Dumagete/Dauin , Philippines

I'm considering Philippines for next year .

Dumagate/Dauin is one of the areas i want to go but not sure where to stay yet . A resort named Atmosphere looks the best option for me ( mainly because my non diving wife is going ) but at the end a better house reef can change my mind.

Some here had stay at this resort ? . My other options are Atlantis and Pura Vida . Hope that some Philippines' expert can help me here.

Regards

Jose Alejandro

I can't comment on the other resorts but I have stayed at Atlantis Dumaguete and can strongly recommend it. Nicely decorated resort, cozy rooms, big beds with doors opening up to verandas. There are a few rooms that do actually face the ocean. The pool is smallish and located in the courtyard away from the beach. Nice deck area near the restaurant/bar for hanging out post dive. Big thumbs up to both a very professional dive op and the excellent cooks/staff.

The beach around Dumaguete/Duan is volcanic so might be disappointing if your wife is expecting white sand beaches. Interesting house reef including mandarin fish in front of Atlantis. I forget if the snorkeling would be good right in front of the resort.

I guess it will really depend on what your non-diving wife's priorities are. For instance, if she is looking for a nice pool to sit by and read, maybe check some of the other resorts. If I remember, the pool is quite small and since it's in an enclosed courtyard, might get a bit stuffy (no ocean breeze).

If she's adventurous, she can arrange to be driven into Dumaguete city to check out some of the local markets.

Thank you very much Pakman!

Yes the Atlantis looks nice , the pool is not that important . And white sand beaches we have here at home , so also black sand not a problem either. I think good massages and nice food will help .

Good to have a house reef with mandarins.

Let's see if someone here knows the 2 other options.

Thanks again

JA

Have not stayed at those resorts, but I have stayed at El Dorado Resort a few times. It has a pool and spa that is good for non-divers, along with a nice house reef and walkable/swim-able to the Pura Vida house reef. The local dive guides at El Dorado are awesome if you can get private guiding, but when the resort is busy you get put in groups. Next time I go I might try Bahura resort. It seems to me that it has the nicest property in the area, an onsite dive shop, and good house reef, but it doesn't have the 'diver resort' reputation of the others. Perhaps there is a good reason for that, but I will at least try to find out.

I had a good time diving at El Dorado. The basic accommodations weren't that exciting but the house reef was good. 4 different color anenomes, hairy froggy, nudibranchs, peacock mantis, big green and huge hawksbill turtle that hung out the entire week we were there, garden eels, morays, grunards, xenos tons of peterson shrimp and huge schools of grunts and cardinal fish. I also saw a few larger fish stopping by to get cleaned one day. I'd rate the diving right off the beach as an A if you're into macro. Viz was 40ft on a good day. The entire area gets a lot of rainfall and the grade is very steep so run off is quick. On rainy days you could find yourself in 15ft visability and the shooting got tough even for macro.

The food was outstanding but you had to compete with a lot of flies. Most (all?) of those resorts lie in rural Dumagette where folks raise their own chickens etc. The staff does a pretty good job of trying to keep them away but there were so many it was a full time job.

The famous Ducom Pier is a short van ride from the resorts and is the highlight of diving. Diving here is great for both WA (soft corals, schools of fish) and macro. There's probably every type of nudibranch and frogfish you could want right under the pier. Amid pier legs encrusted with the most beautiful soft corals I've ever seen.

Bottom line - I'd give my left kidney to go back tomorrow but I'm all about what is under the water and will rough it up top. If my wife wasn't a diver, I'd have to consider doing Puerta Gularta (had friends who stayed with us at El Dorado and at Puerta and said the accommodations at Puerta were much better) and do my diving in secret bay. You could, and should, do an overnight to Dumagette if possible. The pier is not to be missed. Most, not all, of these shots are from the house reef and the Ducom Pier Dumagette Photos

Gary, sadly the company that owns the Ducomi pier decided to do some repairs/ renovations which I believe involved cleaning off a lot of the growth on the pilings. And sadly probably took off 80% of the what made that site great. You can find some recent comments here http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/4491609-post63.html

Thanks guys . I will check Bahura Resort.

Gary after i read your comments of El Dorado house reef , i'm considering left wife at home ( luckly she doesn't show around here ! )

JA

The Bahura Resort has very spacious grounds and 2 pools, one quite large and very nice accomodations. The house reef has a wide variety of critters. You can always visit other resorts' house reef as they are not off limit to non-guests.

@Pakman - That's horrific!!! I bet they could've raised more than enough money to build it in a different spot. I can't tell you how much that breaks my heart.

@ElBuzo - "i'm considering left wife at home" ...hehe. I did exactly that but missed my dive buddy a great deal

That decision has been coming for months now. The first step was cleaning off the first 3m of the pillars mentioned about 5 months ago. Ducomi was closed off for over a year when the pier security in PI was enforced. A pity as it was a nice site.

I've held back on talking about Atlantis for a while now but I've never had good luck with the ops, even when my late tech instructors worked for them years ago. The most disastrous experience was at the Atlantis Dumaguette. Their diving practices were sometimes silly and once even unsafe, especially on Apo Reef Sanctuary.

There was a particular site where they want people to drift dive round a corner for about 500m. Normally with current that isn't an issue and easily done. But they picked slack to dive it. And they didn't say how far the big bangka was or it would be moored, "just go round the corner!" said the german DM. 45 min into the dive and we still hadn't reached the corner, because there was no current. A couple went OOA, well the guy did, the lady had like 1/2 a tank left. So they signalled they had to surface.

80 min and we popped up to find the boat about 200m away, and the DM said we'll have to swim for it because the boat was moored and won't lift anchor for anything. It was then I noticed that the other DM was paddling past us in a rubber dinghy (those kiddie ones). Apparently the couple who surfaced first had developed a problem and were waving in distress. The boat did not lift anchor to go get them. Instead, they sent a paddle dinghy which couldn't fit 3 adults anyway. The safety protocols were just plain horrendous. For a boat not to lift anchor in an emergency (distressed diver) because it took a lot of effort to unmoor etc is beyond me. And how they could not have the boat live in case the current got too strong and people were blown off the rendezvous point is unsafe? Even the small dive operation on Apo was safer in operation.

Don't even get me started on Atlantis!