매직 오션스 다이브 리조트

A well-designed resort with a free-form pool surrounded by individual thatched "cottage-style" accommodation. Rooms are large with plenty of shelf/hanging space for clothes and hot water showers. The balcony also has a drying rack to hang out wet gear. (A door mat at the front door would be useful to help prevent skidding on the tiled floor). Meals are at communal tables but guests can eat at single tables if they wish. There is plenty of food throughout the day, mostly Western dishes, with a large menu to order from but we did find the food a little "same-ish" (meat or fish in a sauce). It would be nice if a few more local Filippino dishes were in the selection available each night as there wasn't really time to order one off the menu at lunch time and then go diving again. The bar is a great place to meet before and after dinner to chat away with other guests and the bar staff produce a selection of cocktails, some of which are quite potent and make for a merry evening. All the staff, from the serving staff to the gardeners, housekeepers, receptionists, dive staff and boat crew, are friendly and keen to ensure you have a great time during your stay and if you ask for anything they will do their best to get it for you. The dive centre is spacious and the dive boats are very well laid out with plenty of seating, and space for cameras and dry gear in the middle. The rubber-covered steps and handholds along the outriggers on both sides make getting out after a dive much easier than having to hang onto a rope and the dive staff are there to help you out if you need assistance. Our dive leader, Lee Ann, had an expert eye for spotting more unusual creatures and indulged us whilst we ferreted around on muck dives, on one pointing out three Wonderpus - how she even knows where to look was beyond us! There is a virtual certainty of seeing a frog fish on each dive! There are also many large turtles who seem totally oblivious to divers and happily swim around allowing photographers some great shots. The coral around the area is in excellent condition and the soft coral walls are absolutely beautiful to dive - Coral Garden is an absolute must. Our first night dive was amazing: squid, cuttlefish, morays, lionfish, tiny frogfish, nudis and crabs galore. I love muck diving and there was plenty to see in that category although I would have liked to have found a few more of the unusual nudis which other visitors have spotted. Reason to visit again in the future! We did a day trip to Canumantad Falls which was fun, albeit an expensive tour from the resort. Note that cars are not allowed to drive right to the waterfall so one is driven there on the back of a motorbike, which takes 5 minutes. We took a picnic lunch and ate that overlooking a nearby rice field in a small cafe before returning to the resort. We drove back via Anda beach to visit a "cave" which turned out to be a small underground pool open to the air so you could jump in if

We arrived, having had a week on sister resort Magic Island. At Magic Ocean all the guests were from Netherlands and several were big groups from dive clubs. All the dining tables were long and communal. Not surprisingly they were all engaged at dinner speaking to each other in Dutch so we sat at the end of a long table but didn't really speak to them. It would have made sense for staff to make separate tables for 2 right away for people who didn't speak Dutch. They did this eventually but it was a slow response. We had booked for breakfast which was excellent, as well as dinner and I wish we had opted for breakfast only and just paid for a la carte from their menu, which has pages of great Philippino food on it, because dinner was definitely catering to a palette that likes bland, familiar food. There is plenty of it but it often arrived tepid. We asked about getting local food at dinner and eventually they brought us great dishes like Becol Express and Sisek but we went through some real communication issues to get it so I didn't feel well fed at all for the first half of our week there. The bar and accommodation is lovely and the dive staff are great. On the boats you are given generous amounts of fruit such as watermelon during the break. One thing I was surprised by was that some divers threw the skins in the sea. It takes 2 minutes on the internet to see that even fruit skins can harm marine life and disrupt the ecosystem. Why as a diver you would want to do that I don't know. We asked the dive centre to include this in the briefing and that bins are provided, but they did not. The diving was great, it is all macro apart from the many turtles and the coral is in the best shape I've seen anywhere. One final thing I would say is check your bill thoroughly. We were charged for almost $180 dollars worth of Nitrox which we had already paid for in Magic Island resort but it is easy for a guest to miss that kind of thing on the bill. Remember that you're paying a 5% credit card surcharge so any overcharging will include 5%.

