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4.5
#1 of 1 resort in San Fernando
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Pulchra is a description of itself, for it means "beautiful" in Latin. Clear blue sky and turquoise sea water, bright and breezy atmosphere, and colorful tropical gardens; the space, privacy and relaxed ambiance in Pulchra is like no other. The landscape, Villas, and facilities were designed keeping in mind the balance of nature. The restaurants offer a great variety of healthy and tasty menu that will surely delight your dining experience. Activities also vary from marine, land, wellness and for kids as well, that you'll never ran out of things to do. But most of all, what sets us apart from all the others is the kind of service that we render to our guests, one that is from the heart; the kind of service that will always want you to come back to Pulchra. Discover a private paradise and unparalleled luxury. Create an unforgettable journey. Discover Pulchra.
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Giata.
For the longest time living here in the Queen City of the South, I have 'Pulchra Resort Cebu' in my bucket list as my dream resort destination for a Staycation. Every time I travel and passed by the Municipality of San Fernando going to Southern Cebu through the years, I Iooked up the resort signage design along the highway from a distance behind the car window, silently wishing in the back of my mind that one day that dream will come true.
Pulchra is a world-class-5 star resort with international standard perfect for foreign guests especially the Japanese. Having said that, I know staying in such a beautiful paradise surrounded with nature would cost me a lot of money and it's hard on the pocket. The whole property is quiet and serene where you and Mother Nature become one and you feel exclusive as a VIP guest.
The whole experience is totally an awesome retreat both for the soul and the body with different species of trees, edible plants and lush vegetation around you plus healthy fresh food promoting the farm-to-table concept. The food served on the table came directly from the farm which is a walking distance from the lobby. You'll appreciate where the food that you intake in Ventus Restaurant came from.
When we went swimming in the private Jacuzzi pool of our Pool Lagoon Suite room and in the infinity pool facing the beach (because of the breaker sea waves on that day, the guests were forbidden to use it), I've seen the birds dancing as they fly in the clear blue sky above the pool where time stood still. It gives us a sense of being disconnected from busy, urban life and recharge with nature where the birds, the sky, the trees and I are one.
It was the best way for Michael, Michele, Nykha, Kawi and me to bond and unwind even for a day. We feel that the whole 8.3 hectare property exclusively reserved just for us as if we are in another country having a great holiday vacation.
It was one beautiful day where I got the chance to have a guided tour of the Pool Garden Villa, Tulaw/Floating Hut, and the farm. I want to experience it all over and over again and shout out to all the staff and guides in making our magnificent stay memorable, indeed. My utmost gratitude to Ms Ana Rhea, Pulchra Administrator Jane Flores-Cebrian and Front Office Supervisor Noemi L. Pedrano for all the helps in making sure for this old time dream to come true.
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Date of stay: July 2021Trip type: Traveled with friends
Room Tip:Make reservations and contactless payments weeks before your arrival/stay.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We moved here after being at Las Flores - which we highly disliked (for some reason ranked #1 on trip advisor for Cebu). We had to book a pool villa since that was the only room available - which was fine - I have always wanted to stay in one and this was the perfect excuse. I was pleasantly surprised at how big the private pool of the villa was - the same size as the one at our previous hotel! However, the main pool at Pulchra, is the highlight of the resort in my opinion and so we didn't use our villa pool much. The main pool is huge, its almost like one of those "lazy river" rides at a water park - one big loop. I love swimming laps and really enjoyed swimming in this pool. You could also have your own area of the pool since hardly anyone else was around (even though the resort was full). The whole resort does feel very private. There are also nice day beds down on the beach. We had the private BBQ down on the beach which we thought was good and worth the price. Also had other Filipino specialities in the restaurants (pan cit and adobo) and thought they were quite good. I would agree with the previous reviewer that the music they subject you to is awful and it's on a loop - there is no escape!
But for $550 a night I expected much better service. Each villa is assigned a butler - we never once saw ours despite repeatedly ringing the gong we were instructed to ring for service. We ordered room service for lunch and the tray was never picked up - we ordered lunch again the next day and when they brought the new tray, they removed the old one - 24 hours it sat there while at least 3 staff members came to our room (housekeeping, turndown and laundry delivery) - one just covered the tray with napkins. The game room/Luna bar was never staffed and if you wanted a drink or help with the tv you had to call and wait - even though 5 staff members standing in the lobby had seen us go in. I guess that was the frustrating part, even though there were always groups of staff members standing around, it was difficult to get service.
All this being said, compared to other hotels in the Philippines and especially on Cebu, it is not a bad option, the pool and villa alone are worth it - although the price is a bit high.
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Date of stay: December 2008
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Trip type: Traveled with friends
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Top class 5 star resort; beautiful swimming pool, nice beach, brand new spa, very friendly and helpful staff, perfect food in several restaurants. Four Seasons / Ritz Carlton level.
