Fine Life On A Budget + + +

Relatives had to stay at home for a week, so I found it as a perfect opportunity to hotel-hop during the work week until the weekend. I had a shortlist of budget hotels in the San Juan City, Mandaluyong City, and Quezon City areas that offer standard rooms that go no more than Php2,000 a night. The low-end hotel needed to be near Ortigas Center where I work. This means that Lancaster, Richville, Horizon, Fersal and other similar establishments were instantly out of the picture.

Enter Orange Place Hotel of San Juan City and Tri-Place Hotel of Quezon City.

My specifications were simple: the room must have windows and WiFi connection. Plus, the rate has to be below Php2,000.

Orange Place Hotel's Standard room goes for Php1,570 a night while Tri-Place Hotel's is Php1,500. They are both good for two persons.

Both establishments have internet connection. The Orange Place room I got doesn't have one, so I had to surf in the reception area where there is no air conditioning. Tri-Place staff members gave me a net cord to connect inside my room, but the connection there was intermittent. I tried its WiFi connection downstairs inside the adjoining restaurant, but the staff had difficulty operating the system. I never got online.
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As for my window requirement, I was satisfied with Orange Place's room with a view. The hotel is situated along a curve of Santolan Road near the San Juan Municipal Hall. The building is on an elevated plane that gives the location a higher view of the Greenhills residential area from the second floor where I stayed in. The Tri-Place room that I got has a window alright. However, when I peered through the blinds, I saw the fire exit stairs instead. During my first five hours of stay there, I saw more than five maintenance people go up and down that area from my bed.

When it comes to both hotels' interior design, I commend Orange Place for its room's quaint feel that its wooden flooring and wall-ceiling fixtures exude. The room layout was evidently designed as a home away from home setting. It somehow simulates rooms of high-end hotels for having the cabinet, bed, and bathroom where they should be.

The Tri-Place room I was given, on the other hand, looks more modern in a way that made me feel unnecessarily disconnected to the place. The wall paint works on pastel which is soothing to the eyes. The fixtures are evidently current, but one could tell that they were probably purchased from just one store or maybe from various ones and eventually haphazardly installed. The only saving grace is the flat-screen TV.

The air conditioning is good at Orange Place in spite of the appliance having to be manually operated. I managed to stay indoors for most of the time sleeping like a baby.

With Tri-Place it was a different story. I had a problem with my room's air conditioning. I had to summon maintenance to check up on it twice. I was supposed to sleep upon checking in at 12 noon, but that didn't happen as I was inconvenienced by maintenance representatives visiting my room to test the faulty air conditioner. The power inside my room obviously had a problem because the electricity would fluctuate every five minutes. I had to request for an electric fan. I ended up sleepless and agitated for my appointment that night. I made sure that I got transferred to a different room with a functioning air conditioner which Management appropriately arranged. It might have taken two more hours for them to do so, but the new room was worth it. It finally has a small window that opens to the real outdoors -- sun and all.

I was even accommodated a two-hour extension for the inconvenience although I would have preferred an additional three more hours of it to make up for the total of five grueling hours that I had to contend with the day before. Bad experiences like good ones, after all, are priceless. Any hotel management must ensure its guests the convenience of service. I was informed that the room I was transferred to was an upgrade. It was worth Php200 more than the first one. Does this mean that the three more hours  on top of the two hour extension is worth Php40 per hour of goodwill service? I guess it is. That's Php200 divided by five hours of extension, by the way. What a way of putting a price on one's convenience.

As for hotel security, Orange Place uses the old-fashioned key for its rooms. Hotel guests need to surrender them in the reception area for their room safety giving the hotel staff the responsibility of taking care of your well-being.

Tri-Place goes the other way when it comes to room security. Electronic cards are used and hotel guests are advised to keep it wherever they go whether inside or outside the building. Hotel lurkers or unwanted visitors are automatically kept at bay because the card is also used to open a security door per floor aside from the guests' own room doors.

With pun intended, I have a gut feeling that the Php70 in Orange Place Hotel's Php1,570 a night rate is actually for the so-called FREE breakfast. Served every 7:00 am to 10:00 am, the free meal is considerably healthy because I noticed that the selection was not too salty and unnecessarily fried.

Tri-Place hotel's standard room rate does not come with a free meal, so the flavorful grilled liempo shown above set me back for Php170. It is available at Don Luis Restaurant that's inside the hotel premises, specifically beside the reception area. The plain rice I ordered is "first class" according to the menu. The so-called "overflowing coffee" I ordered with it is anything but. I found out later that the overflow is up to three cups only.

After a week of hopping from one budget hotel to another, I learned that low-end rate is really what it is -- low end service. One must not equate it with high-end service-oriented rates. The only expectation one must have is purely about accommodation. Add-ons such WiFi connectivity and package freebies are not supposed to make the accommodation anything less than convenient because the only real inconvenience in budget hotels is when its staff members are not doing their jobs. All in all, I enjoyed discovering all these... even the minor detail of an Orange Hotel staffer returning to me the bottle of supplements that I accidentally left on the bed when I was on check out already. It gave me the idea of leaving the same bottle on purpose in my room at Tri-Place during my check out just to see if the staff member there was as attentive as the one in Orange Place. Case in point: not as attentive. I was told that the room was cleared and I was free to go without my Vitamin C that was on the bathroom sink.