Plans for a vacation in Philippines

Dear fellows/friends

After a perfect vacation in Amanwana @Moyo Island, Sumbawa during first half of October now i made a quite spontaneous decision to spend ~12 nights at an upscale resort in Philippines.

I have never been in Philippines before. And season-wise it looks like Philippines is a good choice for our planned vacation dates roughly a 12 night duration somewhere between 28/12/2013 - 14/01/2014.

Unfortunately Amanpulo at Pamalican looks like fully booked during our planned dates.

Is there any resort of similar characteristics in Philippines?

What we are looking for is:

- Upscale accommodation

- Diving with personal approach( diving 1 to 1 with a guide whenever and whereever you want)

- Relatively easy to access (like Amanpulo direct flight from Manila or at least not a lot more complicated than that)

For diving type i do not have a preference. It can be pelagic or macro. Drift or muck etc.. Only prefence from my side - I am not a big fan of wrecks unless they do not have pelagic or macro :-)

I would appreciate in case you would provide me some alternative ideas.

Three words: El Nido Lagen

More words: it is definitely upscale with over-water villas (not quite an Aman resort, but close), they fly direct from the charter terminal so you avoid the nasty domestic terminal, you will have your own boat and DM on your own schedule. By the way they also have a sister resort at El Nido Miniloc. The scenery in that area is spectacular and when you are tired of diving you can kayak through the lagoons and fend off the monkeys and hornbills

You might also consider Antulang near Dumaguete. They have villas with private courtyards containing either a lap pool or a spa or both. The diving there (and at nearby Apo Island) is more varied in my opinion, and again you can arrange your own boat and DM. Getting there is a short domestic flight and an hour on the road by minivan

El Nido Resorts were also one of the potential locations i found in the internet. Other than Miniloc and Lagen they have two more resorts which recently joined the network. These are Apulit and Pangulasian. Which one out of 4 may have more interesting dive sites? Accommodation-wise Pangulasian looks fresher based on the limited number of photos at their website.

On the other hand again based on the info in their web site a DM dives with groups not exceeding 6 divers. (not 1 to 1 as i would like to)

I have only been to Lagen and Miniloc so can't comment on the relative advantages of the two newer ones. Based on my experience though I'd think that it is hard to go wrong with any of them.

As for dive practices, while the standard may be for larger or smaller groups, I have not been anywhere in this country where I could not arrange my own boat and DM, which I always do.

Own boat and own DM is what i did organize within the last 5-6 days as well. However i could not imagine how available such resources can be in these islands. After your first message i also sent to the resort a request for clarification of several questions of mine in mind including the private DM & boat issue. Now waiting for their response. All of these resort look like quite close to each other like 10-15 minutes boat ride. I think the dive sites should also be mostly common or at least having similar characteristics.