Private houses are beautiful with a private swimmingpool.
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Date of stay: April 2006
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
In short. Rooms - new and lovely. some nice touches with flowers etc.lots of mosquitos Pool area - also lovely and well designed. Maybe not so much if the place is full Beach - nice although sand is clearly shipped in from elsewhere Food - really quite poor. The website promised a buffet breakfast. We were told they only do this if there are enough people. And then told us we could only pick certain choices from the menu. Asian food really bad if you live in Asia. Western food also bad. Choices very limited for non meat eaters. There is nowhere else to go. Service - Polite and helpful but staff fairly uninformed. Service friendly but not at all classy. Diving.massage and other activities - overpriced considering how little it costs elsewhere. And beware the 22% service taxes which pushes up the price more. Wifi - only usable in and near the lobby, not in room. In short - way overpriced but what you get.
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Date of stay: April 2015
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Trip type: Traveled as a couple
Room Tip:You dont need the room with personal pool.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
You are led to believe that this is a true luxury resort due to the outrageously expensive price and false marketing of the webpage offering something exceptional.
The hotel is old, terribly located, design is not up to par with a luxury resort of today and probably had its golden days in the past.
The toilet was leaking all night/never stopped to flush, bathtub not welcoming due to the usage and age. Room small and worn down. The pool was cracked on multiple locations and cute chickens running around the pool using the pool as a fountain (something our kids loved). The beach and water stretch was not welcoming swimmable (dirty & reefs), why the hotel has so big pools, advice to use the hotel boat for a day trip to nicer waters/beaches. The hotel is located on a terrible trafficked 2h drive from the airport and right off a busy trafficked street/highway. Hotel situated next to a huge electrical coal plant and a cement factory that you see when standing on the beach. The air in the area is not of good quality.
The food was good, clearly a talented team, but very pricy and portions small. Staff extremely nice and massively polite, sometimes it even felt forced.
The other guest we met was only Japanese, polite and respectful people of nature, my five cents why the hotel does not receive more complaints and have decent reviews.
Anyone expecting anything close to a luxury resort will be massively disappointed.
Avoid Pulchra Resort – We recommend Abaca Resort or Crimson as good alternatives.
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Date of stay: January 2018
Location
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Trip type: Traveled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Pulchra is half owned by a Japanese person and you can tell, compared to 90% of the resorts in Cebu its great, unfortunately to get anything close to 3/4 stars you have to really pay for it, its odd, everything else in Cebu/Visayas region is dirt cheap but almost anything classed as high end is really overpriced for what it is. Annnnyway, Pulchra has a number of room and suite options, the top suite we checked out was the beach view villa or something and it was a little smelly, I think they wanted 500 odd quid for it so we decided not to.(it was however the last remaining suite so I presume the worst) Next we went to one of the lagoon side rooms, the interior was better, cleaner (tho not pristine) and just had a nicer vibe, the room also had a sort of patio that connected to a lagoon. This lagoon pretty much made our stay, there were me and her plus another female friend of our's wandering round this 6 inch deep swimming pool at 2 am in complete hysterics clutching wine glasses and trying not to wake the Japanese families, a truly bizarre and entertaining experience.
We only stayed for one night but the following day the girls spent sometime in the spa and said 'it was not bad' which means not as good as the spa at Shang on Mactan but better than the local high street one's in Cebu City. I checked out the beach, which again to my dismay was abysmal..... Ok another rant...I don't know what it is but in my case I come somewhere like Cebu and expect to be inundated with white sand, blue water, coconuts falling on your noggin, the eeek eeek of dolphins as they cavort in the shallows etc etc but instead what do we have, coal fired power stations, petrochemical drop off ports, heavy industry, trash, exploded coral rocks, imported sand with all manner of long shore drift prevention techniques being desperately attempted, just not the sort of thing you want to be around on holiday, and trust me I've traveled around the region and its not just limited to metro Cebu and its proximate coastal towns. A nice white sand with a decent gradient and a none rocky/seaweed covered/fishing boat infested beach can't be too hard to find! there's 7,100 bloomin' islands here! Breath. Ok all that aside, Pulchra is definitely one of the better resorts, especially being relatively close to the airport and city, the food was ok and the service not bad at all. One thing I really liked was this organic garden thing they had obviously recently started, I had trouble finding it and as I was wondering around the tennis court I saw on of the lads who walked me there, kind of out the back and a bit of a mess along the way but when I got there there was this cute little garden thing with a potting shed and some crops growing. I am a champion of all things green and for me this attempt to do whatever it was they were certainly added to the positive vibe I felt at the place.
All in all we had a lot of fun, if the beach was better I would probably go back.
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Date of stay: January 2010
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Trip type: Traveled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Pulchra looks lovely. Set apart from the grinding poverty of Cebu and the Philippines in general, with a landscaped piece of beach and small lagoon, you can glance over the retaining wall on one side to see what the beach would look like without this - a bit squalid.
