Seeking Boracay Recommendations

[Saad-A]

Hi poeple,

First time poster here :cool2:



I'm planning a trip to celebrate my friends graduation. We will be 6+ people and all of us are kinda advanced divers with about 250 dives minimum.

Our destination of choice is Boracay so we can party hard at night, dive in the morning and enjoy an afternoon massage.

The thing is, I'm looking for a good resort that offers great service & rooms, good location in station 2 on the beach, and has a good dive center within walking distance.

My first choice is Le Soleil but I don't know if there are any dive centers around it cuz we don't want to be lugging our equipment around too much.


Can you help me choose a hotel for this trip? I'm thinking US$ 220 per night max.


Cheers

 

[h2odragon1]

250+ dives each?
You'll be bored with diving Boracay. Only a few Intermediate dives, mostly Novice dives. Yes there is night-life
I see you're more interested in the night-life though. Puerto Galera, Sabang Beach for the night-life, Little LaLaguna for a bit quieter time, (1km away from Sabang), or Big LaLaguna beach, (about 1 1/2 km from Sabang).
There is more to offer the advanced diver in Puerto Galera. Vacation in the Philippines Scuba Diving in the Philippines, Diving in the Philippines Diving Philippines - Atlantis Dive Resorts, Dumaguete and Puerto Galera, Philippines Dive Puerto Galera, Dive Philippines, Dive Action Divers Puerto Galera Directory of Resorts, Hotels, Inn, Cottages, Scuba Diving Facilities
Sabang has the Point Bar out on the water, with jetski transportation available.
IF you are looking for night-life, more than diving, then Boracay! If not,the diving in Puerto Galera is the most varied diving you can find in one stop, ( rec. wreck, deep, tech, nature, shark cave, 600+ species of nudibranchs in the Verde Is. passage, and more).

 

[kwhkg]

agree, dont waste your time and money thiking about Diving in Boracay. most dive sights have been ruinded due to the pollution caused by unregulated, over development of the island also at the moment the white beach side is coverd in green algae bloom. in addition the erosion from typhoons have changed the beach so that you have to wade out through peasoup to get to open water, but if you really want Bora check Tripadvisor

 

[Hank49]

There are lots of good dives around Boracay. Check out Fisheye Divers. They have 20 years experience there and a boat that can go for 3-5 day trips to Apo Reef, Coron, Panagatan, just to name a few. And even around Boracay, there nice dives...beyond "novice". People that tell you the diving is bad there don't know where to go.

 

[Saad-A]

Thanks fellas,

So how bad/good the diving in Boracay is anyways? what can we compare it to?


We usually do our party/diving activities in Sharm, Egypt but we're kinda bored of that place and would like somewhere different for a change.


As for Puerto Galera, I checked it out. Seems like a good diving area but no life on the topside. I also checked what kind of nightlife is available there and it turns out to be mostly about pole dancers and hookers. That's not really what we're looking for. We're more interested in places crawling with tourists where we can meet people from different areas.


Somewhere a bit wilder that Sharm at night is what we're looking for.

 

[swisstrav]

pg small la laguna asia divers/el galleon is your place!!!
though i have never been to sharm, the point can go wild with visitors from many countrys. many places in sabang too

if sabang/pg is not party enough - don't go to the phils!!!

and in contrarry to other divers there are some fascinating dives in boracay. yapak. i wouldn't call this nivice diving. or better, it is an advantage to be familar with decompression procedures

 

[Hank49]

Thanks fellas,

So how bad/good the diving in Boracay is anyways? what can we compare it to?


:

What kind of diving are you looking for? Walls? Yes, there are walls and current. Try go over to Nasog point and around the corner of Panay.
Lots of small things? Crocodile Island and Laurel Islands on the backside from White Beach. Frog fish are a nice challenge look for and they're there.

Gentle, shallow dives? Lots of that on the west side right in front of the beach.

Strong current? North and south ends. As mentioned, Yapak 1, 2 and 3 are all very good. 2 is the most dived one and is always pretty exciting if you catch it on an upcoming tide.

You can also hop over to Carabao Island. Or do a day trip to Maniguin.

Boracay gets its bad reputation from the dive sites that most shop take first time divers to, which have nice marine life but little current and are shallow. Friday's Rock, Lobster Rock, etc

 

[Karl_H]

I'd also agree on Yapak - good diving and the current is not for novices, but otherwise the diving directly around Boracay is nothing special at all.

However, there's quite a few good reports of the diving 'close to' Boracay, i.e. 30-60 minutes by Banca (I've not tried these areas though). The trick will be finding a decent dive operation who are happy to go they can just fill the boat with a group of eager 'divers' ready to be blown away by a small rock surrounded by broken corals and a clownfish.....

I had a few dives with Blue Mango Dive Centre (not staying at the resort though) and was quite impressed, particularly as they were pretty blunt (and accurate by most accounts!) about most of the diving on Boracay island.

I'd suggest concentrating a few dives trips to the surrounding islands and avoid most of the local sites, except Yapak ofcourse! That way you'll be back in the early afternoon to get ready for the nightlife! Speak to a few dive operators before you get there by email or phone and you should see which ones know exactly what they are doing and which ones rely on regular (non-returning!) tourist traffic

Unfortunately it is indeed very hard to avoid the dodgy side of PG if you want nightlife there, the further away resorts are less affected (I normally try to stay over in Big La Laguna, way away from Sabang) but with the exception of the Pointbar there isn't that much away from Sabang - If you're looking for slightly different nightlife each night (i.e. not the same bar everynight!) then Boracay would actually be a good choice from that point of view.

Hope that helps,

Karl

 

[Wantonmien]

Saad-A,

To add to Karl and the others words, I was in Boracay with my buddy last December, we used Calypso diving which is close to Boat station 1, albeit I normally stay at Willys Beach Resort way up the other end of the beach.

Calypso were very well organised and made a good job of looking after all of our gear which we dropped with them on day 1, and picked up on the last day. Can't remember the name of the Instructor there, but several guys and pretty flexible, arranging unscheduled night dives out by boat for just us and so on. Yapak definetly the best dive site there, 35 M or so depth, a few smallish reef sharks, nurse sharks and so on with three drop off locations, other sites I dived there included a small wreck, some pretty average soft/hard coral sites, eg:Fridays Rock which is pretty good at night, and a reasonable fast flowing drift dive down the channel with the mainland.

Flicking a coin, Boracay has more going on at night, but Pureto Galera has better diving for sure.

Cheers

 

[Saad-A]

Sorry for the sudden disappearance

Anyways, thanks all for your input.


I took the info to my friends and we agreed to change our destination into 3 days of diving in Apo, then 5 days of diving in Puerto Galera.

Would you recommend staying in Puerto Galera itself or Sabang? I'm currently thinking of Coco beach resort. Seems like a nice place, but does it offer me easy access to Sabang night life?