Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan

We just returned home from Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan. It was our first time in Cebu. It was a short but great trip. The highlights: Accommodations: We chose Crimson because we frequent high-rise hotels when traveling and decided this time we wanted a villa/bungalow type of room. No hallways and no elevators. Crimson checked those boxes. They also accommodated our requests for a king bed and first floor room. Activities and amenities: Our daughter loved Crimzone and the children’s pool. It was hard to get her to leave. The Saturday foam party was fun and the pool staff were engaging. My wife and I both availed the spa and wow, we can see why they won an award for Best Value in Asia. The price was affordable while the quality of service was top-notch. Food: The buffet breakfast was good and had a lot of variety. My favorite item was the fruit and veggie smoothies. Who knew bakchoy and mango blend well together? But it was the attentive staff that really made breakfast a great experience. We tried the 24-hour room service and I swear the chicken club sandwich was one of the best I’ve had in my entire life 5/5! The lowlights: Here are some reasons why we are not giving Crimson an excellent review. 1. Overpriced/low quality food in Saffron during ala carte dinner. Our first night we arrived in the evening and were hungry. For two people (our daughter is a toddler) we paid over 5000php for an appetizer, 3 entrees, one beer and one bottle of water. Honestly, the price would be ok for this amount of food if the quality was better. I would suggest Aka or Enye for higher quality food although we didn’t try either. Saffron was empty that night and we found out why. 2. Distance to places/sites. Crimson is quite far for shopping or eating at other restaurants. We hired a private car for 3 hours and was only able to visit two sites and one pasalubong store. Luckily it was only moderate traffic on that Saturday. 2500php for a sedan for 3 hours was reasonable. 3. The gift shop is waaaay overpriced. 950php for a small tube of sunblock seemed very high even at a resort. We also wanted some souvenirs, but there wasn’t much variety at all. 4. Our room needed some TLC. The paint in the nice tub was chipping, the caulking in the showers could use a refresh and there was a huge ipis (roach) in the closet. Luckily we spent most of the time outside the room. 5. No floaties or life vests for toddlers to use, even for rental. Despite having almost everything else, this would have been a nice touch. 6. We came to Cebu for mangoes and lechon, but Crimson didn’t offer these items and again, because of distance, it would have been nice to have some at the hotel. The bottom line: We enjoyed our stay and would definitely recommend it to others, however we would give them our full review so they are aware of the pros and cons. Thank you to the wonderful staff that made up for the minor issues we encountered!

Had a perfect stay, everything is excellent: great rooms, great property, great services, great breakfast.