Sheavens Resort: Stingy Owner, Ripoff Prices, Terrible Food!

Expose or warn others about scams and scammers, or shady business practices. Expose those that have cheated you or ripped you off. Caution: Before naming specific individuals or groups, make sure that they really wronged you and that there was no misunderstanding. Otherwise your post may constitute slander or libel if it contains false information.
Post Reply
User avatar
Winston
Site Admin
Posts: 37670
Joined: August 18th, 2007, 6:16 am
Contact:

Sheavens Resort: Stingy Owner, Ripoff Prices, Terrible Food!

Post by Winston »

My following review is in regards to Sheavens Hotel and Seafront Resort on Baloy Beach in Subic Bay, Olongapo, Philippines, where we stayed at in January 2015. This review will be posted on all major sites that list this resort. The resort's website is: http://www.sheavens.com

Review: Sheavens Resort Takes Stinginess to a Whole New Level

The only thing nice about this hotel and resort is the lovely clean swimming pool with clear water. The view is also nice and the band at night plays good music too - though it is probably inconsiderate that everyone in the whole hotel is forced to hear their loud music without choice. But besides that, everything goes downhill from there and in preposterous ways too.

First, the room is pretty small, though it looks decent. For 2900p for a standard room, it is way overpriced. The wifi does not always work too. It worked on my smart phone, but not on my laptop.

But the worst thing about this hotel is its RESTAURANT and FOOD, which is appalling stingy and expensive. The food is very small portions and not even cooked well. They cheat on ingredients too. For example, their curry dish is not real curry, but a little curry mixed with mostly water. WTF? I've never had a curry dish with that much water in it before. The owner, who looks to be East Indian, ought to know better since he is making a mockery of his own ethnic cuisine.

Sheavens restaurant is even stingy in areas that it does NOT need to be stingy in, such as bread portions and hash brown portions. When I ordered pasta, they gave me a tiny piece of bread. But bread is very CHEAP and so one does not need to be stingy on that. And when I ordered an omelette, the hash browns that came with it were about 3 inches in diameter! It was the tiniest hash browns I've ever seen! Even for a baby it would be small! Dude, man, hash browns are VERY cheap. Go to the supermarket and you will see. Also, curry is cheap too. My girlfriend makes vegetable curry for me. She buys the curry sauce in her village, which is very cheap yet delicious. So the Sri Lankan owner has no excuse here for making his curry comprised of mostly water.

Thus there is no logical reason to have to be stingy on things like bread, hash browns or curry. It's as if the owner were trying hard to "look stingy" and compete for some "stingiest hotel owner" award by showing off how stingy he is on little things! LOL. It's crazy and defies reason.

To the owner of Sheavens Hotel in Subic Bay: Look man. There is an art form to being stingy. A smart person would be stingy on the expensive items, such as parmesan cheese, wine, fish size, tartar sauce, steak size, etc. But not on cheap things like bread and hash browns. Come on now. If you are going to be stingy, at least do it gracefully and intelligently. Don't just look like a cheapskate in things like bread, hash browns, or give curry dishes full of mostly water. That makes you look bad, and I mean VERY bad.

Furthermore, the owner cannot cite high costs of real estate in the area as an excuse for this stinginess. Right across the street is the Blue Rock Restaurant, where most of the expats in the area go to eat. There, the portions are BIG and the food is cooked well. So how can Blue Rock afford to give big portions but Sheavens cannot?

The owner, I heard, is from Sri Lanka and looks Indian. Yet he is stingier than even Filipino hotel owners. I never thought I would find a hotel that trumps the stinginess of local hotel owners. So this one takes the cake.

Now, I don't mind if a hotel has high prices as long as it gives you a comparable value and is generous. Nor do I mind a cheap hotel being stingy. At least both of these are CONSISTENT. But this hotel is the WORST combination in that it is expensive yet very stingy on what it gives you, such as with the restaurant food. Charging high prices while providing low value is in my book very HYPOCRITICAL, and immoral as well.

You see, a person should not sell something that he would not buy himself, nor should he charge prices that he would never pay himself. To do so is technically hypocritical and a double standard. I've always followed this rule, so I can't understand why others don't. It would weigh on my conscience if I was charging prices that I myself would not pay. Yet the owner does exactly that, so I don't understand how he sleeps at night.

In short, if you're going to charge high prices, then be generous or at least FAIR. But if you are going to be cheap, then charge low or reasonable rates. But don't charge high prices and be super stingy like that. That's the WORST combination a business or hotel can be.

