Trip Report Malapascua: Evolution & Sea Explorers

[carono6333]

We dived Malapascua 27 March to 10 April 2024. Because of the busy Easter week some places were fully booked. We therefore dived with two operators (Evolution and Sea Explorers) and stayed with three accommodation providers (Evolution, JPH Resort, and Aabana Beach Resort).

GETTING THERE:
We spent a day travelling from Moalboal to Malapascua. We had a private driver from Moalboal to Cebu City, and caught a bus from Cebu City North Bus Station to Maya to catch the boat to Malapascua Island. This took the entire day so if you are in a rush - or don’t like public bus transport - then you could take a private driver for the whole journey. We just like travelling by bus

DIVING
Evolution were busy over the Easter period, so we booked with Sea Explorers when Evolution were fully booked (31 March, 1 & 2 April). We dived with Evolution around the Sea Explorer dive dates.

More below....

 

[carono6333]

We dived with Evolution for 8 days. Wow, what a great operation. Evolution is on the beach, 5 mins walk from ‘the busy beach’ in a slightly more quieter setting. They offer good quality accommodation, food and drinks, and of course diving. Some people don’t even leave Evolution and just stay there the whole time. From the welcome briefing to the final goodbyes were were very impressed. They have a focus on quality and environmental care. For diving they do maximum group sizes of 4 divers per guide. However, they also are careful to put you with divers of similar ability, sometimes we had less than 4 in our group. Briefings were very good and also included environmental care. The dive guides are also high quality. Of note was that they keep an eye on diver’s buoyancy. If someone’s fins were on the bottom they would give gentle reminders to bring fins up. If someone was filming the threshers and dragging fins, they would actually gently lift their fins so the corals were not impacted, but the diver still got their shots. This was all done so gently and politely. Really impressed to see a dive center walking the talk. Well done indeed! Dives were planned to 60 mins and - because we were grouped with other divers with good air consumption - we made mostly 1 hour dives.
One thing we would have liked was more consistency with dive guides. We had 6 different guides over the eight days. I’m guessing this was due to it being a very busy time (around the Easter Holy week), but if we return we will mention to have fewer dive guide swapping. Also, it took some effort to get them stopping from setting up our equipment, which we prefer to do ourselves. There is a system in place (a sticker on the equipment box), but it seems the boat crew don’t really look for it, We solved this minor issue ourselves by adding additional stickers and tape on our equipment boxes

Would we return? Absolutely. This is one of the best dive centers I’ve experienced and they are running a very impressive operation. Kudos to the management and dive team.

Continued below...

 

[carono6333]

We booked with Sea Exporers for 3 days diving due to Evolution being fully booked. We had to pay full price in advance. Sea Explorers is a busy dive centre with bars, restaurants and accommodation nearby. It’s in the middle of the ‘busy beach’, meaning there is plenty of choice of foid etc around. Our diving experience was not so great, unfortunately, although there are positives still for this dive centre.

Our first day was booked for diving Deep Rock. I was surprised to see Junior Open Water students on the boat, as Deep Rock is deep! We arrived at the dive site and they said ‘we’re not diving Deep Rock now, and have come to Lapus Lapus’. Well, we had just dived there the day before and were not so impressed and did not want to dive there again. I asked why the dive site had changed without actually informing anyone or changing the site name on the planning board. Everyone had booked for Deep Rock! They said it was because of strong current at Deep Rock (yeh sure). When I said I would sit out the dive they changed their minds and said we could dive Deep Rock, whilst others dived the adjacent Lapus Lapus. Funnily enough, there was only a mild current and it was an easy dive. We were paired with an absolute gas guzzler though, so our bottom time was just 35 minutes. The briefing was very minimal and contained no environmental care instruction. As for ‘expected marine life’, we were told ‘we will see what we see’. Disappointing so far.

Back at the dive centre we asked to be grouped with people with more experience to get more bottom time. When I looked at the planing board we were grouped with 3 very inexperienced divers, and the group size exceeded the maximum size of four. We were assured not to worry and it would be sorted out. Turning up to dive the next day and nothing had been sorted; it was exactly the same. I asked them to give us the diving that had been promised, or we would just sit out the day and expect a refund. It was explained to us they had overbooked and did not have enough guides, and also they have a no-refund policy(!). After a bit of discussion it was agreed they could not offer us an acceptable solution, and they would contact head office to ask for the refund. So we had a dry day and a refund and apology was received.

