Sweetwater Beach Resort, Morong, Bataan 2012

The view from the veranda, before sunrise. Easter Sunday, 2012.

                                                                       Early campers.

                                                The calm lagoon @ Sweetwater.

What we hated there: The wooden doors can be refinished or replaced by water-resistant PVC doors.

No trash cans were available, so we used plastc bags instead.Notice the missing towel rack. Very inconvenient when hanging clothes or towels.Be careful lest your towel falls on the icky floor.

The floordrain has no strainer, the walls are grimy & the toilet bowl could use some muriatic acid or bleach.

                                                     The nearly rotten door in the toilet.

Where are the towel rods? Do they sell them for scrap metal @ the local junk shop?

            Mind your wet hands. The light switches that go deeper into the wall might electrocute you.

The non-functioning shower.

      

                      In the shower room, again, was the metal floordrain strainer sold for scrapmetal?

             The leaking kitchen sink drainpipe that lets dirty water with rice bits pool outside the kitchen.

The panel of screen that doesn't close.

The sliding doors have no locks.

                                    There's an open shower & faucet at the side of the house, which always makes the surrounding area wet & slippery.

We booked a beach house in Sweetwater, Morong Bataan for an overnight stay on April 7-8th, 2012.I had second thoughts on renting the place because of the mostly unfavorable comments I read online.But my co-workers who stayed there said it was worth a visit and the scenery there, again based on some of the blogs I read, was picture perfect.
Since it was near Ocean Adventure & Zoobic Safari, Subic, which were also part of our itinerary, we decided to give it a try.
Paolo, the owner, responded quickly to text messages & gave us a reasonable rental rate for a two bedroom, two storey, beach house. He let us have it for five thousand pesos.To confirm booking, I deposited fifty-percent of the total rental fee to his BDO bank account.
He gave us the caretaker's Smart cell number, (Annarose or Ate Rose),  I wasn't sure if she received my messages because I was using a Globe number and Globe there had either non-existent or poor signal, she wasn't replying to sms but answered my call.As a courtesy, if she received the Globe sms, she should have replied.
She gave us directions: upon exiting SBMA's Morong gate, drive downhill for about ten minutes until one reaches the yellow School Zone roadblock , from there one had to turn right until the white grille fence of Sweetwater is reached.
We arrived after 5pm just as the sun was setting.We quickly changed into our swimwear & was pleasantly surprised to find out that the water was clear enough to see the sandy bottom, the waves were really gentle, owing to the fact that the beach was in a cove surrounded by lush trees, & our  three foot tall, four-year old niece was really happy that she could wade in the shallow waters even as far as 15 meters from the shore.
Families with small kids were swimming even before midnight.
My aunt & I stayed up so we can go stargazing, the full moon also gave us nice night shots. My niece who was busy frolicking in the water a few hours before, enjoyed playing with her sand pail set under the starlit night.
We were told by the caretaker that we can use the grill & use the chest freezer.She also lent use cooking utensils & pots & pans. The beach house has its own 2 burner gas stove but no ref. They sell mineral water , a small store in the compound sells softrdinks & nearby stores outside the resort sell ice, but we bought ours in Subic, Puregold to make sure they're made from purified water.
There was a hitch because the barbecue grill was being used by the occupants of the smaller beach house. We asked Ate Rose to quickly find us one since we needed to cook our dinner but it took a long while for her to look for one & when she failed to find any & she finally said she'll just let Oli cook it for us when he grills their own dinner, (I didn't know if he was a relative of hers, but when we asked for his help, he seemed like he didn't know anything about running the resort or interacting with paying guests...his ready reply was..."Tanungin niyo si Ate Rose, hindi naman ako ang taga-asikaso dito...", when my cousin brought him the porkchops for grilling, he said they weren't finished with theirs yet so he can't cook our food yet...so we went looking for Ate Rose again to inform her about Oli's reluctance to help us, after some more discussion, they finally cooked our dinner...Gosh, all the hassle just for a grill, to think we booked the place as early as February!As the caretaker, it's her responsibility to ensure each group of guest has an available barbecue grill so that other guests won't be inconvenienced with a similar problem.
The beddings were prepared all right, but last time I checked, beddings included blankets, not just a pillow & a sheet-covered mattress.Style-wise, it would be better to have coordinated beddings, but that's a minor point.
There were two airconditioned bedrooms upstairs, with sliding doors that opened out to the veranda. Security & privacy could be a problem because the said doors have no locks.The bigger room has no door, just a curtain.The airconditioning works well.

The water pressure was low so it barely reached the upstairs bathroom.
Having designer bathrooms at home, having spick & span bathrooms & toilets are a must for us when we stay in hotels or resorts.Thus, having icky bathrooms are our pet peeve.The ground floor had a shower room & a separate toilet. The wall tiles could use a good scrubbing.The shower did not have a handle for turning on so one had to use the pail & tabo for taking a bath.It was really irritating to have one's towel fall from the door handle, since there were no towel racks nor clothes hooks.The floordrains had no strainer.Trash bins were not available so we improvised by using plastic bags.From previous blogs, the flushes were broken, they were working now but if the water pressure was low, one still had to flush by pail.The toilet bowl had a yellowish ring, which, I'm sure, a good cleaning of bleach or muriatic acid could remedy.There were also leaking pipes so the floor was always wet.
Plates, serving platters, cups, spoons & forks, & airpot are not provided so better bring your own as well as an electric kettle for hot water.
They have hard water so use dish detergent to remove grease & oil from dishes.
When one uses the kitchen sink, you'll see the dirty water pooling outside the kitchen, so again, the drainage pipes here seem to be leaking.

The waves are gentle & the water is shallow even several meters from the shore.

                                                                 Sunset at Sweetwater.

The water is clear.I hope the guests who visit do not throw their food wrappers in the water.

                                                                 Wading during sunset.
They let campers use the grounds & common bathrooms for a fee, PhP 150 per person & an additional PhP 200 if you bring your own tent. (This would discourage campers who already brought their own tent to save, then they will still pay for bringing one.I don't understand why they had to charge extra for this. They rent out tents for PhP 500. Parking space is ample.
The kitchen & dining area on the lower floor are again, enclosed in sliding glass doors with screen.They don't have locks.And a panel or two of the sliding doors don't totally close so don't leave valuables in the ground floor.
One can dine on the metal garden chairs & tables.
Extra monobloc chairs are available.
The videoke machine's rental fee was steep at PhP 1000 for overnight use so we didn't bother with it.
Make sure one always stays in the upper floor when you go swimming to watch over your belongings.
While we were still there, another guest from a different group, who just arrived, climbed upstairs,  we had to tell him, the area was still off limits.
The beach had some occasional trash so hopefully, the caretakers would also place trash bins along the beach & post signs for customers to refrain from leaving their trash in the water or on the sand.
There's an estuary on the right side of the beach, which can be used for kayaking in the future.
It would be nice to visit again, but hopefully the owner will make good on his promise to look into the matter & have whatever needs fixing, well, fixed.

The scenery is really nice, we'd love to come back but hopefully the owner will spend some money on the beach house's upkeep.

As for the caretaker, it's not just seeing to the guest's needs that's important but also to make sure that all the fixtures in the premises are properly maintained  and for the beach to be kept clean & stay clean.