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TAAL VISTA HOTEL - The same great view, an entirely new experience
Source: Manila Bulletin
Author: Nestor Cuartero
Date: 2004-06-02
 
Never mind walking a mile to your room. Think of it as a bonus. You don’t get to flex your muscles that much in any of Manila’s 5-star hotels.





From the hotel lobby, it took us around 300 super-human steps to reach the de luxe room assigned to us on the garden level of the newly renovated Taal Vista Hotel, that grand 70-year old dame of Tagaytay City fast recovering her old glory as a city landmark.



The hike went uphill and downhill, past a couple of staircases, amid a winding garden of ferns and assorted flora. Where others would complain of such long-distance rooming, we secretly welcomed the opportunity to do some brisk walking. Alas, we huffed and puffed each time we stepped out of the room and into the main lobby and back.



Once inside the room, the long walk is all worth it. As part of the so-called ridge rooms, Room 106 affords guests one of the best views of Taal Lake and its resident volcano, fog, mist, and all, especially in the late afternoons.



General manager Alejandro Groizard says this great view is best captured in the series of de luxe rooms that begins with 101. The fact that each of these rooms opens up to a verandahframed by ornamental plants such asrosal and bouganvilleas adds up to their seductive appeal.



Taal Vista Hotel, formerly Taal Vista Lodge, is flashing an entirely new, exciting look. Following a makeover that lasted three years, Tagaytay’s oldest hotel takes pride in presenting the same great view in an entirely new experience.



Groizard says TVH’s existing 80 guest rooms have been designed to showcase the botanical and floral gems that fringe the ridge area.



“All our rooms offer spectacular views of the verdant garden around the lake and the volcano,” he adds. All rooms are also fully equipped with cable TV, inhouse movies, IDD/NDD telephone, coffee and tea-making facilities and a bar.



By the second half of the year, 70 more rooms will be added to the existing 80 rooms to total 150 rooms in all. Soon to be unveiled, according to liaison officer Darvin Chia, are facilities such as a swimming pool, health spa, an activity center for children and adults to includeamenities for table tennis and badminton. The hotel also has two ballrooms that can hold up to 500 people and six smaller function rooms.



Groizard is quite upbeat about selling his old-new hotel and Tagaytay City itselfas a destination. The over-all objective, he says, is to promote the mountain city 2,500 feet above sea level as a tourist destination. Tagaytay is also known as the country’s second summer capital after Baguio.

‘In effect, it’s like selling the volcano, ’Groizard says. In Majorca, Spain where he comes from, this GM says they sell not just the hotels, but the destination itself.



Along this line, Taal Vista Hotel has launched a half-day trekking package called The Volcano Adventure that brings tourists to and from the volcano by camper and by boat.Chia says arrangements with beach clubs in nearby Nasugbu, Batangas are also made at the hotel’s front desk.



Taal Vista Lodge, specifically the main Tudor-style hall, was built by leaders of the Commonwealth government in the late 1930s. Government looked to Tagaytay as an alternative retreat to Baguio.



The hotel closed down in 1998 until SM Investments Corp. took interest in the property and restored it. Taal Vista Hotel is presently being managed byFuego Hotels & Properties Management Corp.



Our weekend in Tagaytay had been timed (sigh!) with the first drizzles of May, halting all plans of outdoor activities. We did the next best thing, which was to eat and over-eat. The hotel’s Cafe on the Ridge offers a lavish spread on its weekend buffet combining continental and Filipino cuisine.



Best picks off the buffet are beef caldereta in olives, grilled tanigue, native ensalada, crispy tawilis, paksiw na tanigue. Also highly recommended are the Cafe’s fillet of lapu-lapu in mango sauce, the focaccia bread, and that most heavenly Oreo cheese cake, which was sinfully calorific yet not too sweet.



What the heck, weate and over-ate, finding comfort in the thought, however, that we had to walk a mile anyway after each meal.
 

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