Sofitel Philippine Plaza

Just recently it came to my knowledge that Sofitel Philippine Plaza is the former Westin Plaza Manila along the Manila Bay, still the same, its near the bay. My mom was one of the lucky few delegates of the Pediatrics Convention being held at PICC and was sponsored by a drug company to stay at Sofitel (which was supposedly only for the officials and higher ranking people in the Medicine-Pharmaceutical world). She had a 3-night accommodation at the hotel, and to experience the same comfort , I accompanied her during her stay.

Check-in time is 2:00 pm, we got there almost 3pm thinking that our room will be ready. We waited for more than 30minutes just to get in our room. The scene was still tolerable, there were a lot of people in the hotel since its summer (tourists and foreigners are everywhere) and its convention season - the hotel was practically fully-booked so it was jammed.

No complaints about the facilities, the place, its beautiful! The rooms are nice, very spacious and very clean. The pool area is great, very child friendly. The people are very accommodating, the staff, house-keepers and all. For a not-so accessible place, it was more than alright.

The first two nights were alright, we had a great stay. I'm sure they enjoyed their meals because Spiral is the restaurant that people everywhere talk about. On our "supposedly" 3rd night, we were about to go to sleep when the front desk calls and asks "Would you like to extend your stay?" Extend? We weren't planning to extend our 3 night stay to 4 nights. Then she says "You were only booked for 2 nights, as much as you want to extend, you can't." Woah!!! So much for the courtesy question.. We can't naman pala. Along the puzzling conversation, mom rings the marketing director of her sponsored drug company, talks to the front desk again, and it turned out our room was booked for another customer.

Hmmm. The convention ended yesterday and maybe, just maybe, Sofitel would like to send the delegates home already. When we checked-in, we confirmed the number of nights that we were gonna stay at the hotel, and it was said 3 nights.

What happened to the 3rd night? Oh yes, we were sent home. Boo!!! For a sponsored thing, it was disappointing. Very disappointing.

Bad service?
I miss the life-size Chess pieces of Westin