I’ve had the privilege of staying at I’m Hotel – perhaps the best 5 Star Hotel in Makati by all considerations.
TL;DR Summary:
Cons:
- Small lobby,
- Waiting time in the elevators,
- Very narrow parking slopes,
- No house-water for room service (everything has to be bottled water – with not much water in it),
- Pool water was icy cold for summer season
Pros:
- Really good food,
- Swimming pool is fantastic for laps,
- Rooms are spacious,
- Long-stay ready rooms,
- Pleasant view of Makati on the roof deck,
- Room service time-frame for room orders is on time,
- New furnitures, amenities, sheets,
- Front desk is pleasant,
- Lots of parking space,
- Very near A Venue mall and Century City Mall, and Rockwell,
- Starbucks right beside it,
- Mercury drug across the street,
- No waiting time for buffet breakfast,
- Youtube ready smart TV,
- Amazingly fast internet
I took some photos and the experience home with me and I’m sharing the experience here if in case you’d like to check-in yourself.
We booked a 2 bedroom suite because I was staying over with my wife, our two kids, a helper and my sister. I did not expect the suite to be as big as it actually was.
There was a sala area, a dining area, a kitchen area – with a washing machine and a clothes iron to go with it – a lengthy balcony which overlooks a huge expanse of Makati, two bathrooms – one of which has a nice bathtub that my kids thoroughly enjoyed – and two spacious bedrooms with very comfortable furnishings.
And if it makes any significant difference, they also have a digital weighing scale to boot!
The bed was very comfy. Not too hard, not too soft – both of which are undesirable traits for me and my wife. In short, the beds were perfect.
There were more than enough chairs in our room (we had the king-sized bed bedroom). While there were no chairs on the other room with the two double-sized beds – which was a bit of a bummer but my kids weren’t old enough to use the table and chair for anything they considered ‘fun’ anyway.
On the day we checked in, we had only one thing in mind: swimming.
I saw some pictures of the I’m Hotel swimming pool and their Mermaid Pool Bar and it blew my mind how the pool’s floor was see-through so that you can literally see the Makati Avenue concrete road right below you.
Needless to say that my kids were ecstatic to go swimming. So as we unpacked our stuff in the room, off we went to try the swimming pool.
The swimming pool is at the 2nd floor, the attendant immediately handed us extra swimming towels which was really nice. There were suspended bird-cage-like lounging areas on top of the pool which looked fantastically comfortable – so we picked a vacant one and proceeded to put our swimming stuffs in it.
I personally wanted to lounge a bit longer, take pictures and then swim. My wife and kids went ahead. Unfortunately, they immediately found out that the water was too cold for the kids. My wife also dislikes cold swimming pools so she opted to stay on the fringes.
My youngest did not swim. He’s turning two but he already felt that the icy water was not something he wanted to get into. My eldest son insistently dove in bit by bit – but my wife did not allow him to get his upper body wet as he might get sick (he still had a bit of colds and was on his way to full recovery).
Needless to say, we weren’t able to stay long. I asked my wife to take over the camera on the bird-cage platform to take some pictures of me and my kids. I was personally able to do some laps on the pool as I’m used to the ice-cold water of my alma-mater’s (DLSU) olympic-sized pool.
The pool’s architecture did not disappoint. I saw the concrete roads of Makati ave right below me. And some walls of the pool was also transparent so I could see all the way to the Salamanca street intersection.
It was an exhilarating experience.
After fewer laps than I would’ve liked, I had to get up because the kids should get their rest and the sun-down atmosphere was too chilly to keep staying on.
Good-bye Makati Avenue swimming pool!
As we got back to the room I suggested the bath-tub to my kids and they were immediately game. My wife, seeing the disappointment in the eyes of our two boys, was very happy to have them enjoy the tub. And boy, did they enjoy themselves!
At the same time, I ordered room service as we were all getting famished. I got the flat bread, pizza-like dishes and it came after the promised 30 minutes cooking and delivery time.
The food was, surprisingly, really good!
My wife gets acid attacks when she’s hungry and he eats oily pizza. This time, the pizza was obviously artisanal and did not have much oil going into it. So everything turned out fine.
I opened the television and I was pleased to find that the smart TVs were Youtube-ready. The streaming experience was consistent as the internet connection was surprisingly way above average.
Needless to say that connecting to the hotel wi-fi and using the internet bandwidth with our smartphones and laptops was a pleasant experience. Rarely do I find this to be true with other hotels – even with other 5 star hotels in Makati.
We ordered outside for dinner – mostly because I was on a budget – Kenny Rogers. I had no problem whatsoever with doing this as the hotel allows outside food deliveries. The only downside is I had to pay and pick-up our dinner on the hotel front-door. But that’s not a big fuss for me.
We ate our dinner but one thing was lacking – drinking water. I asked for a pitcher of house water but they didn’t have any. All they had was bottled water and it was too small to satisfy a water-chugger like me. Plus me and my wife were reserving the handful of complimentary bottled water for our kids. They had to have their sleeping-time-milk after all.
So I went down across the street and Mercury Drug was comfortably near – so I bought their biggest jug of Wilkins water and took it to our room. Water problem solved.
Lastly, I visited the roof deck Jellyfish bar with my wife and sister – mostly to see the Jellyfish and the roof deck view. It did not disappoint.
It’s not easy to maintain Jellyfishes as their aquarium tank needs to have constant circular flow of water – and that’s exactly what I’m Hotel had in their bar area.
I didn’t get a drink anymore as I was already feeling very sleepy after the laps I did on the swimming pool. So I went out to the viewing area of the roof deck.
It was amazing.
The skyline of Makati is really something to behold. Night lights of every warm color on dark silhouettes of the buildings take your soul to another place.
There were lots of people there – albeit not all of them were staying over at the hotel. It’s a public place after all.
After that, we called it a night and hit the sack.
The morning after ushered in my favourite part of staying in a 5 star hotel – the buffet breakfast. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take photos of the food or the breakfast area but it was a wonderful, tasty and fulfilling experience.
The buffet breakfast food was really good! I’m saying this because I’ve had so many so-so and crappy dishes on other 5 star hotels and resorts in my experience as a traveller.
I’m Hotel did not disappoint.
Plus we immediately got a table and two high-chairs for the kids without any problem.
Shortly after breakfast, we prepared to check-out and was considering going to church at A-Venue mall where CCF Makati Sunday services are regularly held.
So we said good-bye to our room and to the pool and to the amazing staff.
Til next time.