There aren't many business hotels near the Philippines' Eastwood Richmonde Hotel in Quezon City, but despite the lack of nearby competition, the management has thankfully avoided letting the quality slip.
The Eastwood Richmonde Hotel is located at the upscale Eastwood City development in the north of Metro Manila. The hotel is located right at the nexus of the area's business and leisure spots - visiting businessmen can easily finish all their dealings in the daytime and unwind in the evenings, without ever being more than ten minutes' walk away from the hotel lobby.
Location of the Eastwood Richmonde Hotel
Eastwood City is a development within Quezon City, to the north of the Manila conurbation. The entire 47-acre complex was created to take advantage of the BPO business boom in the Philippines, with great attention paid to both work and leisure outlets for the industry's young, international-minded clientele.
The Eastwood Richmonde Hotel's distinguished next-door neighbors include Dell, Citibank, and IBM, all of whom have BPO operations in Eastwood's office buildings. This puts the Eastwood Richmonde Hotel in an ideal situation to host any corporate types flying in to do business.
The hotel rises from a podium that connects it to other high-rises (One Central Park and Eastwood Parkview). The podium contains Eastwood Mall, a four-storey shopping center with a good number of upscale restaurants, specialty shops, and entertainment outlets. Eastwood Richmonde guests can enter Eastwood Mall through an entrance at the hotel lobby's mezzanine floor.
Depending on the traffic, getting to Eastwood City from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. A flyover system from NAIA cuts down travel time from the airport, by simplifying automobile access from the feeder road to the C-5 highway that begins near the airport and continues straight past Eastwood City.
- Eastwood City (offsite) - official site with information on surrounding offices, retail areas, and entertainment venues
From the Eastwood Richmonde's Lobby On Up
One-Bedroom Suite, Eastwood Richmonde Hotel.
Image © Mike Aquino, licensed to About.com.As far as first impressions go, the Eastwood Richmonde's is a knockout, with its high-ceilinged lobby, framed by elegant copper-sheathed columns and brilliant chandeliers made from Egyptian crystal. The lobby's extremities are populated with quiet lounge arrangements, perfect for brief tete-a-tetes with clients.
The Eastwood Richmonde's restaurants extend from the lobby area. Eastwood Café (open from 6am-11pm) serves an impressive breakfast and lunch buffet, together with a consistently creative a la carte menu conceptualized by head chef Kel Zaguirre. The Gallery (open from 4pm-12mn, Sunday-Wednesday; 4pm-1am, Thursday-Saturday) is the Eastwood Richmonde's nighttime haunt, providing a cozy, dimly-lit environment for guests to unwind in, with live entertainment thrown into the mix on weekends.
An impressive curving staircase winds up to the mezzanine level, where the entrance to the Eastwood Mall can be found, together with the Spa and the Eastwood Richmonde's business center.
The hotel's business center provides guests with spacious meeting areas and a wide array of business services, including (but not limited to) broadband Internet access, printing and faxing services, and secretarial services. Private offices are also available for rent.
The Eastwood Richmonde's 138 guestrooms are tucked away at the top ten floors of the high-rise it occupies, linked to the luxurious ground-floor lobby by three high-speed elevators. (As of press time, only two elevators were online.) The roofdeck on level 39 is occupied by a fitness center and the hotel's pool.
The Eastwood Richmonde's Rooms
The guestrooms are located on ten floors at the very top, from the 29th to the 38th floor (the other floors are occupied by residential condominiums with a separate entry). Access to the 29th level on up is restricted, requiring card-key access in the elevator.
Your guide checked into one of Eastwood Richmonde's 38 one-bedroom suites, a luxurious suite of rooms facing the Marikina River and part of the Eastwood City restaurant hub.
The Eastwood Richmonde's suites have separate sleeping and living areas, with each room having a separate LCD TV. Both rooms were equipped for comfort, with subdued color schemes, inviting seating and sleeping areas, and wide windows bathing the whole suite in natural light during the day. The bedroom had a small balcony area that was locked from the inside. (Access can be requested from the front desk.)
The bedroom was compact, with a modicum of space surrounding the queen-size bed. The bed seems to have been engineered to compensate for the dearth of space: the downy covers and fluffy pillows create an extremely restful sleeping experience.
The living room area comes with a work desk adorned with a clock and an iPod dock. One free electrical outlet allowed your guide to work with his laptop. WiFi is available, but isn't free - access to the network costs PHP 200 per hour, and PHP 500 for the whole day.
Fitness at the Top of the Eastwood Richmonde
Roofdeck Swimming Pool, Eastwood Richmonde Hotel.
Image © Mike Aquino, licensed to About.com.The 39th floor opens out to the fitness center and access to the roofdeck pool. The ceiling-to-floor windows of the Eastwood Richmonde's fitness center make every workout a pleasantly scenic experience. Both Nautilus-style and free weights are present, allowing guests a certain flexibility with their weight training program.
A short flight of stairs up from the fitness center level takes guests to the roofdeck and the small swimming pool. The pool area was unoccupied when your guide found it, and if you're similarly lucky, you'll find the roofdeck swimming experience to be quite peaceable, a cool dip at the top of the world with no cares in sight.
Eastwood Richmonde Hotel at a Glance
Location: Quezon City, Philippines - about an hour from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Airport pickup and dropoff available upon request.
Guest Services: Complimentary daily breakfast; free access to fitness center, business center, and roofdeck pool
Facilities: 48 superior rooms, 50 deluxe rooms; 38 one-bedroom suites; 2 two-bedroom suites. Two-bedroom suites have separate dining area. Swimming pool, fitness center, and two restaurants: the Lounge, and Café Eastwood.
Contact Details: Phone +632 570 7777; website www.richmondehotel.com; email erh@richmondehotel.com.
As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with complimentary accommodation and meals for the purpose of reviewing those services. While it has not influenced this review, About.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. For more information, see our Ethics Policy.
