We got a one night escapade at The Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel Manila. A night of relaxation and fun!
Though I can say I’m still anxious that I left my kids at home for the first time. We had fun! Surely! But any of you been there? Below is the photo of the front view of the hotel at night.
The Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel is located inside the oldest district of Manila. it is fronting the walled city of Intramuros which was considered the seat of government, culture, religion, education, trade, commerce, and arts in Manila during the Spanish regime. The hotel is near of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, with a travel time of 30 to 45 minutes. I will be giving you the complete details of the hotel on the latter part of this post.
We just moved in to a new city and it’s been busy for the past months. Yes, we finally decided to leave our apartment for 5 years! Goodbye floods during rainy season, goodbye cleaning mud and dirty waters! But just in time when we are both (me and my husband) so drained, thinking and working hard for an improve life, my husband’s generous lady boss gifted us this treat!
I should have posted this earlier, but I was caught up with much important things to do. This get-away, became a sort of an advance anniversary gift for both of us (Our anniversary as a couple is April 8). My husband must have worked very well with her lady boss to deserved this thoughtfulness, right?
How do we get to spend our night here? Do you also believe there are people in our lives who thought more of us than we are to ourselves? I do and I am thankful for those people who do. We didn’t expect to be here not in a bit, because we are so caught up with our lives especially with the kids and work. Just in case you didn’t know, my husband works freelance in an online business. He edits videos and audios for clients. One day, my hubby’s boss says she and her friend went to The Bayleaf Intramuros in Manila and loved the placed. She is my husband’s boss for maybe almost a year or two. So she thought maybe my husband could date me there too for a dinner. How thoughtful is that? The 2 gift checks is enough for us to book a room in the hotel so we decided to spend a night there instead.
Being parents of three (3) kids with no help of a nanny, we thought, how can we escape? My parents are the only people I could think of at a time like this. But I wasn’t sure they are available. Most of the times, they may also have plans or other things they needed to do. So, I check on the calendar and ask them which day they could be available. Thank God and as always, my parents didn’t fail me. I got my dates ready for scheduling.
I contacted the hotel thru email and see if there were available rooms for the dates I have in mind. I was promptly replied back by their reservations OIC, Francis that they were available. Cutting the story short, we are reserved to accommodate a Superior room with a queen size bed which includes a buffet breakfast for two. We are so excited, we can’t wait for the weekend.
We rented a Grab car on the day of our reservation. That was luck, as we can’t book a taxi earlier. Thought we won’t get there in time, thanks to a no traffic day and we came to the hotel in less time. Moving forward, we were welcome at the hotel with smiles as we approach the concierge. We confirmed our reservation and they give us the key to our room. Please see below pictures for more details of our night in The Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel.
The key card we have also has the password to the WiFi internet, so convenient. It will also be the key to the electricity of your room so it is important that you have it while booked in the hotel especially when you need to go out of your room.
It is strictly no smoking on the rooms. See the sign? I’m glad my husband doesn’t smoke anymore, but he vapes, so there’s no problem about that. Air-con is not remote controlled, so you can see the dial knob there, where we adjust the coldness of our room. I’m not complaining because it doesn’t affect the coldness, it is just inconvenient to get up when it became too cold already and you wanted to lower the temperature.
Without the key card in this dock, you have no electricity too. No lights, no air-con. This is also the key to your room.
I love this feature in every hotel. You know where you are and where the other places are. This is very helpful to those people who don’t socialize much and is too shy to ask anyone the whereto of a place.
Soon as we unpacked and change our clothes I started to take pictures. Yes, I take pictures on the bathroom first. I need to check if it is clean. The OC-ness in me is kicking in.
I love the capiz holder, must be expensive and handmade. The soap dish is also cute!
I don’t really use a hair dryer but this is nice to have on your room if you don’t want your hair dripping with water when you go out.
I want a see through shower like this on my own house too! It’s easy to see if it’s getting dirty and time to clean. It’s surprisingly spacious, I love it!
Their rain shower is also nice, and it has hot and cold features too.
