Staycation Diaries: ARDCI Corporate Inn

My promise to myself to have at least a night in Virac to explore it came true last summer. And the hotel we check in to is ARDCI Corporate Inn. To be honest, ARDCI is only my third choice when I started to plan my Virac stay, but unfortunately, the hotel of my first choice is already fully booked  for the month and the nearest hotel when we went there is ARDCI. I was a little surprised when we went there when the receptionists told me that they are also fully booked. When we were about to go, she called us again and asked if it's okay if the room has one bed instead and we said yes, of course!

We wanted to check in early if it is possible so we can leave our bags but they have a fee for every hour of the early check in so we just decided to come back at the check in time later that day. I paid our room then got the receipt before we left to have our breakfast in Cafe de Au.

Related Read: Breakfast at Cafe de Au | Virac, Catanduanes

Since my mother and my sister are already going home to Manila that day and they're still at the bus terminal waiting for the bus, I decided to stayed with them for a while. After two more hours, Gemarie, my travel buddy, and I met in front of Blue Cafe to have our lunch.

Related Read: Blue Cafe and Seeing JK Labajo | Virac, Catanduanes

After our lunch, we arrived a few minutes past 1pm which is the check in time. Our room is on the 5th floor of the hotel and this is what our room looks like.

The room is very simple and just a regular hotel room. Nothing fancy or different with other hotels I have been to but what I love the most is the big glass window with a blackout curtain. That's the view on the morning that we woke up. We stayed in the bed more because of the bed weather that morning instead of going up for a swim.

This is our dinner and we ate at their dining hall. The weird part is that, to be able to go to the pool side, you have to enter the dining hall. What if you're wet, wearing your swimsuit and a lot of people are eating? Wouldn't it be awkward? I don't know if there's other way to go to the pool.

Gemarie and I planned to go to JK Labajo's concert but when the night came, my 'monthly visitor' came with it so as my dysmenorrhea. I had to stay for the night and just do some work since my boss sent me stuff to do. I stayed in their cafe and ordered mango shake while doing my work and waiting for Gemarie to come back.

I loved staying at their cafe! It feels like I am just in a regular cafe or coffee shop in Manila which surprised me. Also, there are a lot of people who showed up, stayed, had their fix and left. I didn't know that Virac is already this progressive. I didn't feel like I am in a province anymore.. which is a good thing since it's been a long time coming and I feel like other towns should also be this way too.

Our breakfast and my just-woke-up look. 

If you noticed, the food/dishes in ARDCI are very 'normal' and very limited. It's one of the thing I wish they would improve on.. and coincidentally, I saw a post from one of my High School classmates that surprised me. He's a Chef now and when I saw that he's in ARDCI, I asked him what he was doing there. He told me he's doing training sessions with the kitchen staff of ARDCI and that he will be staying there for a month because of it. Meaning, he'll teach them more dishes and recipes so that they can have more selection in their menu.

I told him that it was nice since I am actually already hoping that they can have more food selection.

Before checking out, we decided to take photos and visit the pool in the morning. The pool isn't really big but the size is reasonable for the size of the hotel. Besides, I think that most of the people checking in or staying in ARDCI are either for business or other reason that they needed a place to stay in Virac. I don't think 'Staycation'is that popular yet in Catanduanes.

I love the carpeted floors of the hallway! We went around to the lobby and we also saw their event room and I took a photo with this floral background just for fun.

Come check out time, we did a few more shots.

Anyway, I recommend ARDCI because we had a comfortable and hassle-free stay. The staffs are polite, I didn't have any bad experiences with them. They are quite helpful, if I must add. Plus point for the big glass window because I am a sucker for those. The guard/s are polite and always smiling. The food is good no matter how ordinary it is for me. 

The only 'turn off' thing for me is that the shower has a small leak that even though it's closed, we can still hear the drippings and Gemarie thought it was something scary. I was laughing when I told her that it's just the shower. Another thing is that there's a drip on the air conditioning unit, although it wasn't really relevant but still, I don't like it.

ARDCI Corporate Inn

San Roque St, Virac, Catanduanes

0998 988 2476

You can also watch my vlog about our stay in Virac.