Our last day diving with Sea Explorer was better. We went to the Shoal to see Threshers. The briefing contained environmental care, and we were grouped with others with reasonable experience. At least we finished on a good note

Continued below...

 

[carono6333]

Some positives with Sea Explorer are that you get your own place for storing and hanging your diving equipment. And our request to set up own equipment was met I’m sure in their less-busy times the service would be better, but as it was we were not impressed. If you prefer a more lively scene (more people, bars etc) then you may prefer to stay here than Evolution. However, don’t expect pumping nightlife… it’s Malapascua, not Sabang

Would we return? With Sea Explorers being significantly more expensive then their competition, with a less impressive service, we would not go back. However, I suspect we were unlucky and in quieter times they would be better organised. So if you have booked with them I imagine you’d have a great experience. Still, Evolution were organised enough to cap their numbers so their service was not compromised, whereas Sea Explorers were not able to deliver and ended up increasing group sizes (up to six divers) and mismatching ability levels because they’d overbooked.

Continued below...

 

[carono6333]

ACCOMMODATION:
Evolution Resort is good quality accommodation and very comfortable. Their Craic House [bar and restaurant] is very good also. We booked a deluxe room (P5,500 per night) as the standard rooms were all booked out. I would really recommend staying here unless you need somewhere cheaper; it’s such a great place to relax, eat and drink, and socialize with the other divers.

After four nights we moved to JPH Resort, which is less than 5 minute walk from Evolution. We paid P1,750 per night. There is a garden area and the staff are really lovely. Can chill in chairs outside the room but you miss the sea breeze! The market food stalls are very close by where there is great bbq fish and other meals. We really enjoyed staying here. We tend to use fan at night and not the a/c. We did notice the a/c was quite noisy though. Still, great place to stay if you don’t mind not being on the beach and are on a budget.

For our last 2 nights we stayed at Aabana Resort. It is on the beach and right next door to Evolution! The rooms are simple style but have own bathroom and are great value. We paid P1,200 per night for a fan room with breakfast. They also have a/c rooms. This is really good for those on a budget!

That's all for now. Hope you get some value from the trip report.

 

[Centrals]

ACCOMMODATION:
For our last 2 nights we stayed at Aabana Resort. It is on the beach and right next door to Evolution! The rooms are simple style but have own bathroom and are great value. We paid P1,200 per night for a fan room with breakfast. They also have a/c rooms. This is really good for those on a budget!

Good to know that.
Cheers.

 

[Tippytoes12]

Great trip report, thank you. Briefly, apart from the thereshers did you see and how was the coral and water temperature ? I am planning a Spring 2025 trip and your reports are excellent to take note of, thank you.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Excellent repprt. Great info. Thank you so much for sharing with us!

 

[carono6333]

Good to know that.
Cheers.

Just don’t expect much for the Aabana free breakfast. We decided to take our breakfast at Evolution instead

 

[carono6333]

Great trip report, thank you. Briefly, apart from the thereshers did you see and how was the coral and water temperature ? I am planning a Spring 2025 trip and your reports are excellent to take note of, thank you.

You’re welcome! Average water temps for our dives were between 26 and 28 deg C (sorry if you are in Farenheight). We also did Kalanggaman Island and Gato Island day trips. These were good, but i wouldn’t have visited Malapascua if this was the only diving. It’s the sharks that make it, but it’s decent diving at other sites that are enjoyable as it provides variation. We also dived some nearby sites such as Chocolate Island and the Malapascua reefs and pinnacles. Again, these were reasonable and you could see some nice macro stuff. At Monad Shoal - where the Threshers used to be before they relocated to Kimud Shoal - you can spot a Tiger shark if you are lucky (we weren’t) and also decent size White tips. We really enjoyed a wall dive at Monad though, with frog fish and a few other nice things. You will probably need to request the Monad wall (as we did) as most people want to dive the top of the shoal in hope of seeing sharks.