Dive Review of Scotty's/Shangri-La's in
Philippines/Cebu-Mactan

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Scotty's/Shangri-La's: "Shangri-La's in Cebu", May, 2015, by Jeff Bloomer, IL, US ( Contributor 18 reports with 3 Helpful votes). Report 8642.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	www.jeffbloomerphoto.com We were met in the marbled floor lobby of the luxury resort by lovely ladies dressed in long dresses. After a 4 hour cab ride from Dumaguete, the last 45 minutes being the worst traffic you can imagine, I thought "wow, am I in the right place?" and "the dive operation is going to be a cattle boat". I was right on the first one and wrong on the second. Shangri-La is not a typical hotel/resort for divers. It has 5 restaurants, 2 swimming pools and enough people to meet your every wish from drinks pool side, a private dinner over the water and enough other activities to keep the upscale tourist happy for their entire stay. We stayed in the Ocean Wing with access to a private bar/restaurant where we could have evening cocktails on the house. The entire resort is gorgeous and the restaurants were overall very good, not great but very good. The diving, and all the other water sport activities, is supplied by Scotty's Dive. They have a complete dive shop on premise and can handle newbies through tech divers. Arlene was very efficient at getting us signed up and informed us that most days we would be diving alone. Our Divemaster was Bernie, a very nice Philippine born guy and our captain was Toto. Having struck out in Dumaguete wanting to take some pictures of Pigmy Seahorses I didn't hold out hopes for Cebu either but when I mentioned my prey he said "no problem, we go tomorrow." The near in shallow reefs are junked up with about anything you can imagine being thrown over the side of a tourist smothered boat from plastic bags, flip flops to old disposable (not in this fashion) diapers. The deeper, further out reefs were in great conditions and sea life was plentiful. In shooting the Pigmy Seahorses I wasn't prepared for how truly small they are, but luckily my macro gear was up to the task. They were on a fan in about 100 ft of water with a pretty good current and after some adjustments I got some good shots. Plenty of Nudibranches and a large school of sardines along with squid and cuttlefish rounded out the animals. The dive operation was really top notch and the resort could not have been better unless you could remove all the tourists with their damn selfie sticks.
Websites	Scotty's Shangri-La's
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Caribbean, Hawaii, East Coast US, Bahamas, Palau, Yap, Maldives, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana
Closest Airport	Cebu City	Getting There	Connect through Seoul.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	87-87°F / 31-31°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	75-100 Ft/ 23-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	No restrictions, come up when you are ready.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	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	No real accommodations. They were careful with my gear and they had a separate rinse tank. I took my rig back to the room each day.

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Dive Review of Scotty's/Shangri-La's in Philippines/Cebu-Mactan

Scotty's/Shangri-La's: "Shangri-La's in Cebu", May, 2015,

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 Scotty's/Shangri-La's in
Philippines/Cebu-Mactan