Manila Guide Online

Plantation Bay a five star hotel and resort in Cebu is truly amazing. Aside from its classy interiors ad inviting pools, it is also eco conscious.

Plantation Bay provides free school bus service in the community, making it possible for hundreds of local children (who could not afford public transportation) to obtain a basic education. On a continuing basis, we support a number of local residents for vocational training. In 2004 Plantation Bay paid for the reforestation of about 120 hectares in Cebu’s highlands, and provided most of the funding to build and operate a day-care center for indigent families in South Cebu City.

The employees of Plantation Bay enjoy good salaries and benefits. Equally important, all staff members are treated with dignity and respect as part of the Plantation Bay Family. Training and career-advancement opportunities are provided to all staff members. A flattened and informal hierarchy system improves work performance and efficiency while providing a personal sense of satisfaction to every staff member. For these reasons, Plantation Bay is considered one of the best workplaces in the country. Guests quickly notice and appreciate our staff’s excellent morale and eagerness to please.

Our lovely artificial lagoon was built over a site consisting of barren rock, so no ecosystem was destroyed for the resort. To create fabulous white-sand beaches bordering the lagoon, mountain stone was quarried and crushed into fine grains. (A bonus is that, unlike real beach sand, ours is always cool to the touch, even under direct sun.) Thus, no natural beaches or sandbars were despoiled. The fine woods used in some furniture were recycled from old houses or church timbers. The wood ceilings seen in the lobby and many bedrooms and meeting rooms are actually made of ordinary plywood, painstakingly hand-stained to simulate the look of mahogany panels.

Extensive use was made of coconut timber, a widely-available renewable resource. Other coconut parts of little commercial value were used in decorations and finishes around the resort. The use of plastics was avoided wherever possible, a feature which also lessens fire and smoke hazards.

The resort simply makes heaven so much closer. It has well furnished and comfy rooms and the pools are one of the highlights. The resort also has a spa which is very relaxing.

The spa’s setting is uniquely charming, designed to resemble an 18th century Tokugawa Japanese village with its own thundering waterfalls, creek, and fog-like mist. Open your skin’s pores and float away your cares in a soothing hot spring; rejuvenate your body in a stimulating mineral bath; and enjoy a vigorous hydro-massage in the main waterfall basin.

Visit Cebu and always remember this beautiful location by the beach.

Cebu has an extended island which is called Mactan Island. It is well commercialized with malls, factories, beach resorts and villages. Mactan Island also gives you the best five star hotels. If you are on a tight budget, there is also some resort that just asks for an P70 entrance fee. Shangrila-Mactan is a five star hotel and resort that offers one of the best amenities and sight in Cebu.

The Philippines’ premier five-star resort, Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa Cebu is a lush garden retreat ideal for vacationers and families. This Cebu luxury resort features kid’s play areas, a wide range of restaurants, and CHI, one of the largest and most luxurious spas in the region.

ROOMS

Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa offers a selection of room types which feature a range of amenities in addition to a level of service that goes the extra distance. It is this Shangri-La standard for service excellence that separates Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa from other Cebu resorts.

Set amid 14 hectares of lush tropical greenery, Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa offers 547 luxurious, expansive guest rooms and suites in two wings: the Main Wing and the Ocean Wing.

Each guestroom features a decor which blends contemporary Filipino furnishings with indigenous elements such as abaca, capiz, banana leaf and rattan, and offers private balconies with spectacular views of Mactan Sea and the surrounding Shangri-La Marine Sanctuary and islets.

Dining

Restaurants

Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa offers a range of tempting dining options to indulge in during your stay in Cebu. Restaurants on offer include our new Acqua restaurant, featuring the best of contemporary Italian cuisine, to perennial family favourites such as Cowrie Cove, a great spot to enjoy fresh seafood by the beach.

Lounges & Bars

Whether on the beach, by the pool or at our E-Zone entertainment center, a refreshing cocktail, cooling drink or light snack is never far away. While the night away at the lively ChillOut Bar.

Health & Leisure

Whether your plans include family adventure, rejuvenation or pure relaxation, Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa offers an enticing array of activities for both adults and children.

Our signature spa, CHI, is one of the largest and most luxuriously appointed spas in Asia. Each treatment takes place in one of our private spa villas or suites, allowing you to indulge your senses in spacious and private surroundings

Apart from all that, Shangri-la is one of the tourist attractions because of its white beaches, calm surroundings and hospitable crew.

