Thursday, July 13, 2017

When in Davao: Bluejazz Beach Resort and Waterpark

I've been going to the beach quite a lot these past months. Thirty shades later, I found myself basking under the sun at Samal Island again. But instead of going to Paradise Island, R and I opted to try BlueJazz Beach Resort with some of his colleagues.

Hello, Bluejazz Beach Resort and Waterpark.

I was really iffy to visit this resort at first after seeing all the not so nice photos on TripAdvisor. As a traveler who's quite particular with the washroom's cleanliness, mortified is a very mild term to use when I saw the rooms' shower and toilet. But everything was settled and it was too late to back out. I just hoped that the renovations mentioned in some reviews did happen.
We got to the wharf a bit past 3 p.m. and we were lucky to have the boat all to ourselves. The trip to the island took about 5 minutes as the resort is just straight across from the wharf.
One of the staff quickly assisted us with our heavy bags and ushered us to our room.
And it was actually nicer than in the photos I saw. The bed sheets looked clean and the washroom was not as bad as I thought. 
It was a pretty basic room. It would have been nicer though if there were hooks to hang your wet towels and a mirror to check how burnt you are.

We decided to head to the beach first and swim a bit before heading to the pool. It was low tide that afternoon but the water was starting to rise at 5 p.m..

The water was perfect that afternoon. However, I had to wear aqua shoes to protect my feet from rocks. We spent about an hour swimming around and looking for fish before we decided to head back to try the pool.
I had more fun at the pool as there are two giant water slides! The local kids were so friendly and even gave us tips on how to slide faster. We slid around 4 to 5 times because of those kids. Peer pressure?
We rushed back to the dining hall when we found out that our dinner was ready. We had two boodle fights for the group.
Though the food was just so-so, dinner was made memorable by the amazing fire dance.
The dancers did two performances that night. At the end of each performance, guests were invited to have their photos taken beside the fire dancers while they do some tricks.
It took me a while before I said yes as I was petrified! And no, I won't post my photo here as I really looked scared.
After the spectacular show, we had some drinks with R's colleagues till midnight. I really liked that they didn't charge us corkage for the drinks we brought.
Our call time for our island hopping tour was 7:30 a.m. so we decided to have breakfast as early as 6:30 a.m.. I had Daing na Bangus while R opted to go for Corned Beef. We both requested for iced chocolate instead of hot chocolate for our drinks.
Food was pretty good. I really enjoyed my meal that I finished everything!

Our effort to wake up early was not rewarded though as the boat came late. It was almost 9 a.m. when the boat arrived. Apparently, it had to head back to the city proper to buy gas for the boat and it took them a long time to return.

The boat ride took an hour before we got to our first snorkeling stop. But it was worth the trip as we saw a lot of fish and nice corals.
The second stop was an island where we had to pay PHP300 docking fee. It was totally not worth it though as the place was crowded that we ended up just swimming by the boat. (Plus I got annoyed by some irresponsible travelers who fished out some starfish just to play with it.)
The last stop was a bust too as Angel's Island had a lot of rubbish floating around. It was so nasty that we didn't even bother to go down.

We rushed back to the resort and arrived quarter to 12. Luckily, the staff were so nice to let us extend for another half an hour to shower.

We had to wait for the boat again after checking out and it caused us to panic a bit as we were trying to catch the 2 p.m. ferry schedule of Pearl Farm (and we had to be there half an hour early for check-in). It was a good thing though that the two wharves are just 5 minutes away from each other.

Afternoon snack
Afternoon snack
Overall though, it was an okay resort. The slides and fire dance made our visit memorable. Our group package costed a bit less than PHP30,000 (or PHP2,500/head) and that includes two air-conditioned dorm type room for 6 and one air-conditioned room for 2, four meals (lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and breakfast the next day), use of pool and beach, and island hopping (consisting of 3 islands). Not a bad deal right?

Bluejazz Beach Resort and Waterpark is located at Purok II, Barangay Caliclic, Babak District, Island Garden City of Samal, Davao del Norte.

1 comment:

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