Sarabia Manor Convention & Hotel Iloilo

I reserved for a room a day before flying in from Manila. I was assured that they have a lot of rooms.
I reserved for a de luxe room, the description of which in the website includes "Fully-carpeted spacious room with balcony". It was spacious alright, but there was no balcony. Instead, our wide window (opposite the hotel lobby) faced a blank wall about three feet away. I forgot to ask about this when I was there, but saw this item just when I was about to write this review. Our room was located in the walkway between two wings of the hotel. Maybe for a basic room, the Traveller’s Room, it would do, but not for the next step higher room, it wouldn't.
Therefore I think the room assignment was a bit sneaky.
I also reserved a portion of the cafe for a lunch buffet of 18 people. When I made the reservation, I was assured that the drinks were included with the buffet, and this was a plus. When I was already there, I double-checked, and drinks were not included with the buffet lunch. This bit of misinformation increased my budget by about a fourth to a third.
There were five main courses, and I partook of only three of them (on diet, small portions). The beef caldereta (stew) was tough, and if I were the chef (I cook this dish extremely well) this could have used 30 minutes to one hour more of simmering. Maybe 12 minutes more in the pressure cooker, which I never use.
The dessert table had only two offerings aside from the sliced pineapple. Both were not replenished, so that most of my entourage were not able to have any dessert. Do I have to request the waiter to please replenish? Which I did, but it did not arrive on time for us. Weren't they looking? I don't know. But my entourage of 18 was perhaps half of their clientele that day, and we were there from 11:45 AM to 1:15 PM.I don't think there were a lot more people after us.
One of my guests spotted the owner-general manager in one of the tables; turns out she was an acquaintance (friend? relative? I am not sure). I was introduced and was given her card. But I did not see her making sure that we were enjoying our meal. (An aside: what was the card for? For me to refer customers to them? No way...)I rate the meal as 60 %.
The plain steamed rice I think was from breakfast (hard, not the Thai-milagrosa type), as was one of the main courses. Maybe it was reassuring that after all, the price was about 30% off a comparable meal in Manila.
Hey folks of Sarabia, a 500-peso dinner at Alba's Spanish Restaurant, or for the same price the Sunday buffet at Cafe Juanita, is a steal. Kindly look into this, or try those places if you happen to be in Manila.
In fairness, the sunny-side up eggs I got for breakfast were perfect. And, almost all of the wait staff, the front desk staff, and the housekeeping staff were gracious. Although, there were only three towels for the two of us, and no shampoo/conditioner.

Generally, the property is kind of old but is functional. I learned that there's a new and an old wing. We were placed in the old wing and it showed some signs of wear and tear and some not so efficient renovations in the older building.. ie, the stairway going to the second level from the lobby went down one flight, then up two flights. It just didn't seem logical, because from the lobby, they could've just made one set of stairs directly.
This really wasn't a big thing for me, but might be to those with wheelchairs.

I honestly would've been contented with our room, it wasn't so bad for the price that we paid, until I saw my friends' room which was right across ours. First their view was nicer, it was the pool and ours were the neighbor's roof .. then again, that was generally irrelevant. Next is that one of the bed was bigger and that a lot of the furnitures were more updated while ours was just too old.
The differences were just too obvious that I couldn't help but notice. It was supposed to be the same room category.

Other than that, the service was ok. I found that the hotel had complete and efficient banqueting facilities (thanks to the Manny Pacquiao - Ricky Hatton fight), they had shops and a souvenir store and they had several outlets to cater to different palates.