Meetings

With exceptional service and an idyllic location coupled with an impressive array of modern facilities, Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa functions as an ideal wedding and meeting venue in Cebu.

With a relaxing, lush tropical setting overlooking the Mactan Sea, the latest facilities, and attentive, professional Shangri-La service, Mactan Resort and Spa offers a premier location for your event or special occasion in Cebu.

Weddings

Our professional wedding specialists look forward to helping you take advantage of our romantic tropical setting tempting catering options, and attentive service for your most special occasions, be it an intimate family gathering or a large banquet reception.

The Ocean Pavilion, a glass-enclosed architectural masterpiece offers breathtaking view of the ocean, perfect for the most romantic and intimate wedding ceremonies and receptions.

For celebrations of a grand scale, The Marquee is a spacious, fully-air conditioned tent that can seat up to 1,000 guests.

Aside from the powdery white beaches, the colorful festivities, and scrumptious foods, Cebu also offers a wide variety of night life.

Sunflower City is a disco and resto-bar located in Lahug, Cebu City. It is one of the most popular destinations in the city as far as dancing and live entertainment is concerned, and is reputed to be the biggest disco in the city. Sunflower City also has a restaurant offering food, snacks, and the most refreshing wines and beverages.

Sunflower City is very spacious and has a fully equipped stage where a live band plays dance music or sings the latest dance hits. Just below the stage is a wide dance floor where you and your friends can dance the night away to the beat of the entertaining disco music mix by the Sunflower’s resident disc jockeys. The dance floor has awesome light effects and other props to accompany you when you dance the night away.

The disco has a spacious setting area with tables and chairs where you can have dinner and drink cocktails and other beverages. Sunflower City has a courteous and friendly staff ready to serve and assist you..

Location

Sunflower City is located at Salinas Drive, Lahug, Cebu City. It is accessible by public transportation such as jeepneys and taxicabs. The disco is located in an area of Salinas Drive where there is a high concentration of restaurants and bars, cafes, convenience stores, supermarkets, and other business establishments. The disco is also near the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino and is just a few minutes ride from the malls such as the Ayala Center Cebu and the JY Square Mall. For any inquiries, you can call Sunflower City at this number: (+6332) 231-8413.

Try Sun Flower City and experience great music, cheap beers and a lot of dancing. Sun Flower City is also one of the best bar in Cebu, aside from the crowded Mango street which is jam packed with bars.

If your in Cebu you might as well pass the free way which starts in Carbon Market and ends in Minglanilla. I think that will be a 20 min drive, almost free from traffic lights. The project was made around 2005, which allows trucks, private cars to go on a shortcut instead of passing through the way. One of the highlight is the vast sea just beside the road. Sometimes, when we pass there around 7 am, you could actually see fisherman’s in their boats. At times, a large ship passes.

Although there might be certain problems that took about during the project.

THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 has assured there are no more road right-of-way (RROW) acquisition problems in the ongoing Cebu South Road Improvement Project.

The project monitoring report of the Regional Development Council (RDC) 7 infrastructure development committee states that as of Sept. 25, packages 1 and 2 of the P785.17-million road project is still behind schedule at 22 percent and 17.87 percent, respectively.

Released

But DPWH 7 Director Juanito Abergas refuted the report, saying construction has been continuing and the notice of cash allocation for the RROW acquisition was already released.

Earlier, problems on RROW acquisition were blamed for the delays, which also resulted in an increase in acquisition costs from P10 million to P14 million.

Ahead of sked

Abergas also corrected the report that the Cebu South Coastal Road Project (CSCRP) has fallen 33 percent behind of schedule and that pre-construction activities were suspended “due to insufficient financial requirements.”

According to Abergas, pre-construction has been ongoing and works on the P2.53-billion tunnel segment of the project, which is aimed to be in place under the Plaza Independencia and McArthur Blvd. by 2008, is 1.6 percent ahead of schedule.”

Still, you need to visit this place and see the beautiful Cebu.

Due to the recent calamities that hit Philippines, mostly in Luzon, several groups and families have made it possible to help our homeless brothers and sisters. The typhoon not only took homes of families but also swipe away innocent lives for several days. In Baguio, Us troops helped the residents and bought rice, sardines and drinking waters.

