Banon
Contributor
We have a diving friend who we've kept up with since we first met him in Utila, Honduras in 2009. Since Utila he worked contracts at several places before landing in the Philippines at Atlantis in Puerto Galera. We visited him there in 2015 and did the full trip of Atlantis PG, Atlantis Dumaguete, and their liveaboard Azores around Malapascua. It was a great trip. When our friend took a new position at Marco Vincent Dive Resort a few minutes walk from White Beach in PG, and said it was "better", my wife and I decided we would check it out and form our own opinion. After all, we had had a great time on the Atlantis trip so it would be difficult for Marco Vincent to be "better."
The first part of our trip was on the Discovery Palawan out to Tubbataha Reef. While not part of Marco Vincent, they booked the boat and coordinated travel to/from Puerto Princesa. We were on the opposite travel schedule from the Bamboo Reef Dive Center - San Francisco group that had stayed at Marco Vincent their first week, then Tubbataha the second. They are a great group and it was fun to get to know them. The diving was fantastic. If you have the opportunity, Tubbataha is worth a visit. While our dive sub-group didn't see whale sharks, mantas, or hammerheads, other groups did. (6 to 8 divers per tender with a DM). The highlight for me was probably the huge schools of jacks and barracudas in shallow water with great visibility and light.
After Tubbataha we made the trek to Marco Vincent Dive Resort in Puerto Galera. The resort is Mediterranean style with the pool, hot tub, and outdoor restaurant seating in the central courtyard. The dive center with separate pool, classroom, store, and fully furnished camera room is in the building next door. Our room had a comfortable king bed, AC, mini fridge, TV, safe, and good sized bathroom with shower and separate tub. The pictures on the resort's site (link above) are representative.
Let's face it. Most of us diving from the US have stayed in some pretty nice resorts over the years. Marco Vincent competes favorably in our "nice resort" list, but there were 3 things that particularly stood out: 1) the staff, 2) the service, and 3) the diving.
1) The staff: just about everyone we interacted with knew our names, if not on the first day then by the second. I was particularly impressed when we went down for breakfast on the first day and were greeted by name. On our last night they invited us back to their karaoke room at the beach restaurant for a small party with cake. I don't usually sing karaoke, but I did that night and it was a great time. Lot's of laughter, in good way.
2) The service: everyone went above and beyond to ensure that we were comfortable and having a good time. This ranged from arranging dinners in the different restaurants (one is down at the beach) to changing the location of the shower head when we mentioned that it was too high to easily use. How many places have you stayed that will change a shower head mount based on a passing mention? For us? None until now.
3) The diving: MV is a short walk from White Beach, but a 5 minute drive to the boat dock. Here is where Marco Vincent got creative and made what could have been a negative into a positive. The dive days started with meeting in the lobby at 8:00am, then a 5 minute ride in an air conditioned van (back access, bench seats along both sides, room for gear) down to the dock where we met Big Beth, an 82' yanca. Instead of returning to the resort after every dive, we stayed on the boat for 2 morning dives, lunch (delicious), and an afternoon dive. If you look at the size and specs on the Big Beth link above, you'll notice this is basically like being on a liveaboard for the day. And for those with a technology addition, the boat even has internet. (Albeit slow, you won't want to try to upload big files.)
The hotel and staff handled all of our gear other than cameras. We put it in crates outside our door when we first arrived and they moved it to the boat for us. We set up gear on the first day so they could see how we liked things, and after that they handled everything including EOD rinse and storage for the next day. At the end of the week they rinsed our gear, dried it, and delivered back to our room in that same crate.
Our DMs were Sherwin and Warren, both of whom were great at finding critters for us to photograph. Some of the standouts include a few blue ringed octopuses, a mototi octopus, eagle rays, turtles, a hunting trumpet fish riding a puffer, ornate and robust ghost pipefish, pygmy seahorses, flamboyant cuttlefish, frogfish including a hairy frogfish, skeleton shrimp, zebra crabs, Coleman shrimp, blue spotted rays, and all the usual suspects.
When we got back on board after a dive talking about all the cool stuff that we saw and photographed, the crew was there with warm face towels, hot ginger tea, and dry towels after we rinsed with the deck showers. After the first dive of the morning there was a warm pastry snack, and after the last dive of the day they had a cold beer waiting for us. Luxury diving at it's best.
