From the air conditioned transfer from Caticlan airport to the complimentary foot massage awaiting us as we entered our room, we knew that we were going to have a very good experience within minutes after arriving at the airport. The junior suite we stayed in was large and comfortable, equipped with a widescreen TV, iPod dock, two large queen-sized beds (where a native bag with complimentary beauty products awaited her, while a hat and sunblock awaited me), a large bathroom with a separate, outside sink, and small native snacks suddenly awaiting us almost every time we returned to the room from the beach.

The staff was very courteous, and the service, particularly when you're at the pool or beach front, was impeccable. If you toss your shirt on the beach chair before running into the water, when you glance back, you'll see it has already been folded and placed neatly on the table beside your chair. When you're lounging in the sun, they periodically come around to serve you complimentary fruit juice, iced water, cookies and sherbet.

The food is excellent, although the selection could be wider and the serving time could have been a little better. Still, when with good company, that second problem really isn't a bother.

Would I go back? Absolutely. In fact, I've already scheduled my return visit for this March. I can't imagine going back to the places I used to stay at in Boracay now that I've been to Discovery Shores.

At the hotel, the rooms were beautiful and the service great. I grant that. But I agree with the previous review that the entire experience starts with booking.

When I booked my vacation with Discovery, I also had a difficult time getting a response from the reservation officers. After I had confirmed the reservation and supplied all the information, I never received my statement of account.

When I contacted them myself to make my payment, I was informed that their rates had increased and were about 20% higher than quoted. This was two weeks before my trip and it was too late to make other arrangements.

The transfer to Caticlan was very confusing. Upon landing in Caticlan, we were pretty much abandoned to unidentified men. We had no idea if the people passing our luggage around were still Discovery staff becuase they looked like street people in T-shirts, shorts and slippers. Then they asked us to walk to the airport since their vehicle was not available.

The worst part of the vacation however was the food poisoning 6 of us got from the hotel. Their response was to say they were investigating the incident and encouraged us to go to a doctor and have tests. After 2 days of hell and wanting to die, we did NOT feel that was good enough, especially from a hotel that is charging more than $300 a night.

My husband and I enjoy frequent travel and pleasants resorts. We anticipated to be staying at Fridays but do to our reservation being lost we checked into the new Discovery Shores. We were soon very sorry to have done so as the hotel is very soulless. The staff are also less than friendly and on two out of three nights there was no hot water in our room. I am sorry but when you are paying over $500 a night for your stay this is simply unacceptable. When after the second night of not being able to have a hot shower I requested a discount of the full price I was treated very poorly by the staff who made it clear that 'guests who normally stay there do not require discounts' and there was nothing they would do. I was basically made to feel like I was asking for a discount of a room for no reason. My husband and I checked out after the 3rd night and after a lengthy argument (so that we would not be charged for our remaining 4th night) the hotel agreed to only refund 50% off the nights that we were not staying for! We were tired of arguing on our holiday and so paid it so to not waste any more of our holiday time.

We found a wonderful (much nicer!!! and with great service) hotel just down the road where we enjoyed the rest of our holiday! Boracay is truly paradise.

okay, so please take note that i have yet to stay at Discovery Shores and this will only be a review of the service that 'should', for all hotels and resorts especially those that are supposed to be at 'luxury' level, start with the booking.

i have been meaning to book our summer stay at discovery shores for our whole family in March 2008 since last December but i have been emailing the email address on their website and have never gotten a reply . so i finally decided to call them up and book and have already encountered several problems with just the booking that included:
- miscalculation of rates
- failure to email me my statement of account after making the reservation (i had to call more than 5 times just to follow up on an email that they were supposedly going to send a day before i started calling)
- misinformation about payment deadline (they sent me 3 different emails stating 3 different dates as my last day to pay to confirm the reservation)
- not very friendly reservation officers who did not at all make me feel like they wanted us to book, often saying that they already did all they could to email me the statement of account only to find out that they noted down the wrong email address!

many thanks to Miss Carmela of the graveyard shift though since she was the only one who was accomodating enough to make sure she finally got everything right with our reservation.

i just feel like for rates like theirs, they should atleast be accomodating to their future guests' concerns. i just felt like they have yet to put up an efficient reservations system, especially for their luxury hotel stature. their reservations officers should also make it a point to be friendlier and mroe hospitable. after all, first impressions last.

hopefully, they blow us away with their service during our stay and prove us wrong about their service. so wish us luck. ;-)