific pilot gave me a terrible headache! :p

I can only complain of one thing. I just wish that their linens smell fresher. It doesn’t stink, but it smells quite old. ‘Yung parang nakulob na punda at kumot sa loob ng cabinet. I’m not sure if it’s because we went there on off peak season so the rooms don’t get to be used that much, thus giving the beds and the linens that kulob smell. We checked back in to Sunshine Place on our last night in Boracay. We got the same rooms that we stayed on our first night. And I have to say that the smell improved. So I guess, hindi lang siguro nabuksan ng matagal ‘yung room kaya nakulob.

Our bathroom is clean and spacious. It even has a rain head shower with heater. Some five-star hotels don’t even have bidets installed in their restrooms, but our bathroom has one! So yeah, that’s a definite plus point.

The cable TV reception is good enough, but the TV in our room has a three-second delay when switching channels. Haha! And the channels get jumbled once in a while. :p

Our accommodation does not include breakfast. But that didn’t pose as a problem given that Boracay is such a foodie’s haven. Sunshine Place provides free internet, but the signal is quite weak when you’re inside the room. I needed to open the door just to get better signal.

The people at Sunshine Place are very accommodating. We kept on asking for so many things, but they gladly obliged each time we make a request. We asked for more hangers and extra floor mats to name a few. And because we didn’t have the time to plan, we decided to just book their shuttle services. Even their drivers are very nice. One of the staff members even introduced us to a guide who gave us a discount when we did the parasailing and helmet diving.

The place is definitely not perfect. But we surely got the value of what we paid for. Plus, paying for PHP1500 a night for a place with this view is not that bad all!