Phillipines

I have been reading this with interest, as I am planning on heading to PL (late March) for 3 weeks.

I am planning on a twin centre in PG and Anilao, and have narrowed it down to a few operators.

As such, I am asking if anyone has any experience of the following;

*Frontier Scuba in PG

*Bambu villa resort in Anilao (diving with Ronnie Corpuz)

Nothing is set in stone yet, but initial emails with these people seem like they are pretty sound to deal with.

Thanks

Sean

Stu,

 

The Anilao option seems a bit complicated Thanks for the info mate. Appreciate it. I will keep what you wrote in mind...

Arranging transportation to Anilao is as easy as it gets.

1. You make a resort booking.

2. Resort asks for your flight information and if you want transfer to the resort.

3. You reply "Yes".

4. Fly to Manila, collect luggage and go outside the airport door.

5. Look for a sign with your name (like Limo drivers have at the airport). Meet your driver. They take all your luggage and drive you straight to your resort.

6. Dive and have a great time.

Not complicated at all.

We are heading to PG in Nov/Dec and decided on Out of the Blue villas, because (a) they look amazing, especially for the price (a private villa with hot tub for $80/night!) and (b) they have the best tripadvisor reviews I have ever seen. They are associated with Action Divers, who we also have read quite a bit about (and you get 10% off the already very inexpensive diving if you stay at OOTB). You might check them out:

http://www.outoftheblue.com.ph/

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g2...ra_Mindoro.html

My wife and I have been to the PI three times. Twice to Anilao and once to PG.

The critters are pretty much the same, they are only ~20 miles apart and you can see some of the Anilao dive sites from PG. I think there are more nudis in Anilao (AL) but overall you'll see the same macro life. Dive sites can be further away in AL - it depends where you stay and which sites you want to visit. I felt that AL guides were more aware of the photographers and knew where to find critters and were better at spotting them. PG has turtles, AL doesn't. PG has more big fish in a few areas, AL is critter country. We thought the water in AL was a little cooler than PG and were getting cold after 4-5 dives a day in AL.

Verde island is 45 - 60min away from PG and has some great diving but it it's really dependent upon the current and if you hit on a bad day it's not divable. Great fishlife, good reef. It's worth a try, but uncertain.

PG has more night life and the resorts are laid along three small bays with a town behind them. AL is more a bunch of small building clusters and the town (at least what I saw) is minimal with no (?) nightlife - which I don't care about but others may.

Getting to AL/PG is pretty much the same. The pickup at the airport is a bit expensive but if you arrive at 10:30pm and want to dive the next day it's worth it. Head out to the pickup area and look for the signs marking your alpha group (A-E, G-M etc.). Then look for the driver holding a sign with your name. Approx. 2 1/2 hr to AL, 3 1/2 to PG with a 45min boat crossing.

We won't return to PG because my wife was upset by the rampant prostitution there.

Hi rinjani - I agree with your concise summary except for one thing. I've been diving Anilao several times a month for years now, and there are definitely turtles at some sites. They are not easy to find and more than a little skittish, but they are around. But the real magic at Anilao is the macro and closeup life - the wide variety of nudies, frogfish, and pygmy seahorses are my favorites. I also agree with you about PG - calling it "seedy" would be generous and I just can't tolerate what passes for nightlife there. Anilao has absolutely no night life other than the bar at your resort, which suits me fine. Cheers!

Hi rinjani - I agree with your concise summary except for one thing. I've been diving Anilao several times a month for years now, and there are definitely turtles at some sites. They are not easy to find and more than a little skittish, but they are around. But the real magic at Anilao is the macro and closeup life - the wide variety of nudies, frogfish, and pygmy seahorses are my favorites. I also agree with you about PG - calling it "seedy" would be generous and I just can't tolerate what passes for nightlife there. Anilao has absolutely no night life other than the bar at your resort, which suits me fine. Cheers!

I stand correctred on the turtles, no one ever mentioned them so I assumed there were none in Anilao. But the focus there is macro and there's plenty of it. I would also add that the weekends are much busier with many folks coming down from Manila on Sat and Sun mornings. Then it all calms down again and you don't run into very many divers and the sites are really uncrowded.

I have dove PG 1x and Anilao 2x in the past year and I have been to Manila 3 x.

Either PG or Anilao is easy to get to from Manila. I usually spend the night at the Mandarin in Makati (Manila) after the long flight to the Philippines. The roads to Batangas (area of transfer to PG or Anilao) is much improved and the travel time is about 2 hours depending on traffic and your driver. The last trip I had a fast driver and no traffic and we made the trip in 90 minutes.

I highly recommend Club Ocellaris in Anilao. The dive guide Alexis was one of the best dive guides for a photographer I have ever seen. He is not there to baby sit you, but he is there to find critters. He will disappear for 5 minutes and then come back when he finds something interesting. No time limits. Stay down as long as you want. Really a great experience. The rooms are like tree houses. Very basic. No AC but lots of airflow.

I have also stayed at Acacia Resort. Much nicer rooms with AC. However the dive guides were not as good as Alexis at Club Ocellaris.

Anilao is quite and PG is more honkey tonk with hawkers and prostitutes. PG does have good diving and Verde island is a must do.

Both locations are so close it is easy to do both on one trip.

When I go back to Manila, I would most likely go back to Club Ocellaris.