My wife and I are avid muck lovers!! After going to Lembeh 3 times, Tulamben 3 times and Bangka (which has tons of great macro) 3 times I decided it really was time to see whether Anilao could "out-marco" these 3 macro giants!
If you've read any of my other trip reports you will know I travel with the whole family, which now means a very energetic 4 year old and a particularity clumsy 18 month old! Therefore we don't dive as much as we would like too! Typically we dive once in the morning and once in the afternoon and then a night dive or two thrown in. We therefore look for a dive resort that allows this sort of schedule.
After much searching (including scoring this forum, thanks to all that have posted!!) and deliberating I ended up deciding on Buceo Anilao. And right from the very first email they impressed me. The speed and completeness of their correspondence was 5 star!
We are blessed to live in Singapore, which means a simple 3hr flight to Manila. Given the cheap flights it also means we are able to take our helper along with us, so she is there to look after the kids while we go bubble blowing.
Buceo Anilao arranged all the transfers and they were smooth as silk. The drive from the airport to Anilao took 2.5hrs and then you hop on one of their bangka's for a 5min ride to the resort.
The resort looks great from the water and we were welcomed warmly and given a something cool to drink.
You then are taken up, up, up, up to your room! I counted 93 steps from the restaurant to our room!! BUT for your efforts you are awarded with an incredible view.
IMG_8045 by Angmo Al, on Flickr
The rooms are big, clean and comfortable. AC worked well, but hot water pressure was a tad "dribbly" but that's the only negative thing I can think of concerning the accommodation.
Food at the restaurant is usually Ala-cart and they have a fairly diverse menu, BUT the food was quite variable from day to day. One day an item would be amazing the next day the same item would be yuck (to quote my 4yr old). But on the whole the food was pretty decent.
The staff really did take care of us and the our kids. It is a happy place to be. And the bar area is a great place to grab a beer or cocktail.
IMG_8031 by Angmo Al, on Flickr
My kids spent many hours in the lovely pool. Which on on side was only chest deep and the other was 3m deep and used for scuba training. The "beach" in front of the resort is a rocky beach and
OK onto the diving. I came to Anilao with fairly high exceptions but unfortunately they were not really met. Many of the critters were still in hiding after the Christmas hurricane. Also the viz was typically less than 10m. And the water was COLD! Yes I'm a softy! 25 deg C is very cold for me and my 2mm wetsuit! Within 15min my teeth were chattering underwater. It's amazing what a big difference 3 degrees makes!! BUT I rented a nice new 5mm wetsuit from the resort and then I was much more comfortable and could last 70min underwater.
Unfortunately I never saw any "interesting" octopi, or Rhino's (even though we went rhino hunting down to 34m one dive), we saw very few frog fish, and only one or two new (to me) nudi's. On the whole the overall critter count was definitely well below Lembeh and about on par with Tulamben. BUT then again the hurricane could be to blame!
Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed the diving and I definitely saw many wonderful critters, such as cute yellow gobies, a juv hairy froggy, lots of little shrimps, including the stunning coleman shrimp, the iridescent bobtail squid, some interesting big sea snails, a few eels etc. Unfortunately the viz did not allow any WA photography but the reef dives that we did were well covered in hard and soft corals and quite pretty.
I definitely will return to give it another go.
_DSC9888 by Angmo Al, on Flickr
_DSC9865 by Angmo Al, on Flickr
One morning we rented one of the Bangka's to go across to the neighboring island to play on a white sand beach and introduce the 4 year old to the wonderful underwater world. It was his first time snorkeling and he LOVED it! We are indoctrinating him from an early age! Soon he will be a bubble blower like us! ha ha
The full face mask we got for him really worked well!
_DSC9937 by Angmo Al, on Flickr
Buceo Anilao is a great little resort and I'm pretty sure we will be returning!
The rest of my pics from the trip are at the link below, hope you enjoy them!:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/angmo-al/albums/72157678906089953
If you've read any of my other trip reports you will know I travel with the whole family, which now means a very energetic 4 year old and a particularity clumsy 18 month old! Therefore we don't dive as much as we would like too! Typically we dive once in the morning and once in the afternoon and then a night dive or two thrown in. We therefore look for a dive resort that allows this sort of schedule.
After much searching (including scoring this forum, thanks to all that have posted!!) and deliberating I ended up deciding on Buceo Anilao. And right from the very first email they impressed me. The speed and completeness of their correspondence was 5 star!
We are blessed to live in Singapore, which means a simple 3hr flight to Manila. Given the cheap flights it also means we are able to take our helper along with us, so she is there to look after the kids while we go bubble blowing.
Buceo Anilao arranged all the transfers and they were smooth as silk. The drive from the airport to Anilao took 2.5hrs and then you hop on one of their bangka's for a 5min ride to the resort.
The resort looks great from the water and we were welcomed warmly and given a something cool to drink.
You then are taken up, up, up, up to your room! I counted 93 steps from the restaurant to our room!! BUT for your efforts you are awarded with an incredible view.
The rooms are big, clean and comfortable. AC worked well, but hot water pressure was a tad "dribbly" but that's the only negative thing I can think of concerning the accommodation.
Food at the restaurant is usually Ala-cart and they have a fairly diverse menu, BUT the food was quite variable from day to day. One day an item would be amazing the next day the same item would be yuck (to quote my 4yr old). But on the whole the food was pretty decent.
The staff really did take care of us and the our kids. It is a happy place to be. And the bar area is a great place to grab a beer or cocktail.
My kids spent many hours in the lovely pool. Which on on side was only chest deep and the other was 3m deep and used for scuba training. The "beach" in front of the resort is a rocky beach and
OK onto the diving. I came to Anilao with fairly high exceptions but unfortunately they were not really met. Many of the critters were still in hiding after the Christmas hurricane. Also the viz was typically less than 10m. And the water was COLD! Yes I'm a softy! 25 deg C is very cold for me and my 2mm wetsuit! Within 15min my teeth were chattering underwater. It's amazing what a big difference 3 degrees makes!! BUT I rented a nice new 5mm wetsuit from the resort and then I was much more comfortable and could last 70min underwater.
Unfortunately I never saw any "interesting" octopi, or Rhino's (even though we went rhino hunting down to 34m one dive), we saw very few frog fish, and only one or two new (to me) nudi's. On the whole the overall critter count was definitely well below Lembeh and about on par with Tulamben. BUT then again the hurricane could be to blame!
Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed the diving and I definitely saw many wonderful critters, such as cute yellow gobies, a juv hairy froggy, lots of little shrimps, including the stunning coleman shrimp, the iridescent bobtail squid, some interesting big sea snails, a few eels etc. Unfortunately the viz did not allow any WA photography but the reef dives that we did were well covered in hard and soft corals and quite pretty.
I definitely will return to give it another go.
One morning we rented one of the Bangka's to go across to the neighboring island to play on a white sand beach and introduce the 4 year old to the wonderful underwater world. It was his first time snorkeling and he LOVED it! We are indoctrinating him from an early age! Soon he will be a bubble blower like us! ha ha
The full face mask we got for him really worked well!
Buceo Anilao is a great little resort and I'm pretty sure we will be returning!
The rest of my pics from the trip are at the link below, hope you enjoy them!:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/angmo-al/albums/72157678906089953
. I found the 24/25°C quite chilly too, especially for 60minutes + dives.
