shanghaiexpat
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We were in Donsol in April and had a fantastic experience with the whalesharks! Just wanted to share a quick travel report on it as I found the info on this sight really helpful in my planning.
We stayed at the Amor Farm Resort and, as many people said, the food was really good. The eggplant omelette is highly recommended! Our room was spotless and bed and pillows were very comfortable. Amor only had 1 brief electricity outage while we were there for 2.5 days. The beach is nothing special, but everyone is there for the whale sharks anyway and it's no better in front of the other resorts that we saw.
Also, we looked into staying at Giddy's, one of the newer hotels in Donsol, but decided against it as it was in the "city" versus being on the beach like Amor. (We checked out the rooms and they looked very clean and nice and they were building a swimming pool and rooftop bar.) However, we did spend alot of time there. Chris, the new events manager, was fantastic and helped us arrange a firefly watching trip at the last minute. The trip was also much cheaper than organizing through the whale shark center. (I think it was supposed to be 1,500+ per person and we ended up getting a whole boat for about 1,750 and dividing it up among 5 of us. Though I think the time was shorter.). Additionally, we decided to do a night of shrimp catching with Giddy's as well which was a cold, but interesting experience. We'll never take another shrimp dinner for granted again!
While in Donsol, we also ate at Giddy's restaurant several times and were very impressed with the food. Their menu variety and descriptions were much better than Amor. The chef even came out to tell us he just bought a crab and asked us if we were interested in ordering it so we ended up with a delicious lunch!
For the whale shark watching, we arrived in Donsol around 9:30am and were told we could only go out again when the morning boats came back around 10:30. (Only 30 some boats are allowed out at one time.) When a boat came back, we headed out and it only took about 10 minutes of driving around to spot a whale shark and be in the water with it. Our BIO said we were really lucky. In the next 1.5-2 hours we saw 2 more whale sharks and were in the water with them a total of 6 times or so as one kept hanging around and resurfacing.
Because we went in the afternoon, there was only 2 other boats out at that time. (One had been out since 8:30am and not spotted any whale sharks until we found one together around 11am.) It was really nice to be the only ones in the water with the whale sharks as we had heard others complain there were too many people in the water at one time and that they get kicked by other swimmers.
Although, we planned 2 days in Donsol to ensure we got to see the whalesharks, we only went out with them the first day. Our experience was so pleasant, we didn't want to ruin our pristine view of whale shark interacting. So we ended up doing the other activities with Giddy's.
Also, we needed to change more money while we were in Donsol and found the bank rate was pretty bad (manila airport was 1 usd=46 and they offered only 42). However, Giddy's staff directed us to the internet cafe and said they change money sometimes so we ended up getting a rate of 44 pesos.
We stayed at the Amor Farm Resort and, as many people said, the food was really good. The eggplant omelette is highly recommended! Our room was spotless and bed and pillows were very comfortable. Amor only had 1 brief electricity outage while we were there for 2.5 days. The beach is nothing special, but everyone is there for the whale sharks anyway and it's no better in front of the other resorts that we saw.
Also, we looked into staying at Giddy's, one of the newer hotels in Donsol, but decided against it as it was in the "city" versus being on the beach like Amor. (We checked out the rooms and they looked very clean and nice and they were building a swimming pool and rooftop bar.) However, we did spend alot of time there. Chris, the new events manager, was fantastic and helped us arrange a firefly watching trip at the last minute. The trip was also much cheaper than organizing through the whale shark center. (I think it was supposed to be 1,500+ per person and we ended up getting a whole boat for about 1,750 and dividing it up among 5 of us. Though I think the time was shorter.). Additionally, we decided to do a night of shrimp catching with Giddy's as well which was a cold, but interesting experience. We'll never take another shrimp dinner for granted again!
While in Donsol, we also ate at Giddy's restaurant several times and were very impressed with the food. Their menu variety and descriptions were much better than Amor. The chef even came out to tell us he just bought a crab and asked us if we were interested in ordering it so we ended up with a delicious lunch!
For the whale shark watching, we arrived in Donsol around 9:30am and were told we could only go out again when the morning boats came back around 10:30. (Only 30 some boats are allowed out at one time.) When a boat came back, we headed out and it only took about 10 minutes of driving around to spot a whale shark and be in the water with it. Our BIO said we were really lucky. In the next 1.5-2 hours we saw 2 more whale sharks and were in the water with them a total of 6 times or so as one kept hanging around and resurfacing.
Because we went in the afternoon, there was only 2 other boats out at that time. (One had been out since 8:30am and not spotted any whale sharks until we found one together around 11am.) It was really nice to be the only ones in the water with the whale sharks as we had heard others complain there were too many people in the water at one time and that they get kicked by other swimmers.
Although, we planned 2 days in Donsol to ensure we got to see the whalesharks, we only went out with them the first day. Our experience was so pleasant, we didn't want to ruin our pristine view of whale shark interacting. So we ended up doing the other activities with Giddy's.
Also, we needed to change more money while we were in Donsol and found the bank rate was pretty bad (manila airport was 1 usd=46 and they offered only 42). However, Giddy's staff directed us to the internet cafe and said they change money sometimes so we ended up getting a rate of 44 pesos.
