Safari58870134291
March 1, 2024
The resort was completely full when we arrived but the service was still excellent. Ironically by the end of the week there were only 2 divers left at the resort. The resort is right on the waterfront in the middle of Sabang Beach. It is a short 5 minute walk to town from the resort where you can get snacks and such. The staff is quite friendly and pleasant. I was amazed that most if not all of the staff knew me by name by the second day. Granted I kind of stand out in a crowd (literally) so I am easy to remember, but it was a nice touch. The rooms are all stucco and ceramic. They are pleasant and well furnished. The bed was comfortable, but only had a duvet so bring a sheet if you need one. Each room has a small fridge, a TV (not all that many channels, though), a private bath. there were enough outlets for charging phones. The air conditioner worked quite well which is a necessity because it is quite warm and humid in the Philippines. There is a dedicated camera room with plenty of outlets and space to put your cameras and charge batteries. The grounds were well kept up with lots of trees and bushes on the grounds. They had a nice little pool as well as a spa for massages. The restaurant was open air. Each morning we could order breakfast off the menu. For lunch and dinner we had 3-4 choices each day. Typically one meat dish, one fish, and one vegetarian. The food was very good. One could also order off the menu, but that was not included in our package. The dive operation is set up quite well. They have a gear storage room and a separate cubby shelf for each diver's small items. The dive staff typically takes care of the heavy stuff once you set it up. They take the tanks and weights and such to the boat before each dive. You have to analyze your tanks, but they have a nice set up which makes it pretty easy. The dive briefings were quite thorough. The divemasters were excellent. The boat crew was very helpful and always loaded up our BC/tanks from the water. They also handled cameras well. Boats were equipped with safety gear and seemed well maintained. The boat drivers handled the boats extremely well. The dive sites were mostly within a 10 minute ride from the resort with the exception of Verde Island. We dived patch reefs, walls, muck areas, and a couple wrecks. Visibility is not like Cozumel or Caymans, but the healthy coral more than makes up for the lack of crystal blue water. Even right off the beach the coral is flourishing. There is such a density of life in the reefs here where almost every hard surface has something growing on it be it an anemone, soft coral or crinoid. There were lots of smaller colorful reef fish as well as frogfish, octopus, eels, etc. The divemasters were quite good at finding tiny nudibranchs and such. After the days diving it was pleasant to hang at the 50 bar. They had some pretty good craft beer there. The front desk was very helpf