Nightmares of Bolinao

My manager gave the CCC Team Leaders a summer treat for what he described as our "phenomenal dedication, hard work, and passion towards excellence". The date was set on May 2-4 and our destination... Bolinao, Pangasinan.

We left Cavite after the shift, Saturday @ 9am (May 2nd) and arrived at the Treasures of Bolinao Beach Resort and Hotel a little past 3pm where Dex (our super cool boss!) booked for a suite accommodation for 3days & 2nights. Needless to say, everyone is tired and starving from the long drive... Not to mention that we have not slept the previous night, ugh! After checking out our room and deciding on our bed assignments, we were off to the cafeteria to eat. To our dismay, nobody from the staff bothered to approach us and take our orders...nobody even bothered to greet us... to say the least. Gggrr!

I can hear my stomach growling... an indication that I was really starving, I could eat a whole cow! *laughs* Realizig that we are wasting precious minutes, we took it upon ourselves to find a "decent" table to settle in and John, one of the Business Systems Team Lead decided to approach the crew (odd right? the guests literally needed to look for someone to assist us!) to ask for the menu and eventually take our order. As we were waiting for someone to spare us some attention, I checked out the videoke machine to see if we could pass the time over a few songs... but again to my disappointment... the machine is busted! What I saw was a relic of the song book.. with the pages torn and falling off!

the song book relic

We are a pool of young professionals with one forte' "customer service"... and you need to believe me when I say we can definitely spot the lack of it! So then after almost an hour of waiting, an attendant was on our way with the menu. We hurriedly ordered and was appeased with the thought that we are a few minutes away from "Lunch". It's a consolation that we got our drinks served a few minutes after we ordered. (check out the "Iced Tea" that TL Ryan ordered..see below). Then again, the wait time is despicable! It turned out that all if not most of the staff are students that were on-the-job training. *sigh* I really couldn't blame them, they are students. What I don't get is why the hell was the F&B Manager allowing such a lousy service.

"Iced Tea"

To cut the story short, we finally got to eat. To be honest, it was the most expensive meal I ever paid for. Considering that the food is pretty bland..the service sucked and most of all the place was a mess! I can see flies everywhere...the adjacent tables were left uncleaned... *sigh*

In an effort to make the most of our vacation, we went for a swim. The pool was packed so we opted to check out the waves and take a plunge in the Pangasinan waters. When we got back to the resort, the pool was deserted... our turn to enjoy a more tranquil swim.

It was a fun time to get up close and personal with the other team leads. John wanted to finish off the night over a few bottles of San Mig Light but guess what? THEY RAN OUT OF BEER!!!!

Early on we were already thinking of checking out and leaving, but because we were all tired (especially our driver, Kuya Dan) we decided to stay for the night. I guess running out of beer was the last nail on the coffin. We are out of this place first hour tomorrow morning! I was so frustrated that I decided to call it a night and sleep through my disappointment.

Morning came, It was a fine day. We decided to have coffee to jump start our day. We are expecting a couple of hours drive since we have not decided on where to go yet. We fixed our things and headed to the cafeteria. Well, just when I thought that the series of unfortunate events has come to a halt... I was wrong. No coffee. Sucks right?

I am ending this post just about now before I go berserk! (again WTF!)

Treasures?... nah, more like Nightmares of Bolinao!