Bolod Hotels

Dumaluan Beach Resort: WORST Customer Service Yet

We've been staying at this resort for 4 consecutive years for our annual beach trip. We never really cared for their service up until they treated us so horribly during our last stay.

We reserved 2 cottages for 11 people a day before. We specified that we wanted the Php1,000 cottages and that we wanted adjacent cottages. We were informed right then and there that our reservation was confirmed. But everything went wrong and they practically ruined our vacation.

1. In the first place, they booked us the wrong cottages. 30 minutes before we arrived, they called to inform us that 1 of the rooms was unavailable so we had to make do with 1 room because all the other rooms were full. We were 11 people total so it would be impossible to fit 11 people in a room good for a maximum of 6. When we insisted that they find us another room because it was not our fault in the first place, they offered us another room in a new portion of the resort. When we asked to view to the room first, we discovered that it was located in an isolated, dark, untended part of the resort. There were not neighboring rooms and there were even construction materials scattered outside!

2. Their staff is poorly trained at handling customer complaints. They were sarcastic, unpolite, and they gave us obvious fake smiles. The manager of the resort, Rachel Dumaluan-Vallente, was not any better. She would not let us finish talking, cutting us off mid-sentence. She also spoke to us in such a way that gave off the impression that we should be grateful to her for even entertaining us in the first place.

3. When we asked to view the only available room, we were escorted by their staff and followed by a security guard armed with a huge gun. As we were viewing the room, the guard stood alert in front of the cottage entrance facing us as he held the gun. Later on that night, we noticed that as the same guard was doing his usual rounds, he had no gun in hand.

4. After having no choice but to check in to the only decent available room and squeeze ourselves in (some of us ended up sleeping on the bench outside the cottage), we ran into Dr. Doloreich Dumaluan, the owner of the resort. We told him about our dilemma which was caused by his resort's staff in the first place. All he could say was that "ganun talaga, minsan may lapses" (translation: it's really like that, sometimes there are lapses)

5. After all the trouble they have put us through, they still wanted to charge us the full amount of the cottage plus a charge for every extra person. We resisted because the whole situation was their fault in the first place (making the wrong reservations, confirming our reservation without double checking availabilities, not willingly find a DECENT solution to the problem they caused, and even treating us like nobody)

6. After putting us through all that hassle and practically ruining our vacation, we never heard a single "sorry" from their staff.

Unique Quality: The beach in front of the resort is magnificent! The resort does not do any justice to it.