Geweldig resort, een dikke 10. Mooie huisjes, prachtig zwembad, goede duikschool. Iedereen noemt je bij je naam, heel gastvrij. Eten is heerlijk. Mooie duiken gemaakt. Wij hebben 2 dagen een scooter gehuurd. Gewoon regelen bij de receptie. Voor nog geen € 15,00 huur je een scooter met 2 helmen erbij. Wij zijn naar Anda geweest, op het strand gewandeld en wat gedronken. Daarna naar Lamarck eiland geweest. Echt een aanrader. Ook zijn we op de scooter naar de prachtige waterval Can Umatad geweest. Onderweg overal gestopt en mooie foto’s van de rijstvelden gemaakt. Iedereen zwaait naar je. Echt een aanrader. Verder hebben we via het resort de walvishaaien excursie gedaan. Dat was echt geweldig. Ook de adventure tocht is een echte aanrader. Ziplinen over de rivier, een hele leuke spannende ervaring. Rivier cruise is prachtig en heerlijk gegeten. Quad rijden was ook erg leuk. Onderweg maakt de gids de leukste foto’s. Kortom: gewoon boeken en genieten! We komen zeker nog een keer terug.

The resort is larger than Magic Island near Moalboal, but as good, if not better. The rooms are spacious, bed and bathroom are fine. The staff is friendly and the food is excellent. You have the choice of half board which is as good as the menu if you have only breakfast. The diving was excellent, although the wind and waves did no good for the visibility. Great variety of nudibranch and fish. Absolute must for macro photography. The dive base and staff are very good and make you feel free in the water.

We spent 10 days at Magic Ocean and had a very pleasant time. The cabins are very spacious and quite comfortable. A number of the cabins ring the pool, while others have partial ocean views. Menu selections for dining are varied and quite delicious. The staff are friendly and very attentive. The dive team seemed to work on a rotation so we got to dive with several of them. The boats are outrigger style and have plenty of room to move about during the surface intervals. The reefs are still showing the devastating impact of the supertyphoon of 2 years past but they are recovering and the walls in particular are beautuful. Definitely worth the trip to Anda.

Stayed 2 nights. The accommodation is great, it’s quite simple but also clean and has everything you would need. After sunset you can sit on the end of the pier and watch the plankton, stars and fire flies, due to the resort being far from the road, it is completely silent and feels like you are on a deserted island. It is really really amazing. The kitchen could be better but that would be my only (light) criticism. The dive side however is a joke. No one asked to see our licenses. No one asked when we last dived. The dive leader, came out, said something about being tired and then spent more time and energy telling us about how great her boyfriend is and how he had just left etc etc. Not asking the basics gave me a bad impression but we went ahead anyway. The dive gear and management of is really poor. BCD they gave me had tangled straps and had weights in each pocket that I didn’t spot until after 2nd dive wondering why I was so heavy. The only bootys they could give me had a massive hole in one toe. One of the fins that they gave my wife was broken, The boat crew mixed up my wife’s weight belt between first and second dive and she struggled during the second dive. The guide generally paid no attention. Again no one knew when we last dived and we went to 27M max depth on first dive. even when I signalled to him that she was not ok on second dive, he just carried on. Thankfully we have experience between us to manage these things but for a diver with less experience, this whole situation would be be dangerous. We could never find anyone to log our dives, they promised emails which we never received. All of this together signs of poor/disinterested/lazy management everywhere that extend through the whole diving environment. Given the brand positioning of this resort, we were really disappointed. We checked out and instead went to Amun Ini up the road. Better dive crew, smaller dive groups, better equipment maintenance and better site selection. We spoke to a group who had been diving for a few days with Magic and they saw nothing but nudis. Our first dive with Amun Ini - Emporer Fish, larger schools, we saw bigger fish on every dive. Guide was better in every way. It costs more but you get what you pay for. I really hate to be so hard when the accommodation people are so nice. If you are not diving, stay here you will love it. Otherwise I would look elsewhere.