The hotel itself is reasonably new and the villa we stayed in was in good condition - I had to chase and squish one very large tropical cockroach, but that’s not bad going considering how much wildlife there is wandering around, and that went for everything from very sweet-looking and friendly stray cats to legions of frogs that surrounded the villa’s pool every night.
The villas feel pleasantly private although when we visited (April) the weather was so incredibly hot, that without the sea breeze it was pretty difficult to spend time by your private pool during the day. The main pool, with its large swimmable lagoon, is great and features a swim-up bar - surely the very pinnacle of what democracy has to offer us. And that’s the good bits.
The bad bits: the food is genuinely terrible. Even breakfast, which most 5-star hotels get perfectly right by default was dreadful - served in a room with the most intrusively awful mood music I’ve ever been subjected to, it was edible, although not pleasurably so and featured Philippino pork products, which while billed as a speciality screamed eono-meat when you actually have to choke any down.
At times it felt a bit too private. Sitting next to the main pool, we would often see absolutely no other guests for several hours. It started off feeling like our own private paradise. Within a few hours it began to feel a bit lonely. After a few days of that it was actually a relief to leave and head up the coast to the Shangri La (better food, better atmosphere, better pretty much everything).
You get assigned a butler on arrival and maybe there are good ones. Ours wasn’t. Other than cleaning our room and a sub-half-hearted attempt on our first day to talk about available activities, the only thing we asked him for during our stay was a set of nail clippers. He suggested we went to speak to staff at reception. We did and they happily obliged. Well, thanks.
Pulchra isn’t completely awful, but neither is it, by the standards of other hotels we’ve stayed in across Asia and indeed the rest of the world, worth the $550 US per night we paid for it. While far from a total washout, it got just enough things wrong that at half that price it would have been awesome. As it was we felt as though we’d have been better off in the Shangri La, or indeed getting a bit more local flavour and going properly Philippino for a few nights.
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Date of stay: April 2008
Value
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Business service (e.g., internet access)
Trip type: Traveled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Excellent location, a wonderful drive to the south of Cebu! But...the resort is in need of a MAJOR update! This is resort happens to be around 20+ years old (or more) and it is as if nothing has been changed. Locks to the rooms are key type, which is a rare find nowadays. The outdoor restaurant doesn't look very pleasing, the pool needs a major renovation, the garden needs extensive grooming and more.
On the better side, the rooms are massive and beautifully laid out (note that ALL rooms don't have TV which I think is absolutely great if you are in for complete relaxation). There is lots of space overall in the resort grounds. Staff are fantastic, a wonderful team to be completely honest. Pulchra Resort and Spa has a lot of potential and I will definitely recommend this place if renovations are undertaken.
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Date of stay: February 2015
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Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Traveled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Outstanding resort of 40 villas with private pools. Lovely landscaping. Even a full capacity, the resort seems very quiet and relaxing. Most people stay in their villas, so bars and restaurants are usually quiet. Beach was disappointing. Sand is sharp, water is rocky and murky, but our private pool/waterfall was so nice we soon forgot about the beach. Food was excellent, staff were friendly and professional. The perfect getaway for couples. Not the place for the party crowd. The resort is very quiet. 1 hour by van from Cebu Airport.
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Date of stay: August 2006
Value
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Trip type: Traveled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
The Pulchra is a great getaway resort in a honeymoon type setting. Its ideal for couples and potentially families. There are only 37 rooms in total. I recommend spending more and getting a villa with a private pool. I was impressed by the number of activities and restaurants they have considering the small number of rooms. The food is fair to good with some pretty good dishes. After about 5 days or so, the food can get tiring. There is not a lot around the resort. In the city, there is a great high-end supermarket called The Tinder Box. If you want good wine, chocolate or other food, ask the concierge to help you order from there. The pool is very good, but the beach is ok. Sand is good enough, but the ocean floor has stones. The staff is very friendly and responsive. They can be slow at times compared to a city hotel, but you are on vacation so its hard to complain. Overall, I highly recommend this if you value your privacy and peacefulness. Otherwise, it can seem like a low value for the amount of money required.
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Date of stay: February 2007
Value
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Location
Cleanliness
Check in / front desk
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Business service (e.g., internet access)
Trip type: Traveled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
There are more places to choose from in the San Fernando area.
PRICE RANGE
₱11,448 - ₱15,152 (Based on Average Rates for a Standard Room)
ALSO KNOWN AS
pulchra resort cebu, pulchra hotel cebu
LOCATION
PhilippinesVisayasCebu IslandSan Fernando
NUMBER OF ROOMS
37
Prices are the average nightly price provided by our partners and may not include all taxes and fees. Taxes and fees that are shown are estimates only. Please see our partners for more details.
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