Dive Review of Atlantis Resorts in
Philippines

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Atlantis Resorts, Dec, 2008, by Mona Cousens, CA, USA ( Contributor 12 reports). Report 4644.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	My husband and I went to Philippines in December 08. We stayed with Atlantis Resorts Dumaguete and Puerto Galera. The resort in Dumaguete is nice, secluded and comfortable. They have four rooms on the water with others in the garden setting away from the beach. The garden rooms are larger and newer so many people preferred these to the older beachfront rooms. There is a lovely tropical pool area with lounge chairs. The food was excellent with 5 different daily entrees to choose from for lunch and dinner. The breakfast menu was the same everyday with different items to choose from. All cooked to order. No buffet here. The diving is done from basic boats which hold 4-8 divers. When they did have over 8 divers they provided additional guides so that the groups remained small. The staff takes your gear out to your boat, you wade out , get on and away you go. The dive sites are all within a 5-10 minute boat ride. You come back after every dive. The water temperature was warmer than they have ever seen it for this time of year. I took a 5mm which I could not wear. The water was 80-82 degrees! Mostly we dove muck dives around the resort. Sites like Cars and Sahara were decent for finding muck critters. The house reef is available for those who want to do it on their own but was not our favorite. It is just a bunch of tires which make up the man made "reef". The world class dive that everyone talks about at this location is the Pier. This is an excellent dive but is not always available as it has to be coordinated with the arrival of working ships delivering goods to the locals. One dive on the pier will show you: flamboyant cuttlefish, pair of giant frogfish, batfish, devilfish, ghost pipefish, etc. You are busy the whole time . We were thus saddened to hear that the pier had 5 of the pilings stripped recently and the pier owner has plans to strip them all. Our divemaster told us the resort has convinced the pier owner to stop stripping the pilings for the near future but they may change their mind at any time. If the pier is lost, I really cant recommend this destination as a world class dive area. We also dove Apo Island twice during our stay. This was included in our dive package. The boat leaves 30 minutes earlier than usual as the crossing is about 45 minutes. You take a polynisian outrigger, not the best boat for diving. Hard to get on and off. You stay out for three dives with lunchtime spent on the boat close to the island near the little town area. All the ladies will come out and wave the teeshirts around so you can do some shopping ! I enjoyed my dives at Apo. It is quite pretty. The reefs were in good shape but sadly not many fish out there. We saw several sea snakes, some frog fish and one area called Clownfish City which was stunning. The dives were mostly drifts. We then went to Puerto Galera which I did not like at all. The transfer between the two resorts is 8 hours. Ours was nine as our flight from Dumaguete to Manila was delayed an hour. The resort did not offer us a box lunch during the transfer. We had breakfast in Dumaguete at 6am, left for the airport at 7am. A one hour flight to Manila, boarded our van in Manila at 11:30 am and arrived at the resort at 4pm. We were very hungry by then. They made a stop enroute at Starbucks so we had a piece of coffeecake and a drink. The resort literature says it is a 2 to 2.5 hour transfer from Manila. Not true. When we left the resort on our return it was a 4.5 hour trip back to Manila. In all fairness, I must say I got sick with a sinus infection and did not do one dive here so my opinions do not include the diving. The divers we were with liked the diving here better than Dumuguete and did see some remarkable things. For me, I did not care for the town and the busy diving atmosphere. I could see 10 dive operators from our room above the water as they are lined up all along the beach. All of these operators dive the same sites so they can get crowded. I did'nt like the mass of people everywhere, the beggars, the busy resort with masses of tourists and the dive board with over 50 names. Most of all I hated to see the old men with the 16 year old girls. This was evident everywhere you looked. In the restaurants, bars, throughout the town (not just in the girlie bars) and in the hotels. We even had one of these couples in the room next to us. The guy was 60 and she was 16-18. She would sit on his lap at the restaurant at night in our hotel when we were eating. I did learn this is acceptable in the Philippines to have an openness to pedophilia and although I feel prostitution should be legal, I do not want to witness this activity so vividly apparent. PG is a known area for this type of behavior and I think it should be helpful to know about this in advance.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	PNG, Indonesia, Thailand, Fiji, Solomons, all Caribbean, Galapagos, Mexico, etc.
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy, dry	Seas	calm, choppy, currents, no currents
Water Temp	80-82°F / 27-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-150 Ft/ 15-46 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	depth, time
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Atlantis Resorts in Philippines

Atlantis Resorts, Dec, 2008,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Atlantis Resorts in
Philippines