September 5, 2018

Staycation: Grand Weekend Staycation at City Garden Grand Hotel Makati

Everyone deserves a break. I mean we all really do. After I took my Nursing board exams a great couple of years ago, I already started working even though I still didn’t know if I passed or not. When I became a registered nurse and opportunities came, I was non-stop with work. I only had three jobs under my belt and I believe there was only a couple of weeks of free time that I had in between in jobs. So to say the least, I have been working for almost a decade straight. 




Sure, I get to have breaks and vacations, but you know sometimes you get to a point where you really really get burned out and I guess it is a way that life tells us to now and then, pause. That is exactly what happened to me; I was in a rut and a very dark place so I left my almost 8-year job and decided to take somewhat a sabbatical leave. To reassess and to evaluate where I want my life to be headed. 




Part of it also was to regain the social life that I almost lost during the past half of the year and give sometime to my other passions in life including blogging. The day after I quit my job, I was already out and about and seeing my friends outside of work and blogger friends. Everyone was congratulating me for being brave enough to pause my career for a while. And to be honest, it was a very good feeling to be able to reconnect with people again. 




And I finally got to catch up with two of my closest blogger friends: Bettina (www.bettinabacani.com) and Princess (www.phantasmdarkstar.com) via a short staycation at City Garden Grand Hotel around two weeks ago during a long weekend. We don’t get to see one another that much, only during events which I don’t get to go that often and talk via social media. So it was just very fitting that we do this mini-vacation.





Taking a vacation is often easier said than done. There’s the planning, the budgeting, the packing. Good thing is that taking a staycation is all the glory of taking a much-needed break without the aforementioned weary parts. Going on this staycation is much need by the three of us, it was good for us both physically and mentally. I know it will put us all three in a different frame of mind, will get us out of our standard patterns and will give us time to talk about and do a lot of things. 




City Garden Grand Hotel in Makati is a preferred hotel by travelers from all origins seeking comfortable luxuriant accommodations in one of Manila’s liveliest neighborhoods: Poblacion. City Garden Grand is known for their Filipino hospitality with lavish furnishings and amenities with an expansive and flexible venues for business events and social occasions.


The Hotel Room
We, PB&J, as we like to call us three which stands for the first letters of our names hahaha, stayed in one of City Garden Grand’s The Deluxe Room. It is located on the 27th floor of the hotel which is one of the luxury floors of the hotel as you will notice in the elevator buttons; from 27th to 32nd the buttons are colored black. 



Ours was a 36 sqm. corner room overlooking the intersection of Kalayaan and Makati Avenues. Most of the room has glass windows from floor to ceiling which is super nice as I love natural sunlight. It was very spacious and with Narra hardwood flooring and furnishings. We have a long office-type desk by the window and beside that an entertainment area with a LED flatscreen TV. Also, you can find a personal ref, dining utensils and coffee making facility in the cabinets. 




We had 2 super huge and super comfy double beds with fresh clean sheets. Because we want to us three to sleep together, we pushed the two beds together to form one massive bed. I love how firm the mattress are and the pillows were just right. The air-conditioning was running good too and we also have PABX phones on our bedside tables.




Inside the closet we found an electronic safe, laundry bags, hangers and robes. I like that the room was also equipped with an ironing set, which I also look for in a hotel room because my clothes gets all wrinkled during packing. Since it was 3 of us staying at the room, we also asked the staff if we can have another robe, towel and slippers set and they happily delivered it to our room after a few minutes. 





The Bathroom 
Our room also had a huge bathroom to boot. A full body mirror serves as the door of the bathroom another thing that I love in hotel rooms. Inside was a huge marble counter with essential toiletries including a hair dryer (yey!) The toilet also came with a bidet and there’s also a phone beside it. I don’t know who people talk to when they’re using a toilet, but probably it may come handy hahaha!



The comfort room also has a bath and shower in one. Unfortunately, Princess and I forgot to bring bath bombs. But we made up for activity that by doing a mini-facial spa using the clay mask that I bought as you can see on the photo slide show above. I love how clean and fresh smelling the bathroom was, as I am very particular when it comes to the cleanliness of hotel bathrooms. What I noticed though is that the bathroom door doesn’t have any lock or door knob. There’s a reason behind it perhaps, but I didn’t bother to ask anymore.





The Amenities
Our room included rooftop pool access at the 32nd floor, valet parking, hi-speed wireless internet, free gym use and access to massage and spa services. It also includes buffet breakfast at Spice Cafe at the 7th floor. 



City Garden Grand Hotel boasts about their open-air rooftop pool and their 3 in-house restaurants: Spice Café, Firefly Roofdeck and Terrace 33 (which I will blog about separately). Their pool is one of the nicest infinity pools I’ve seen in Makati and is very relaxing to lounge around at. Unfortunately we didn’t get to swim because it was always drizzling that weekend and we just wanted to lie in bed the rest of our stay. Well, we basically wanted to #eatsleeprepeat hahaha!





The Service
I like how our check-in and check-out process was quite fast and whenever we needed something the hotel staff are readily available to assist us. Most of them are also courteous. The best part of our stay, I would say is the dining experience especially that we were assisted and provided with excellent service by the staff of both Spice Café and Firefly Roofdeck. But I will elaborate more on that on my reviews of the said restaurants.




Overall Experience
What I like about City Garden Grand Hotel is its location; it’s in the heart of Makati. It’s just a few walking distance to Poblacion, the hippest and it place to be in Metro Manila. It is also a few minutes away from Makati CBD, and a lot of malls like Century Mall, Circuit, Glorietta Malls, SM Jazz, Rockwell Powerplant Mall and Greenbelt Malls.


All in all I could definitely say that our staycation was a great one, a grand one rather. There is certainly a time and place for a full-blown vacation, which I know Bettina, Princess and I can do again soon. But this staycation was so much worth our time. After all, every now and then, it’s good to pause.






CITY GARDEN GRAND HOTEL
8008 Makati Ave. cor. Kalayaan Ave. 
Makati City, Philippines 
Contact No: 02 8888181
Email: reservations@citygardengrandhotel.com 
Website: www.citygardengrandhotel.com
Facebook: facebook.com/CityGardenGrandHotel
Instagram: instagram.com/citygardengrand



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