Honestly, I tossed a coin to see what I would blog about first, the beauty of ChilLine's T house or the bad side? Unfortunately, heads meant bad, so here goes.
It was a weekend that my gang and I were looking forward to. We were so excited that we planned everything a month before the date. We had Fifi as the "Chef", Windie as our "Donor" as it is part of her birthday celebration. The Dizon's were in charge of the transportation and the rest brought junk food, drinks and entertainment.
The place is not very hard to find. We made one mistake but it wasn't too late until we figured it out. I didn't notice the travel time because I was hooked on New Girl which was playing on my iPad.
(LOVE THAT SHOW)
The entrance looked promising. We entered the house and saw a staircase going down to the sala. At this point, we were still ecstatic at the beauty of the house. (More on the good part of the house in my next post.)
Like children, we ran into every room so we can call dibs on where we want to stay the night. To tell you truthfully, we looked like headless chickens running around the place because we couldn't decide where we wanted to stay...not because all the rooms were beautiful but because they were all pretty bad.
Let me introduce to you the Master's Bedroom. It has a HUGE view of the lake, a king size bed, a Lazy Boy, an indoor jacuzzi and a very spacious shower that's separate from the toilet (I love it when they are in separate rooms).
First thing we noticed was the smell of mold. As you may all know, wood and Tagaytay weather isn't really a perfect marriage. Much like mine, in which case, I am Tagaytay and my ex is the mold.
This was the bedroom of Dr. Windie Hayano and Dorothy Neri.
Am I too snobby when I say that the bedsheets aren't fixed well? Call it my pet peeve when the bed is not well made. Ask my daughter, Jacqueline, who gets it from me when she doesn't flatten the sheets.
At the elevated area is where the dirty, dried up, bordering gross of a jacuzzi that has insect eggs and poo inside it. And yes, to the side of the cabinets is a filthy mattress just sitting there (this is for those who need an extra bed in the rooms). My vivid imagination just went wild on how much bedbugs it must have growing inside of it.
The bathroom is most important to me. Chuvaness and I have that in common. It is the first thing to be checked out and this one absolutely failed. The grime made me vomit inside my mouth. I just had to swallow it again because I didn't want to wash up in the shower.
I noticed the wood all bashed and messed up.
It gets worse....
Let's go to bedroom number 2.
Mitzi Pangilinan-De Guzman, Mary Ann Olayvar and Jeff Wong stayed here.
I went straight to the bathroom because I wanted to know if there's a safe one for me to use.
When I left the bedroom, I felt despair.
Because the 2 rooms were already taken by the others, I rushed downstairs to check out bedroom #3. It's Lucille and Janina's lair. The shower is spacious but obviously still grimy.
In the room, there was a Lazy Boy that is too gross to sit on. I mean, really, this thing should be thrown out already.
And finally, welcome to my room that I shared with Ginny and Anne. First stop, the toilet. I think we had it worst. The shower curtain was slimy.
The worst part of it all, the house did NOT have water (except for Janina and Lucille's room, since it was on a lower floor and the pressure was enough for a shower) BUT in the other rooms, we had to take a bath TABO style!!! OMG. This is 2013!!!
(Notice that I am typing this in BOLD letters.)
The only way that I was able to shower that evening was by getting PISSED DRUNK!! So drunk that I couldn't care less if I swallow an insect from our outdoor drinking session.
When I got in the bathroom, low and behold, we had water in a TIMBA with a TABO inside.
But wait.......what is that I see??? It's not Orocan, it's a BOYSEN paint plastic container.
(Boysen would like this. In a way, I am plugging their brand.)
But really, seriously?
I threw up. Seriously. It's partially the vodka and the dirt in the bathroom. But I thank the Raspberry Vodka and Sprite because it is what made me gain courage to wash up.
So anyway, on our way up to Tagaytay, Janina mentioned to us that she was told by the person in charge that there's an outdoor tub. We all got excited. The thought of the cold night time weather of the city and a tub under the stars was pretty exciting.
When we got there, this is what we saw.
No water. How can you even brag about having an outdoor tub when the guests can't use it?
Never mind, since the showers in the bathrooms do not have water, we can probably use the poolside shower..........but how can you, when it looks like this?? What's worse? No water came out. Sigh..... Gretchen B. would not approve.
Now, please don't judge me and call me snooty. I can be a cowgirl. I can hack the timba and tabo system. I can even sleep on the floor, as long as it is clean BUT......
yes BUT....
When the rental fee is P33,000 for one night, you expect it to be sparkling clean. Instead we all cringed at how expensive it is especially when the house does not give you hot/cold water in your shower, when the outdoor tub (the one that's bragged about) is not working and when there are dead insects and insect poo all over the place. There were no complimentary shampoo and conditioner, no towels, no bottled water in the rooms (am I asking for too much?) There was however one Safeguard sachet in each sink. The place mats used for our meals were old and seemed dirty. When we swam in the pool, Janina and I cut our feet from something sharp inside the water. My toe has a booboo and when there's blood, it becomes really really bad.
It is WAY TOO SAD because the house is GORGEOUS!! It's beautiful and I can just imagine it when it was new. The view is outstanding and the lay out of the rooms, the structure, the build, the design...EVERYTHING is awesome....except for the extremely poor maintenance. In fact, it doesn't seem to have been maintained at all.
If not for the wonderful company and the birthday treat of Windie, we would have all just gone back to Manila.
I seriously want to go back and rent it again in the future but only when and if they refurbish, retile, redo the warped wooden floors and replace all the screens which have so much holes in them (thus the insects inside the house). I wish that ChilLine T's management would realize that cleanliness is next to Godliness.
Charging P33,000/night with the present condition of the place is bordering cheating.
Do not recommend this place for now. The outdoors is a different story. Aside from the tub, the poolside and the garden made me temporarily forget how bad it was inside the house.
On my next post, I will blog on the good part of the ChilLine T house because in all things, there's always a positive side, like my ex-husband, at least he gave me 2 beautiful daughters. Yun lang.
