Choosing a Resort On Samal Island

Samal Island resorts number around 40 or more. So how does one go about choosing which resort is right for them?

I get that question a lot, both here and via email. I always like to make it clear that I’ve not stayed at these resorts before, and have only visited one of them. I hope to make the rounds on our next visit but I sure won’t be staying at more than one. And there is the basis for my article. We have to decide which resort to stay at for us this time.

It’s not that hard to narrow down the choices and it follows the same advice that I give out. What part of Samal do you want to stay at? What do you plan to do while you’re there (water sports, diving, relaxing, etc.)? What is your budget? Do you want exclusion or is a crowd OK? These are the basic questions I ask, and we are following for our choice.

We’ve not decided on a resort yet. It looks like we will only stay two nights on Samal Island, so that changes our plans of trying a couple different resorts. We will stick with one. Since our land is in Limao, we would like to stay near there and that eliminates a large percentage of the resorts. We also are on a budget, so even if Pearl Farm were closer to our land, we won’t be staying there this time. Paradise Island Resort is also out because we’ve been there and it is too crowded for the time we wish to spend on the island.

Resorts that seem to meet our criteria are: Bluewaters Beach Resort, Camp Holiday Beach Resort and Chemas By the Sea Resort. I was pretty sure that we were going to stay at Chemas because it was recommend to us by someone I trust and it has a little exclusiveness than some of the others, but I keep reading about bad experiences there. I’ve seen enough reports of rudeness by the owner and staff, and poor food that, frankly, it’s scared us off. Maybe these reports are by someone with an agenda, but I’ve seen them in multiple places and I don’t want to take a chance to ruin the couple of days we have on Samal.

So at this point it looks like we will probably stay at either Bluewaters or Camp Holiday. We’d rather not stay in a hotel, so either of those should suffice. They are both relatively inexpensive. I’m not sure if Bluewaters has a restaurant (though it would be hard to believe they don’t), so that could be a factor. We plan to go to Precious Garden for pizza at least one night though.

Over time I’m sure we’ll have a favorite, just like many of you. We just haven’t gotten there yet. Maybe by the time we do, we won’t need one anymore. We’ll have our own private little resort/balay.