Every building has a roof. Every establishment across the world like hotels, restaurants, and bars have a roof. And yet, most of them aren’t used for anything other than housing the air conditioning and heating units and perhaps filming Hangover movie sequels.
But very few of those same establishments do anything creative, fun, or useful with their roof outside of the extremely practical. Sure, some of them may have a little sitting area or even a tiny pool up there, but how many buildings can you look at and truly say that the roof is the highlight of the whole aesthetic – and experience?
That’s the case with the 88 Street Roofdeck, or also just called “The Roofdeck.” Situated at the top floor (I believe it to be the 11th floor of the new, modern, and amiable Central Park Resort in the budding city of Angeles in the Philippines, it delivers just about everything you could need to enjoy your stay – all at home.
Once you come up the duel elevators to The Roofdeck, you’ll walk out into a grand lobby with high ceilings and ornate fixtures. However, this lobby is open-air, contained under a sub-roof but free standing on the actual main roof of the hotel!
From there, you see a full Irish-style pub, with a rich dark wood bar with a brass rail and rustic brick walls, hanging with bar mirrors and signs just like you would witness at any other tavern. But this whole bar, wrapping around 270 degrees, can probably accommodate 50 people! Needless to say, they’re equipped with everything you’d see at any other full-service bar, despite the fact that this one is outdoors and 11 stories up in the tropics.
Meandering around the confines of the roof, the highlight is the infinity swimming pool, which is shaped as two rectangles and has a clean, modern checkered tile look. The pool edge “disappears” off the roof into a spectacular view of the small city and then the green countryside further out, including a dormant volcano on the horizon!
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Besides the pool, they have three cabana areas where you can lounge under shade covers on comfortable outdoor sofas, and under artsy lighting at night, just like you were chilling with your friends in your living room.
On the other side of the pool and lining the bar area are plenty of outdoor tables with umbrellas to sit, eat, and drink. They also have a whole outdoor stage area decorated in nice stone tiles where live bands play on the weekends. For nights when the bands aren’t playing, they have a large white wall build behind the stage where they project movies and videos each evening!
If it’s raining, too hot, or you just want to be indoors, they also have a separate full indoor coffee shop on the roof deck, and a restaurant sitting area!
Even better, 88 Street Roofdeck is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and even has wifi (I sit up here and work every morning).
I like this hotel anyways, but it will make it damn hard to stay anywhere else in Angeles City or even Manila that can beat this setup!
About Norm Schriever
Norm Schriever is a blogger, Amazon best-sellling author, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. His work appears in the Huffington Post, Business.com, Good Morning America, The Anderson Cooper Show on CNN, NBC, MSN, Yahoo, Hotels.com, and media all around the world.
Norm grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he was never accused of overstudying. After expatriating to Costa Rica in 2011, he started traveling the world and documenting what he saw. He now lives in Southeast Asia, writing his heart out and working with local charities.