Bathroom CR is clean, one thing I didn’t like is that the bidet water leaks when you use it. I didn’t bother to have it repaired because we will only be there for a night. We are not going to use it that much, but I hope they should have checked it before we get in.
Our complimentary drinks from the hotel. No water in the heater, we used our mineral bottle for our coffee. Those donuts were supposed to be our breakfast while we travel. It ended up in our room best paired with the complimentary coffee of the hotel.
Our room also has a mini ref, which they call “mini bar” in their website but there’s nothing in there. Those beers I think we ordered together with our dinner.
I love that their room has a lot of mirrors, I think that what it makes it look more spacious than it actually was. Their Superior room is around 23 sqm as the website says. I’m not sure if the bathroom is included in that measurement. The pillows are nice soft but firm and smells nice. The bed sheets are comfy and all there waiting for you to tuck in.
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There’s also a bedside table which can be useful if you rare a traveler who brings work with you on hotels. You can put your laptop in there and work comfortably with the cushion chair.
I capture this photo in our hotel room window. I can still see the canons. Those people you see in there are mostly students who are doing their practice dance or just killing time before they go home. Some people are running and exercising.
Here is the menu list we can order for room service. Since my hubby doesn’t want to go out and eat, so he can spend a lot of time sleeping, we just ordered room service for our dinner. There are lots to choose from but since the Bayleaf hotel is one of the first rate boutique hotels in the Philippines, the prices with their menu goes with it. Hehehe, kidding aside, prices this high are for elite people only. To think a 12 peso bottle of water outside is 80 pesos in their menu. A 20 pesos can of soda outside is a 100 pesos in their menu. We ended up getting 1 soda, 2 bottled water (because the complimentary water were already use to make our coffee) and a glass of wine, which cost a bottle of cheap wine sold in malls.
This is how are menu came to our room before serving, all wrapped up in foil. The bell boy was kind enough and wants to serve it to us by starting to take each foil. I stopped and told him that we are no yet going to eat so he can leave it like that. They were polite when they came in and smile at us.
For dinner, we chose Classic Beef Kare-kare, fresh Caesar salad, and Ensemada pudding for our dessert. The kare-kare is really good and we both enjoy eating it. The sauce is on point and the bagoong goes really well with it. It’s too much for the two of us so we have some spare for the second round of eating when we get hungry. Rice is not included so we ordered separate rice for it. The caesar salad could be nice if only the bacon were not too crunchy, I mean way too crunchy it hurts my gums. The Ensemada pudding is too thick, but my husband love mangoes so it’s ok with him.
This is their House wine by the glass, we chose red wine. For P285, and it is only this much wine in the glass. The taste is strong, but not sweet. Me and my husband used to drinking wine we bought in malls. We both love sweet red wine, so that’s why we are not happy with what we ordered.
We also had cable TV, but we can’t find a nice movie to watch plus the TV is too small to watch at a distance. See below to get what I mean.
Before leaving the hotel, we have our buffet breakfast at their 9spoons restaurant at the rooptop. We didn’t have the chance to go there at night. I heard it turns your dinner into a romantic evening because of the live music entertainment while you are having a la carte dinner.
Overall, the night we spend there is quite an experienced to both of us. We slept well, the temperature is nice and the bed is cozy and spacious for just the two of us. Eat and drink well too! We definitely be doing this again.
I believed we both needed this rest even just for a day. After being married for almost 11 years, this is the first time we go out alone, just the two of us. Me and my husband are not really fond of going out much. Ever since we became couple, we only had a few trips together alone. A lot of the times, we go out with relatives and kids. So this is really exciting for us. And we both think it couldn’t happen if it wasn’t for his client’s thoughtfulness in giving us this opportunity to spend time together in this lovely way.
We were both hoping to do this every year, keeping our fingers crossed! Whereto next year? Keep dropping by for another hotel review soon!
The Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel
Address: Muralla corner Victoria Streets Intramuros, Manila, 1002 Philippines
Contact Numbers: +63 (2) 318 5000 or 328 3170 | Fax: +63 (2) 318 5001
Email: tbi-inquiry@thebayleaf.com.ph
Website: http://www.intramuros.thebayleaf.com.ph
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