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Feeling at home at Iloilo’s Seda Atria
I found myself in Iloilo with some friends earlier this year. We were traveling frugally and at first stayed in a budget hotel. It was comfortable, but bare-bones: the beds comfortable but not soft, the food passable, but not anything you’d eat unless you had to. We were forever looking longingly at the turo-turo across the street, whose patrons looked like they were having the time of their lives.
This was strictly a trip for pleasure. My two friends had come from Guimaras and I had come from Manila. We met in Iloilo and were planning to explore Las Islas de Gigantes, an island chain on the tip of the province. When a storm at sea cut our trip short, we hightailed it back to the City and decided to go all out, celebrating our last night in the province in a fancy hotel because we escaped the wrath of the sea gods unscathed.
Seda Atria is the Iloilo branch of AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts’ brand, a wholly Filipino-owned chain. It was launched in December 2012, expanded to five branches in 2015, with plans to add nine more properties by 2020, all in key cities in the Philippines. Manduriao, where Seda Atria is located, is a fast-developing area in Iloilo City, about 20 minutes from the airport. The hotel stands on what used to be sugar cane fields; a replica of an old chimney from a muscovado mill stands in the rotonda in front of the hotel as a reminder of the area’s historic past.
This unplanned stay in Seda was one of the highlights of our trips. First of all, the hotel is reasonably priced, especially when divided by three (even with the cost of the extra bed factored in), and yet it didn’t scrimp in terms of quality and service. The concierge was accommodating, kindly overlooking our bedraggled state while checking us in. The room we got was compact, but the beds were big enough that we didn’t need the extra mattress; we just put the two queen beds in the room together and it held three women comfortably.
As with all Seda properties, the hotel is part of a strategically located Ayala Land estate that includes restaurants, retail stores, offices and condominiums. In Iloilo, one of the key attractions is The Shops at Atria, a landscaped retail development that will include movie theaters. Its big draw is that it contains mostly local Ilonggo restaurants, including must-trys like Netong’s for their La Paz Bachoy, Biscocho House for their assorted delicacies, and Madge Cafe for their old-style coffee.
This meant that going out at night was easy because Atria was next door. We ate at Asian Spoon, a Southeast Asian joint. Because we had just survived a storm and I was in a daring mood, I had a cup of strong Vietnamese coffee after dinner because you live only once and you have to take risks sometimes. I’m glad I took that gamble because I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, the tiredness from the day’s events overtaking the caffeine that was coursing through my system.
This time, the beds were comfortable and soft. Another thing that pleased us immensely—something that pleased everyone when I returned a month later, this time on a press trip—was that the WiFi was fast, and it was everywhere. The three of us had brought work along (everyone promised that they would leave work in Manila, and everyone broke that promise), so this was quite the godsend. Requests coursed through the operator took a while to arrive, and sometimes, you had to call more than once to remind them, but other than that, everything went smoothly.
Their breakfast buffet was small (compared to the mega buffets that every other hotel seems to have nowadays) but delightful. I would later learn that the hotel places a premium on the farm-to-table experience, even though it doesn’t directly advertise it, preferring to source as much of their ingredients locally. And why wouldn’t they, given that they already have access to some of the best fruits and seafood in the country? A must-try is their Ilonggo minestrone, which is essentially pochero in soup form. Trust me, this is more delicious than it sounds.
They hotel even let us check out late. Because my friends and I had stayed in Seda as spur-of-the-moment guests, it enabled me to compare the experience to what it felt like to stay there as part of the press trip and, interviews and press activities aside, the level of quality and service felt the same.
There’s a reason that Seda Atria is one of Iloilo’s top hotels, even after only a year in operation, and I’m glad that I got to witness their class of service firsthand, both as a media person, and more importantly, as a random tourist. — BM, GMA News
