Villa Amada Hotel & Colonial Grill in Albay

Hotels and pension houses in Legazpi City are generally more expensive, than their counterparts in Puerto Princesa, Davao, Cebu, and other popular local destinations. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice budget hotel in the neighboring Daraga town. We stayed one night in Villa Amada Hotel along Rizal St., which is less than 10 minutes by car from the airport.

At Php 3,600 nett per night for a 2-bedroom accommodation, its still expensive for a stingy traveller like me. But upon entering our connecting rooms with a double bed and 2 single beds, I think its a good deal compared with the other local hotels in the same category. Even my kids commented that we are like in a de luxe hotel in Manila.

A small but well-furnished receiving area will greet the visitors upon entering the hotel's side entrance above. The front desk is manned by courteous and friendly staff at any time of the day, very willing to answer all the queries of tourists like us. 

Each floor of this small budget hotel has a living area where in-house guests can also receive visitors.

The rooms are nicely furnished, clean, and has a view of Mayon volcano during daytime. Unfortunately, heavy clouds cover Mayon on the morning of our departure. Aside from shampoo and soap, dental kits and coffee/tea making facilities are also included as part of the room amenity.

We are 3 adults and 4 kids, but we managed to fit into a double bed and 2 single beds. The hotel did not charged us for any extra body.

Our room rate includes free breakfast for 3 persons, on their sister restaurant downstairs, the Colonial Grill. The restaurant's ambience is casual and comfortable. Our breakfast set meals have enough portion sizes. Prices are reasonable, perhaps because their market are also students on the neighboring universities. 

Service is commendable, as they made the effort to get my order of this wonderful pili bread on their neighboring coffeeshop, which was still closed at 7:30 am. This reheated pili bread seemed like it has been freshly-baked and served with a honey-vanilla (?) syrup on the side, at Php 42 per order.

The previous night while watching Ironman movie on the hotel's room, we tried their homemade pili ice cream and chili/pepper ice cream, which were delivered in our room. The prices are also reasonable at Php 85(?) for 3 small scoops of each flavor. 

The chilli ice cream has 2 whole pieces of the potent labuyo chilli variety, but we removed them, as we are already satisfied with the slight spicy tinge of the ice cream. The taste of these unique ice cream flavors did not disappoint, for a novelty food.