Allow me to report an entirely different diving experience than the OP’s with Atlantis Dumaguete.
My spouse and I were there in August with a group from our local shop. The pace of our dives was slow and focused on critter hunting. Our dive guide (sometimes two on our small boat of 6 or 7 divers) was very much attuned to finding macro subjects, and nearly every dive was a muck dive. Five dives were available each day (and we did ask to repeat a particularly good site or two). The variety and number of nudis was spectacular — although we’ve never been to Anilao so we can’t compare. On only one dive did we cover a lot of territory, but that was at a site that required a drop far from the destination.
We missed the Apo Island day because we were sick (not food related), and we were very unhappy to learn that the whaleshark event was a feeding. We’re definitely not interested in contributing even more than we already do to disturbing and changing animal behavior.
Indeed our arrival experience was the same as the OP’s, with the group orientation dinner right away, and we carried our gear to the dive shop. The service was concierge level from then on, however. We carried only mask and fins on and off the boat. Small camera rigs we carried, but the crew would carry large rigs unless you specified otherwise.
The rooms were reasonably large and very nice, and the resort grounds were lush and gorgeous. The food was very good (although definitely not the best we’ve had at a dive resort), and the waitstaff was very nice and friendly, if noticeably inexperienced and sometimes inattentive.