Free airport transfers is why we stayed there. Often when taking international flights we have to spend a night in Manila. This is now my first choice when i need to stay. They will pick you up and drop you off, and even accommodate early and late flights. You can even check-in early.

The rooms were recently rennovated, the key to finding a good Philippine hotels (maintainence is spotty). Everything functions.

The staff are wonderful and friendly.

The hotel caters to "balikbayans", or overseas Filipinos, and so it is very Filipino is style and food -- my wife loved the breakfast buffet, me not so much.

The location is OK. There are some fastfood places a block away, along Roxas (McDonalds, Chow King, Kenny Rogers) as well as a 7-11. The Mall of Asia is a long, sunny walk, which I did twice. The LRT and MRT are a medium length walk. It is working class Filipino neighbor, most likely uncomfortable for those not used to Filipino streets, but it felt safe to me even late at night. There are always plenty of people around

although location is not as you want for a hotel, just take it as part of what they offer: a peek of manila filipinos' culture, of how everyday life is in busy and crowded streets of manila. other than that the hotel is well recommended owing to its friendly and courteous staff, overall: excellent service done in a very modest way.

The hotel has very friendly staff and accomodating. Loved the free buffet breakfast included . Used the Jacuzzi for a relaxing time after a day of walking around and shopping. Service to and from the airport is a plus with a minimal fee. Location is not as good since it used to be a love nest short time location, they call it biglang liko in Pilipino. We were not able to try their restaurants except the buffet breakfast which was impressive.

Rooms at the Mabuhay are quite clean and staff are pretty nice and friendly. The breakfast buffet is reasonable. Price is quite ok. That's the good part.

My biggest peeve is that our room had no window of any sort and I had no warning that that might be the case from the hotel's website or the reservation staff I exchanged emails with. Some rooms do have windows, so it's not uniform, but we were told there was no other room to change to and it was something that just made the place feel uncomfortable (even though we likely wouldn't have had anything to look at, just some natural light would have been a big improvement).

Per above, neighborhood is a dump, with most of the immediate area occupied by love hotels. Not even a store of any sort really around. About 15-20 mins walk takes you to the new giganormous SM Mall of Asia, and beyond the traffic, it seems safe enough walking.

Beware that the seemingly free internet access in the lobby comes with a charge (reasonable though).