Oh yeah, I started this off with question on whether Marco Vincent is "better" than Atlantis. For the diving, and for our preferences, unquestionably. The Marco Vincent diving experience on Big Beth was hands down better than the out-and-in dives from Atlantis PG. That said, if you are one that would prefer to go back to your room after every dive rather than sit out on the water with friends, you might like the Atlantis model better. The resort comparison is also different. Rooms and food are both good, staff were better at Marco Vincent, and we liked the quiet coziness of Marco Vincent where we could come back and get a quiet drink by the pool. Atlantis is closer to the night life of Sabang, with all that entails.
The first part of our trip was on the Discovery Palawan out to Tubbataha Reef. While not part of Marco Vincent, they booked the boat and coordinated travel to/from Puerto Princesa. We were on the opposite travel schedule from the Bamboo Reef Dive Center - San Francisco group that had stayed at Marco Vincent their first week, then Tubbataha the second. They are a great group and it was fun to get to know them. The diving was fantastic. If you have the opportunity, Tubbataha is worth a visit. While our dive sub-group didn't see whale sharks, mantas, or hammerheads, other groups did. (6 to 8 divers per tender with a DM). The highlight for me was probably the huge schools of jacks and barracudas in shallow water with great visibility and light.
After Tubbataha we made the trek to Marco Vincent Dive Resort in Puerto Galera. The resort is Mediterranean style with the pool, hot tub, and outdoor restaurant seating in the central courtyard. The dive center with separate pool, classroom, store, and fully furnished camera room is in the building next door. Our room had a comfortable king bed, AC, mini fridge, TV, safe, and good sized bathroom with shower and separate tub. The pictures on the resort's site (link above) are representative.
Let's face it. Most of us diving from the US have stayed in some pretty nice resorts over the years. Marco Vincent competes favorably in our "nice resort" list, but there were 3 things that particularly stood out: 1) the staff, 2) the service, and 3) the diving.
1) The staff: just about everyone we interacted with knew our names, if not on the first day then by the second. I was particularly impressed when we went down for breakfast on the first day and were greeted by name. On our last night they invited us back to their karaoke room at the beach restaurant for a small party with cake. I don't usually sing karaoke, but I did that night and it was a great time. Lot's of laughter, in good way.
2) The service: everyone went above and beyond to ensure that we were comfortable and having a good time. This ranged from arranging dinners in the different restaurants (one is down at the beach) to changing the location of the shower head when we mentioned that it was too high to easily use. How many places have you stayed that will change a shower head mount based on a passing mention? For us? None until now.
3) The diving: MV is a short walk from White Beach, but a 5 minute drive to the boat dock. Here is where Marco Vincent got creative and made what could have been a negative into a positive. The dive days started with meeting in the lobby at 8:00am, then a 5 minute ride in an air conditioned van (back access, bench seats along both sides, room for gear) down to the dock where we met Big Beth, an 82' yanca. Instead of returning to the resort after every dive, we stayed on the boat for 2 morning dives, lunch (delicious), and an afternoon dive. If you look at the size and specs on the Big Beth link above, you'll notice this is basically like being on a liveaboard for the day. And for those with a technology addition, the boat even has internet.
(Albeit slow, you won't want to try to upload big files.)The hotel and staff handled all of our gear other than cameras. We put it in crates outside our door when we first arrived and they moved it to the boat for us. We set up gear on the first day so they could see how we liked things, and after that they handled everything including EOD rinse and storage for the next day. At the end of the week they rinsed our gear, dried it, and delivered back to our room in that same crate.
Our DMs were Sherwin and Warren, both of whom were great at finding critters for us to photograph. Some of the standouts include a few blue ringed octopuses, a mototi octopus, eagle rays, turtles, a hunting trumpet fish riding a puffer, ornate and robust ghost pipefish, pygmy seahorses, flamboyant cuttlefish, frogfish including a hairy frogfish, skeleton shrimp, zebra crabs, Coleman shrimp, blue spotted rays, and all the usual suspects.
When we got back on board after a dive talking about all the cool stuff that we saw and photographed, the crew was there with warm face towels, hot ginger tea, and dry towels after we rinsed with the deck showers. After the first dive of the morning there was a warm pastry snack, and after the last dive of the day they had a cold beer waiting for us. Luxury diving at it's best.
Oh yeah, I started this off with question on whether Marco Vincent is "better" than Atlantis. For the diving, and for our preferences, unquestionably. The Marco Vincent diving experience on Big Beth was hands down better than the out-and-in dives from Atlantis PG. That said, if you are one that would prefer to go back to your room after every dive rather than sit out on the water with friends, you might like the Atlantis model better. The resort comparison is also different. Rooms and food are both good, staff were better at Marco Vincent, and we liked the quiet coziness of Marco Vincent where we could come back and get a quiet drink by the pool. Atlantis is closer to the night life of Sabang, with all that entails.