The U.S. military trucked in supplies and marshaled helicopters and Navy ships as the Philippines struggled with the aftermath of back-to-back storms that have left more than 600 dead.

After pulling six people from landslides late Thursday and early Friday, Filipino rescuers said they remained hopeful of locating more survivors in the stricken north of the country, but retrieved only bodies on Saturday.

With roads blocked and bridges washed away, the Philippine government’s resources have been stretched thin. Officials have asked U.S. troops in the country for an annual military exercise to extend relief operations.

Troops from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Okinawa, Japan, had just finished rescue and cleanup work around the Manila, which experienced the worst flooding in over four decades after Tropical Storm Ketsana dumped record rains Sept. 26. That disaster displaced about 1 million people and killed 337 in the capital and surrounding provinces. More than 287,000 remain in evacuation centers.

Then Typhoon Parma struck Oct 3 and has lingered as a tropical depression for about a week, also over the main northern Philippine island of Luzon. It has dumped more heavy rains, triggering floods and landslides that have killed at least 276 people, most of them in the last two days. It has displaced about 170,000 people.

Regional civil defense official Olive Luces said 152 bodies have so far been recovered in Benguet province—200 kilometers north of Manila—23 in Mountain Province, and 50 in Baguio city. Some 51 deaths have been recorded earlier in eight other provinces.

Marine Capt Jorge Escatell, a U.S. military spokesman, said troops have trucked tons of U.N. food aid from Manila to a Philippine military camp in northern Tarlac province for distribution by the Americans on Sunday to victims of Typhoon Parma.

Marine CH-46 helicopters have also flown over the flooded region to assess the damage and find locations for a medical mission and food distribution. Heavy equipment also will be brought in to help clear roads littered with debris, Escatell said.

Clearly it is very important to help and pray for our brothers and sisters who are now suffering from hunger, drought and are homeless.

The world of scams gets another tingling addition with the much celebrated sex videos of controversial Doctor Hayden Kho and Filipina actress Katrina Halili. Though meant for private collections and remembrances, the issue has now escalated and has gotten the Philippine nation watching (and downloading) these videos today.

But before you go and pass judgment and look for them, consider the facts. These are not intended to justify or condemn any of the two. They are just logical and things worth considering.

Was There Consent from Katrina Halili?
Obviously there was. If you have watched some of the videos, there was one when she obviously knew that she was being recorded on video. She even danced and looked at the camera. Fun or not, there is obviously consent here on Katrina Halili’s part.

The Sex Videos.
Fault here is on Katrina Halili. The only fault of Kho here was the he allowed it to be set loose on the web which should have been kept out somewhere. We all yap about women’s rights but going back to number one, it is obvious that Katrina Halili knew that Kho had a knack for taking videos, drugged or not!

Why is Katrina Halili crying?
Being an actress, who knows if she is just doing it to get the people on her side. Framed? I don’t think so. If she was, there are two videos to prove that she was a good actress though a bad singer.

A Pure Case of Karma for Katrina Halili
Katrina Halili knew for a fact that Hayden Kho was going steady with Dr. Vicky Belo (who incidentally has a sex video as well). So as far as delicadeza and courtesy is concerned, she was trying to pluck away and destroy a relationship. In short, why bother interfering in one if you know that nothing good will come out of it. Worst, one could say that she did it all to get Kho away from Dr. Belo.

Folks, Katrina Halili obvious gave consent and was fully aware that Hayden Kho had a psychologically unstable mind. Though it should not be made as an excuse, taping something on video will always be dangerous. We have seen other celebrities locally like Criselda Volks, Ruffa Gutierrez, Amanda Page and Vivian Velez fall prey to it. And it has severely tarnished their careers.

On Kho’s end, you may say he did a Edison Chen scandal in the Philippines. For the record, Edison Chen got into trouble when a technician came across 1,300 pictures of Chen and some famous Asian celebrities. There were videos but most of them were taken out once the issue was discovered and got out of hand.

As for Kho, the guy is a nutcase. He has the looks but it makes you wonder how he even got his Degree in Medicine. It may as well be taken away but the damage has been done. Katrina may be looking as the abused girl to date but there is no doubt that she dug her own grave when she tried to steal another woman’s man and is now paying for it in the worst possible way.