looking at first trip to The Philippines - atlantis resorts - advice?

[phlegm]

yeah the Filipinos are pretty good at hiding fees for stuff

 

[Luko]

there was a suggested tip which I think was something like 10 or 15% of our bill,

Paying for 250/375USD tips in 10 days stay !?!
This is quite crazy for SEA, this is not the Caribbean... I guess German/other european owned resort would look at you with round eyes if you shelled out this amount of tipping. (Don't want to raise another tipping/not tipping debate but it's clearly not customary in South Eastern Asia).

 

[dirtfarmer]

Atlantis Resorts......

I stayed in an Atlantis Resort for 10 days. I was quoted a package rate price of $250 per night.

When I checked out, the taxes, hidden fees, mandatory tips, etc., ballooned the price to over $500 per night.

I had already paid for the package, but I had to cough up another $2,500 at check out.

Doc Harry, was this an Atlantis resort in the Phillipines?

 

[Centrals]

I have heard of "Muck Diving" in the Philippines, what is exactly meant by that? I google image searched, when I think of Muck diving here I think of poor viz, muddy bottoms, and not much to see. There it looks like it is creature searching, clear water, basically diving off the coral reef?

Any other advice?

Anilao + PG
No domestic flight to catch means more time for diving. BTW the macro in Anilao is simply better than Dauin(my opinion).
There are plenty large and small operators in PG and you can easily save several hundred $ for NOT diving with Atlantis!!! Look up for South Sea Divers.
You choose the schedule and not the other way round!

 

[LiquidDivingAdventure]

I work pretty close with the management team at Atlantis Puerto Galera and Dumaguete and the Azores liveaboard. I have never had a guest experience added fees and costs like Doc Harry. I have had some friends stay at a couple of Caribbean resorts and were shocked by their bar tab at the end of their stay. I think the mudslides were $15 each and they add up. Not suggesting that happened with Doc Harry by any means. I can't imagine how Doc Harry's bill doubled...?

 

[TSandM]

Since the OP is coming from the US, I'd like to tell a story about our FIRST trip to the Philippines. The trip was split between Puerto Galera and Dumaguete, as his is. The problem was that the flight from Manila to Dumaguete couldn't land because of weather. The pilot tried twice, and then diverted to Cebu to wait for the squall to pass, which it did -- but by that time, they were too close to sundown (it's a daytime airport only) and they were going to fly us BACK to Manila, telling us that our tickets "would be good for 30 days". The problem was, we didn't HAVE 30 days to get to Dumaguete. We had three days left on our trip, and the packed full flight we were on didn't give us a lot of confidence that we would get there before we had to go home. So about 15 of us (not all our group, but all headed for Atlantis) staged a revolt and deplaned on the taxiway.

Now, here we were, at an airport we hadn't planned to be at, on an ISLAND we hadn't planned to visit, with no local information at all and no local money. One of the group got on the phone to Atlantis, and within an hour, we had hotels rooms right next to the airport, vans set up to take us and our luggage to a ferry the next day, and ferry tickets pre-ordered. Yes, we did eventually pay for all of that, but it got DONE. Although I have traveled a lot in my life, and done most of it in a very unstructured and independent way, I was profoundly grateful that, with the very short time available on an expensive trip with a very specific goal, somebody else stepped up and took care of the logistics.

Now, I really liked the Philippine people that I met on our trip, and maybe any resort we had booked at would have done the same thing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this is part of the service that Atlantis prides itself on providing, and I'm willing to spend a little extra money to be sure that, when I'm traveling in a part of the world where things don't always work, somebody has my back.

 

[StefinSB]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Nothing wrong with spending money IF it is mentioned upfront Lynn. Adding "mandatory tips" sounds like a typical Filipino trick of screwing you over. [/FONT]

 

[Luko]

Nothing wrong with spending money IF it is mentioned upfront Lynn. Adding "mandatory tips" sounds like a typical Filipino trick of screwing you over.

Sorry to say but it looks more to me like an american trick.
I've had enough trips in Indonesia and Philippines (3 times a year for the last 18 years) to reckon it's something that US managed resorts sometimes try to impose over their guests by suggesting a level of tips unknown in the region. This is also valid for Indonesia, not only Philippines). Once again local, european or even australian owned resorts would hardly ever try to mention these kind of tips, it's cetainly aimed to guest of specific countries.

As for services going beyond,last december SeaExplorers arranged for us a private boat to cross Bohol channel at 5AM whle there was a tropical storm that would have left us grounded and missing our plane back home. And this with no mandatory tips. Assistance between people and tourists is something that is customary in SEA, not just for the money.

 

[Centrals]

Nothing wrong with spending money IF it is mentioned upfront Lynn. Adding "mandatory tips" sounds like a typical Filipino trick of screwing you over.

I had never came across "mandatory tips" in Philippines over last 18yrs. Several times a yr over that period means luck has play no part in it.

 

[TSandM]

You guys have it wrong . . . tips weren't mandatory at all. There was a suggested amount, if you wanted to tip. You didn't have to, and all tipping was done at the end of the trip, in an envelope that went to the office. You could designate sums to go to specific people, if you thought you had gotten really good service. I designed part of mine to go to the gardeners, because the grounds were beautiful, and I suspect the DMs and masseuses get tips regularly, and few people think of the groundskeepers. We were actually very happy to leave a generous tip, because the service was uniformly excellent.