Princesa Garden Island Resort and Spa

The front desk takes racial bias to the extreme. I was in line to pay my bill, and apparently an Asian woman is invisible to the service staff — the cashier gave priority to a white male customer who arrived after me. Even when I reminded her that I was there first, she still proceeded to process his payment first. This has left a lasting bitter impression for me and I decided to leave a bad review after 2 years.

We regret having our wedding here. I grew up in Palawan and my family does not recommend Princesa Garden any longer. Please invest your money elsewhere. It’s basically a 2.5 star hotel with a large pool. Please be cautious on their unverified 5-star google reviews. We regrettably selected Princesa Garden to host our wedding on February 15, 2026. Our guests flew from Manila, Australia, US, and Ireland to attend our wedding day. There were at least 20 rooms booked in this hotel for 2-5 nights on the week of our wedding. We invested our hard-earned money for our wedding here because it had a small chapel and function room all in one place. That’s honestly the only positive thing. It’s embarrassing to admit that all our family and friends (at least 35 of them) had same sentiments: —most of the staff are unreliable —very slow check-in process (there were only 2 receptionists at the front despite the long queue) —our guests’ luggages were not delivered to their rooms until after another 2 hours —lift in the new building was broken for 24 hours and the old building’s lift was broken the whole 3 days we’re there—the hotel expected families with children and strollers to be able to walk up 3 flights of stairs back and forth —unreliable/poorly trained staff, my uncle booked a pool access room and it took housekeeping 45-60 minutes to attend to cleaning needs —front desk cancelling last minute on a van ride to Cowrie-they replaced the van to a small sedan even if my friends booked for 4 adults + 1 child (they obviously wont fit into a sedan) —massages were prebooked online for 2PM but on the day, staff said the spa only opens after 3PM—no refund was offered —slow wifi then a 3-day wifi outage which was a huge inconvenience for overseas guests. Our guests who checked-in on Feb 14 were forced to leave the hotel and take a 15-min tricycle ride to the nearest restaurant for a meal as Princesa Garden shut down their main restaurant AND their Room Service that night. What they offered that night was an expensive dinner P2,000/head and needs to be prebooked. It was such a huge trouble for elderly guests and families with small children! Common sense isn’t common at all amongst the Princesa Garden management/owners. My friends and family who had no choice but to book the expensive dinner had very slow service (no surprise here). Food took 45 minutes to arrive. We also noticed a lot of “young” workers in black uniform roaming aimlessly around the hotel—I asked if they are employed but they said they are only interns. They are unpaid and have poor knowledge on how to look after hotel guests. Is this a way for the owner to cut costs? When I asked one of the bell boys for help with bringing a small item to a specific room, it took them over an hour to get delivered. I should have just done it on my own. As for our wedding planning, Jerson Mondragon is the supervisor who helped me organise it throughout the 5 months before the day of wedding. He tried as much as he can to help but for the 4-5 months that we communicated, it took him 3-5 business days before he responds to important messages about the wedding on Viber or email. He was apologetic and reason that he’s very busy with back to back events. This may be true as it was obvious the hotel is understaffed and probably underpays their staff. On Feb 15-17, we booked the family ocean view room in the old bldg—sadly the jacuzzi framing is mouldy and very old. On the day of our wedding, our room was expectedly messy from all the wedding prep—the hair and makeup artists/prep team had already vacated our room by 6:30PM but it was already 8:30PM and my sister had to remind housekeeping to clean—this should’ve been organised by housekeeping or Jerson but at that point, I wasn’t surprised by the lack of attention anymore. I never want any future bride to experience this. I have yet to file a complaint with the Department of Tourism. I do hope that no more future bride and hotel guests will experience the same frustration and disappointment that we all experienced.

It is only about a 10 min ride to the airport but had no shops or really much around the resort. The resort itself is ok not flash and a little tired. The staff although polite get confused very easily and there were many much ups with orders with payments with organising things. So expect things to be smooth sailing here. Considering it is more expensive here than many of the other hotels, I think you might find better than here

It's a beautiful resort. Can acommodate big event. Staff are very responsive, courteous & helpful. Medyo may mga lamok lang sa room but they provide mosquito repellants naman. Elegant & a bit pricey. But it's worth every penny.

Rooms are comfortable, the crews are so courteous and accommodating.