El Nido Resort Diving, Palawan?

[Patchy13]

Hi All,

I am heading to the Philippines for my honeymoon at the beginning of December.

We are locked in to have one days diving at Donsol as part of Donsol Eco Tours, then also diving at Malapascua with Evolution. We are also heading to Boracay where we are pretty much set on Calypso divers.

We are also staying on Miniloc Island, Palawan at El Nido Resorts.

Has anyone got an good/bad experiences with the diving both in the area and also with El Nido Resorts? And any feedback on Calypso on Boracay would be great too.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pughio83]

I can recommend calypso for sure. I have a few friends who work there, and they are all lovely. The resort including pinjalo is nice, the gear is quite new, good boats, and the guides and boat boys excellent. They are a very professional outfit, of who I did my rescue and DM internship with, and who several of my friends have done courses with. I have stayed with them 4-5 times. It's quite a social place,with after hours drinking and dining, as they have a great bar and restaurant, sports tv, shuffleboard tournaments etc....all in all very recommended. PM me if any queries.

Heard Malapascua is good, and donsol for whale shark snorkelling though the viz can be a bit murky. Have been palawan but didn't make it to el nido as weather was awful.

Sounds like it will be a Great trip.

 

[Kenr]

Calypso is a decent operation, they have a training pool and their dives are well organized. They would be on my short list in Boracay.

 

[Kenr]

One nice thing Calypso did on one of our dives was to hang a spare tank and regulator down at 5 meters in case someone needed a backup.

 

[g6abyss]

Sorry, I maybe off topic but can't help but noticed that you chose Donsol - I hope it's not because of the whalesharks...since you can't dive with whalesharks in Donsol ... you can only snorkel with them IF they show up. We had to wait 3 hours on first day around 1pm to 4pm to no sighting and then we finally saw one with like 50 people all chasing one whale shark on the second day after waiting for 2 hour + started at 7am. Also it appeared that the whaleshark (yes one whaleshark only when we went in March) usually showed up around 10 am to 11 am'ish from when we/others saw it. That means it's the second trip of the day while the boatmen will try to get you to go first thing in the morning. If you are interested in whalesharks - Oslob is the new place to go (since the boatmen feed them so they will show up regularly and you can dive there with whalesharks there.)

 

[Patchy13]

Thanks all for the replies.

Yes, I know we cant dive with whale sharks, we are booked for three dives nearby (I cant remember the name off the top of my head).