Magic Oceans Dive Resort

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%.

The resort has wonderful staff who are exceptional to interact with and in giving great service. The accommodations are very spacious, well maintained and just lovely. Food is very good and you can make sure your dietary restrictions are met while getting tasty meals. If you aren't sold on what's on the board for lunch or dinner, you can order off the extensive menu. Finally, the diving is a combination of wall and muck. Saw many interesting things on both types of dives. More soft coral than I expected to see and looking around the sand for small, interesting stuff was fun. We really enjoyed our stay and all aspects of the resort. We were there 8 nights with a group and everyone was very happy with their stay.

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.

The magic ocean dive resort itself is great, the rooms are spacious and clean i went b&b, breakfast was lovely lots of choice, the menu was good lots of choices and good size portions, the staff where brilliant and very helpfull, canot falt it' Great for a relaxing holiday. The diving was ok, but nobody checked my qualifications, or when i last dived, its mostly nudies and turtles , very little bigger stuff, the coral was nice, but i had a 10 dive package, i did 8 and to be honest 5 dives are enough because it gets a bit samey, i did 6 days in malapascua And saw more seahorses and frog fish on the dive sights there , if you are just there for the diving 3 days would be great, but if you intend to do some trips to the chocolate montains and sight seeing a longer stay would be better.

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.

This must be my new destination resort in Bohol. The diving is outstanding. Nice wall that has a shelf at 30 meters. The reef is healthy. The turtles are abundant. The nudibranchs will blow your mind. Cheers!