What all this means is that even if you stay in Sheavens, do NOT eat at the restaurant. Maybe ordering a drink there is ok, but the food is ridiculous and unacceptable for the above mentioned reasons. Instead, go to Blue Rock Restaurant which is right across the street, where all the other expats and tourists are.

Due to the above reasons, I will be disputing some of the charges on our credit card by Sheavens and hope to get a partial refund.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne


Meet Loads of Foreign Women in Person! Join Our Happier Abroad ROMANCE TOURS to Many Overseas Countries!

Meet Foreign Women Now! Post your FREE profile on Happier Abroad Personals and start receiving messages from gorgeous Foreign Women today!

Rock
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4206
Joined: April 21st, 2010, 9:16 am

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by Rock »

Thanks for the review Winston. In general, I didn't like any of the establishments on Baloy Beach when I visited there some 3 years ago.

BUT...you have no call to dispute credit card charges unless they added items or services you never received. Just live and learn. Vote with your feet and read other people's reviews before patronizing hotels and restaurants in the future to lower risk of disappointment.
User avatar
Winston
Site Admin
Posts: 37670
Joined: August 18th, 2007, 6:16 am
Contact:

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by Winston »

Rock wrote:Thanks for the review Winston. In general, I didn't like any of the establishments on Baloy Beach when I visited there some 3 years ago.

BUT...you have no call to dispute credit card charges unless they added items or services you never received. Just live and learn. Vote with your feet and read other people's reviews before patronizing hotels and restaurants in the future to lower risk of disappointment.
Some of the hotels are ok or so so. And Blue Rock Restaurant gives more generous portions. But the beach itself is bland and the water dirty and dark. Do you have any logical explanation for the Sri Lankan owner's stinginess? How could he desecrate his curries by making them mostly water? And why would he be stingy on things like garlic bread or hash browns, when those things are very cheap? The hash browns you get are about 3 inches in diameter, the smallest I've ever seen.

Btw, curry is also very cheap. Dianne got curry for me in the store in her village and made vegetable curry for me with it. It was cheap yet very delicious. So why does that weird Sri Lankan owner have to be stingy with curry and put mostly water in it? Very weird.

I found the owner's profile on Trip Advisor, but it keeps giving me error messages when I try to PM him. Here is his profile.

Sumith K
http://www.tripadvisor.com/members/SumithK_13

Oh wait. My messages to him were finally sent. I'll send this thread to him and see how he responds. lol

Actually I can win the credit card dispute if I'm only disputing $10 or $20 of the bill. CC's usually let you win such small amounts, sometimes out of their own pockets. Also in the CC dispute form, one of the options is "I'm dissatisfied with the merchandise I received", so that is a valid type of complaint.

We had no choice regarding Sheavens, because we arrived on a Saturday and all the other hotels were booked. It was either stay there, or go all the way back to Angeles.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
User avatar
starchild5
Veteran Poster
Posts: 2165
Joined: December 20th, 2013, 2:32 am

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by starchild5 »

Most of the Indians who do business in Philippines are from one Business community largely. The Sindhis....They are called Baniyas in India and are not much respected. The other group that are notorious for being cheap are from Gujrat region who own lots of motels in America.

These two group have brought lot of shame for India and they are frowned by Indians themselves. There are lots of jokes on these two communities on being super cheap.

When I travel abroad, I avoid going to places owned by these two communities, I actually avoid anything Indian outside India to keep my sanity.

------------------

The general rule of thumb is...Avoid anything North India, the whiter the skin of an Indian in business, the scammer the more they are :lol: ....If we look at the history of these communities....They came to India from Caucasus region and from central Asia...They are not native to India....

South India is generally more developed than north and people more honest. They are mostly into IT, software field though. All these hotel, restuarente business where the margin of cheating is high is owned by the people in North India to suit with their DNA it seems.

The hub of IT in India is in south Bangalore. North India has damaged the image of all Indians abroad a far more than people in the south.

You should try restaurants in Malaysia, Singapore where south Indians are in Majority and the quantity and quality is generally high. I won't recommend any other place for Indian food out india except Malaysia and Singapore.
User avatar
Winston
Site Admin
Posts: 37670
Joined: August 18th, 2007, 6:16 am
Contact:

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by Winston »

On Trip Advisor, there were many complaints about Sheavens in the reviews too. See here:

Hotel Reviews
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review ... Luzon.html

Restaurant Reviews
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... Luzon.html
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
User avatar
Winston
Site Admin
Posts: 37670
Joined: August 18th, 2007, 6:16 am
Contact:

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by Winston »

starchild5 wrote:Most of the Indians who do business in Philippines are from one Business community largely. The Sindhis....They are called Baniyas in India and are not much respected. The other group that are notorious for being cheap are from Gujrat region who own lots of motels in America.

