The steady movement of the DC-9 through the clouds reveals skylines and landscapes to get lost in. Everything turns to gray, the boundary between sea and sky almost imperceptible. A solitary ship cruises the sea, between distant shores. Gliding easily through the blueness of infinity, space and time do not matter. Everything is left behind.
"We cater to travelers, business meetings and small functions," says Jo Ann Castillo, Waterfront Mactan’s PR and promotions manager, over a sumptuous buffet lunch. She later takes us on a tour around the hotel. Waterfront Mactan has 167 guestrooms and suites, a conference center with six function rooms, restaurants serving international cuisine, Casino Filipino, a swimming pool, fitness gym, and a spa and sauna. A golf course, pristine white beaches and shopping malls are a short distance away.
Waterfront Mactan is the first and last destination in our itinerary, leaving us with the warm hospitality of the only airport hotel in Cebu.
Over dinner at the hotel’s Cafe Uno, Pia talks about how proud they are of their hotel. There are a total of 562 guestrooms and 13 F&B outlets at Waterfront Cebu. Right beside it, the Cebu International Convention Center, with its nine function rooms, two executive boardrooms, grand exhibition hall and grand ballroom, has been host to a bevy of famous events, conferences and shows.
Handing over our room keys, Pia remarks that we should try the food in any of their fabulous restaurants. She briefly introduces me to Dietmar Dietrich, Waterfront Cebu’s executive chef, and he tells me a little about what it’s like working for the hotel and how much he loves what he does. "I have guests who are Chinese, Japanese, Americans, different kinds of people. We try to be flexible in creating our menus because we listen to what our guests want," he quips.
"Where’s the bed?" I ask myself in confusion upon entering my room for the first time. The foyer leads into a dining area, bar and a living room. Belatedly, I realize that they gave me a bridal suite, with a separate door leading into the bedroom. I hurry over to the window and gasp, amazed, at the view of Cebu at night. To me, Cebu is just another city, another landscape, but breathtaking just the same.
Later, my companions and I, accompanied by our Cebu staff, check out some nightspots which are a mere stone’s throw away from the hotel. At The Village, Crossroads and a resto-bar called Jukebox, Cebuanos as well as local and foreign tourists are all decked out in chic evening wear. Obviously, they take partying seriously in Cebu.
Upon returning to the hotel, the streets seem slick in the pale shimmer of rain that fell while we were in the dark atmosphere of blues, acoustic guitars, dance music and glasses of red wine on the table.
The next day, colorful piles of danggit, daing, lapu-lapu and other dried fish await us at the Tabo-an public market. We drive to Luz’s Inasal on Mango Avenue for a mouthwatering lunch of lechon, inihaw na chorizo, inasal na paa, three kinds of kinilaw, fresh lapu-lapu and pu-so or rice cooked in banana leaf. I buy dried mangoes for pasalubong and we sample the best chicharon I’ve ever tasted for merienda.
On our last night, we clamber up in The STAR’s service vehicle to Tops in Busay. Our Cebu staff generously prepared a sumptuous dinner of home-cooked sisig and inihaw na lapu-lapu, as well as isaw, inasal na paa, barbecue and pu-so bought from Larsian on Fuente Osmeña.
Waking up late in our last day in Cebu, we just have enough time to grab a couple of last-minute souvenirs at SM Cebu before heading off to the airport.