Our dive shop is going with 20 people next February based on a couple things. Because our group has a range of skills (instructors and DMs to fairly new divers) I looked for something that was not too challenging in terms of currents and offered a range of diving...walls, house reef, macro, a chance at something a bit bigger but not necessary, and comfortable accommodations. On this site, folks do not rate Moalboal as one of the top 5 places to visit in the Philippines as there are better places for macro, large stuff (threshers), wrecks, etc. But after communicating with a few folks living in the Philippines, I concluded that Moalboal may not excel at any one thing, but has enough variety of good attributes to make our traveling party happy. The clincher was meeting Desiree and Arie, the owners. We met them at DEMA last november and they were a blast. I had been emailing them for a few months and we sealed the deal at DEMA because we realized they would be great hosts and our group would fit the care-free atmosphere they established for the resort. They take diving seriously, but really just like life in general.
I have read good reports on this site about Magic Island and they do seem to attract lots of return guests if you check out their Facebook page. Sorry I can't tell you anything based on personal experience beyond meeting Arie and Desiree, but at least I could share our thought process in booking our next big trip. I looked at many sites in Indonesia and the Philippines, but picked Magic Island for our group.
Rob
