Hotels Diplomat and Parklane et DIA vs filipinaheart
stayed at diplomat hotel 2 nights and then transferred to the parklane:
diplomat: very inexpensive and quite worthy if you are on a budget. paid about 1200 peso or about 25 usd per night (hotels. com) with free internet, good cable (didn't use it), and very accomodating staff. note: the diplomat reception posts that you have to buy internet access cards but their network or router is not secured so you really do not have to pay and it is high speed. the diplomat is relatively run down and is close to a km from robinson's plaza which is not much imho. diplomat is also very near district with many clubs though this is my first visit and i have been using the web almost exclusively for arranging dates.
parklane: initially reserved for 2 nights but satisfied enough to extend reservation through weekend until departure. paid about 3250 per night (about 70 usd) which includes unltd internet and breakfast buffet for 2. the facilities are all very good. service at the restaurant is very mediocre, but the food is ok and the rest of the hotel is a very solid 4 star. if you stay at the parklane, all the comments before about street side vs mountain side are spot on. there will be lots of construction on the street side for many months to come as 2 high rises are going up. i asked for mountain view before arrival and was put in a street side. after the first night, i inquired at the front desk about moving and in 30 minutes i was in a mountain side room. ayalla mall is a very short walk, like about 400 m. the biggest issue here is you have to cross a very busy street pedestrian friendly to filipino standards. concierge will sometimes come out and halt traffic for you but otherwise you get to hone your skills at dodging jeepney's and taxis.
the marriot has a clear advantage here as it is practically connected to the ayalla and i do envy my sporting colleagues who stay there. i will try the marriott next time.
bottom line between diplomat vs parklane, on my budget, more stars the better and at 3200 +/- per night, i like the parklane. but if you don't mind really cheap accomodations, than i think the diplomat is an excellent alternative.
location strategy footnote: location of the clubs obviously a point i minimized here as i have not used clubs or hooker sites at all thus far. dia (dates in asia) vs filipinaheart. com? i signed up to filipinaheart only because i was unaware of dia. i think after a brief perusal of dia, they are very comparable for pi lbfms. dia looks like it might have much better regional and/or global access however so if i did it over i would probably go dia.