These two group have brought lot of shame for India and they are frowned by Indians themselves. There are lots of jokes on these two communities on being super cheap.

When I travel abroad, I avoid going to places owned by these two communities, I actually avoid anything Indian outside India to keep my sanity.

------------------

The general rule of thumb is...Avoid anything North India, the whiter the skin of an Indian in business, the scammer the more they are :lol: ....If we look at the history of these communities....They came to India from Caucasus region and from central Asia...They are not native to India....

South India is generally more developed than north and people more honest. They are mostly into IT, software field though. All these hotel, restuarente business where the margin of cheating is high is owned by the people in North India to suit with their DNA it seems.

The hub of IT in India is in south Bangalore. North India has damaged the image of all Indians abroad a far more than people in the south.

You should try restaurants in Malaysia, Singapore where south Indians are in Majority and the quantity and quality is generally high. I won't recommend any other place for Indian food out india except Malaysia and Singapore.
What are the Sindhis or Baniyas? The owner is Sri Lankan though. Is that the same thing?

Plus he is not light skinned, I found an image of him on his Trip Advisor profile.

Image

As you can see, he is dark skinned and trying to look successful with that suit. lol

I don't mind if Indians are cheap, as long as they don't charge high prices and serve tiny portions of bland food at high prices, like that Sri Lankan owner did, which is ridiculous and looks bad, very bad.

If you're going to be cheap, at least charge reasonable or low prices. Most Indian motel owners in the US don't overcharge. One Indian motel owner lady in Capitan, NM, even cooked some Indian food for me when I asked if I could purchase some from her. Instead of selling it to me, she just cooked me a FREE meal of good Indian vegetarian food with rice.

But this Sri Lankan guy is something else, as explained above. I don't know what Sri Lankan food is like, but the man desecrates his own ethnic cuisine by serving curry dishes made of mostly water.

Dianne buys curry super cheap in the village store, yet it's thick and delicious. So there is no excuse for that. The guy must be trying to win an award for "Stingiest Owner". lol
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
User avatar
starchild5
Veteran Poster
Posts: 2165
Joined: December 20th, 2013, 2:32 am

Re: Sheavens Resort Review - Stingiest Owner and Food Scamme

Post by starchild5 »

Winston wrote:
What are the Sindhis or Baniyas? The owner is Sri Lankan though. Is that the same thing?

Plus he is not light skinned, I found an image of him on his Trip Advisor profile.

Image

As you can see, he is dark skinned and trying to look successful with that suit. lol

I don't mind if Indians are cheap, as long as they don't charge high prices and serve tiny portions of bland food at high prices, like that Sri Lankan owner did, which is ridiculous and looks bad, very bad.

If you're going to be cheap, at least charge reasonable or low prices. Most Indian motel owners in the US don't overcharge. One Indian motel owner lady in Capitan, NM, even cooked some Indian food for me when I asked if I could purchase some from her. Instead of selling it to me, she just cooked me a FREE meal of good Indian vegetarian food with rice.

But this Sri Lankan guy is something else, as explained above. I don't know what Sri Lankan food is like, but the man desecrates his own ethnic cuisine by serving curry dishes made of mostly water.

Dianne buys curry super cheap in the village store, yet it's thick and delicious. So there is no excuse for that. The guy must be trying to win an award for "Stingiest Owner". lol
Sindhis or Baniyas are caste based community in India...who own 90% of business abroad, they have very negative vibe in India due to their unethical practices.

Sri Lanka was inhabited by Indians from the North East community called Sinha's 1000s of years ago...They are not pure Dravidian's from south India.

Sri Lankans are different from Sindhis and Baniyas......Not sure, what his story is...Its very weird...I have not encountered anyone from Sri Lanka ....

Its again the Murphy law thingy...The guys who are real good cooks, who can make India proud never gets to go outside, the guys who play by the rules, get stuck on earth while those who bend rules get ahead.....
User avatar
Zambales
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1516
Joined: August 9th, 2015, 1:41 pm

Re: Sheavens Resort: Stingy Owner, Ripoff Prices, Terrible F

Post by Zambales »

It's now called Subiza Beach Resort so I guess it's got new owners. We stayed here in Nov 2013 and we liked it. Terrific view across the bay and the rooms were around P1800 which I thought was good value but they could have been low-season prices. Had the curry which I thought was OK but not a patch on the ones I have back home.

Walked past the hotel end of the last year while staying at another resort in Subic and the exterior has changed to quite a degree. Apparently everything is more expensive too.
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Scam Alerts and Ripoffs”