Over our 11-day vacation in Cebu, we had reservations to stay at the Radisson Blu Cebu on three different occasions: Day 01, Day 04, and Days 08 to 10 nights. I suppose one could say we became rather experienced guests at the property by the end of the trip! The hotel is rated as a 5-star establishment, located right in the heart of Cebu City, and regarded as one of the better hotels in the city.
Our comments!
The hotel looks and feels like one of those grand traditional hotels with a huge lobby, multiple function and banquet rooms, numerous amenities, and several check-in counters at reception. The property is situated about 11 km from Mactan-Cebu International Airport — a relatively quick 25-minute drive away — and is hard to miss as one travels along Sergio Osmeña Jr. Boulevard.
The hotel sits in a pretty busy area, including the aforementioned main road, an international container port, a bus terminal, and — most significantly for us — the huge SM City Cebu shopping mall. That the hotel is located literally opposite the mall is a huge benefit: there is a very wide range of F&B options available. Do note though that on weekends the dining crowds arrive early and queues form quickly. The mall also has retail outlets for just about everything a traveller might need: groceries from a large supermarket, mobile phones, accessories if you’ve forgotten something, laptops, and cameras. There is even a shop selling drones, including updated DJI models.
Check-in was mostly painless, though it took a while each time. The reception desk is usually quite busy with guests, given how many rooms the property has. I also had the impression that the hotel did not pre-prepare documents for guest reservations beforehand, which might explain why the check-in process took longer than expected each time.
We booked the same class of room for all three reservations: a Superior room with two twin beds. We were allocated rooms on the 11th floor, 7th floor, and finally the 15th floor respectively. The first two reservations had two twin beds, while for the last reservation the front desk upgraded us to a slightly larger corner room of the same class, but with a king-sized bed and an additional day bed. The kids are getting older now, so the twin beds can only just about fit the four of us. This will likely be one of the last few trips where we can still get away with booking a single room for all of us! The room size — about 35 sqm — was also a very welcome change compared to the typically small hotel rooms we often encounter in Japan.
The bathroom has a shower stall and adjoining toilet within a single space, but it is large enough that guests won’t need to squeeze past each other while using both facilities. Our room did not have a bathtub — not that we use those anyway. Water pressure from the shower head was excellent, and the usual amenities such as conditioner, shower gel, and shampoo were provided. The in-room TV was a decent wall-mounted screen of perhaps 46″ and offered cable channels including Cartoon Network. The in-room Wi-Fi was fast, and we had no issues with multiple devices connected simultaneously. One thing to note though: the Wi-Fi network itself did not appear very secure. There was no password required, and Windows warned us that it was an unsecured connection. You might want to take the usual precautions such as using a VPN. Finally, the room also had a security safe for valuables.
We did encounter service lapses, specifically related to housekeeping. Our three bookings were for four guests. However, during our first stay we were allocated a room that had been prepared for single occupancy. We called housekeeping to bring additional bathroom slippers, and then called again when we discovered there were not enough bath towels. The slippers arrived quickly enough, but not the towels. After ten minutes we called again and waited another 15 minutes. Nothing. This was late afternoon and the kids were getting hungry, so we headed out to explore SM City Cebu for dinner, though we stopped by reception first to follow up on the request. Thankfully, by the time we returned two hours later, the additional towels had been delivered. Still.
For the second reservation, we alerted reception about our earlier experience during check-in. The counter staff immediately called housekeeping to ensure there were sufficient towels, so everything was fine.
For the third reservation, we made the same pre-alert. Housekeeping delivered three towels even after reception had been told that we needed four. Our third reservation was also a 4D3N stay, and the towels were not replaced on the second night — possibly because we had hung them up neatly to dry — but there was no signage explaining what to do if we wanted fresh towels. So yes, housekeeping appears to be somewhat hit-and-miss at this property.
Would we recommend this property? It’s a qualified yes. Radisson Blu Cebu gets most things right: the rooms are reasonably large and clean, and the hotel has the huge advantage of being located directly opposite SM City Cebu.