About.com Rating

Taken at face value, the Harolds Hotel is a steal: it's a business hotel in uptown Cebu, Philippines with good value rooms, a gym, breakfast buffet, and a convenient location within a long walk/short ride of the Cebu Business Park.

After a first-hand experience of the place, though, I'll have to add a "yes, but". Several, in fact.

Yes, the roofdeck bar has a great view of the city, but its thrumming party music keeps the upper-floor guests awake throughout the night.


Yes, the rooms are nice, but the people factor leaves plenty to be desired. Yes, there are quite a few facilities on deck, but some of them feel like afterthoughts.

Harolds Hotel Deluxe Room

We checked into a deluxe room on the 11th floor of the hotel. At about 36 square meters with a window looking out to Gorordo Avenue, the room had plenty going for it: a 32-inch LCD TV with access to cable TV channels, a work desk, an iHome iPod dock/alarm clock and free WiFi.

The window only spanned half the length of the wall looking out to Gorordo Avenue, so natural light was a bit short at hand. The WiFi was spotty and problematic, petering out after the first day of our stay. And as only one more floor separated us from their roof deck bar, we spent a couple of sleepless nights waiting for their bass-impregnated party music to play out in the wee hours.

Harolds Hotel Amenities

We hadn't had the chance to check out the roofdeck bar - we heard more of it than we'd cared for - but we had breakfast at their ground-floor H Café.

The H Café itself is awash in natural light; the floor-to-ceiling glass windows facing Gorordo Avenue and the driveway allows the room to feel wide-open.

The breakfast buffet was acceptable, despite the glaring lack of bacon - it offered an admirable range of Chinese, Western and traditional Filipino cuisine.

While the Café was good, we wished the rest of the hotel lived up to similar standards. The other amenities we tried, as a matter of fact, fell far short.

The gym on the third floor, for instance, was a small ex-guestroom with only enough space for about four guests at any given time; it contained two treadmills, a stationary bike and a gym machine. And the "business center" was simply their concierge desk opened up for guests' use (the printer worked fine, but the CD drive failed to work at all). Both felt like they had been added at the last minute.

Harolds Hotel Service

The staff were, perhaps, Harolds's biggest let-down. The front desk staff put us - a married couple - in a twin bed room. No word on whether it was the last one available, and the only solution offered was to push the two beds together. An awkward, after-the-fact arrangement.

Later, a fellow guest informed us that she'd gotten blank stares after asking about the Sinulog Festival occurring during our stay. Another staffer happily proffered the official Sinulog parade map, but again drew a blank when our fellow guest asked where the Harold Hotel was located within the map!

To be clear, the staff was nothing but friendly and helpful in the main. A fellow guest confided that we might be seeing the rookie mistakes a teaching hotel staff might make, but I'd stayed at the Bayleaf Hotel - an actual teaching hotel - and encountered no such problems.

Harolds Hotel: the Lowdown

The Harolds Hotel makes far too many compromises to merit a hearty recommendation. While I appreciate its new-hotel smell and its accessible location near Cebu's city center, I felt let down by the combination of awkward service and jury-rigged amenities that we'd encountered during our stay.

In my considered opinion, your money would be better spent elsewhere: the immediate vicinity yields plenty of other hotels, which may offer better value and service. Check out our list of Cebu City hotels for some alternatives.

Harolds Hotel at a Glance

Location: Gorordo Avenue corner Rosal St., Lahug Cebu City, Philippines. Location of Harolds Hotel (Google Maps). 50 minutes' drive from Mactan-Cebu International Airport, 15 minutes' walk to Cebu Business Park.

Rooms: 90 rooms in total, divided into the following room classes: 45 Superior rooms, 36 Deluxe rooms, and 9 Executive suites.

Amenities: Free WiFi access in all rooms. Gym on third floor, H Café on ground floor serves breakfast and lunch buffet, roofdeck bar overlooking city. Airport transfers available upon request.

Contact Details: +63 32 505 7777 , haroldshotel.com.ph.