Laki Beach — Attraction in Mariveles

Honest Review of Laki Beach:

Background: My wife went for the services recommended by a friend for boat transfer to and from Porto Del Sol(take off point to Laki Beach), car parking, and helped guide us on what to do once we reached Laki Beach. When we got to Porto Del Sol, we met Ivy Aguirre (or Aguilar). She was nice enough. But there was somewhat of a disconnect between them and the operators of Laki Beach (more later).

Beach and Cove:

Laki Beach is a beautiful piece of land, with white sand reminiscent of Purto Galera's white beach. The ocean was generally calm as it was in a cove. The beach itself is about 250++ meters length with a beach width of about (average of) 40 meters wide. The the water depth gradually goes deeper as you go farther. By my estimate, I waded to about 70 meters from the beach and the water depth was just at 6 feet. Water was clear because of the white sand but had a green hue due to it being the rainy/algae season.

There's are nice, green cliffs that wall the cove on both sides with rock formations that you can walk on, with occasional flood pools. This stretches out to the mouth of the cove.

Overall, the beach and surroundings in itself were excellent.

Amenities:

They have cottages for rent for overnight stays, as well as benches and tables for day tours. There is electricity available but only a light bulb for the cottages. The cottages are quaint, not well-designed and not uniform. The cottages are laid out organically without a site development plan. I'm not sure of the rates as we went camping for our stay there with our own tents and other gear.

There are toilets available but water closets had no flush (buhos style). They had two large tubs in which they collect water that continuously flows, presumably from a higher ground spring. As much as this was underdeveloped, I'd have to say that this was very pleasing and enjoyable as the spring water was very refreshing. But those two tubs are where you cleaned your dishes and did your bathing. There are cubicles available for the prudent, but you'd have to get your water from the tubs. All this within the small community that they had, with random chickens happily pecking at the kitchen scraps from your dish cleaning.

There were two stores with with random sari-sari store goods available. You could also charge your gadgets there for 50 Pesos per gadget.

Phone signal is non-existent anywhere on Laki Beach. They said that there's one location where signal was present. but only for globe subscribers. So being there was actually a good way to disconnect from the internet during your whole stay.

They have a community led trash cleanup operations every morning where about 20 people would comb the beach using rakes for garbage leftover by visitors. They also had a colong--colong pick up the trash to be disposed of elsewhere.

Management:

I wrote of tour operators having a disconnect with the management of the beach because according to Ivy, we just had to pay entrance fees upon getting to the beach then find our camp site. After that, anything goes. This was apparently erroneous because while there, we met Toybits, the apparent main operator of Laki Beach. He charged us an additional, minimal fee for pitching our tents per day. While in discussing stuff with him, he informed us that they veritably had no rules on the beach, which was evident.

Toybits was a very nice and accommodating person-to a fault. We asked him of any rules and regulations on the beach, to which they had none.

So because there were no rules, there was no control over the loud music from visitors who came equipped with their own sound systems.

Lastly, if not for the morning cleanup, people had no control of their garbage. We found cigarette butts on the beach as well as random plastic wastes lying around.

Overall, the place is beautiful. I just hope management would up their game and set some ground rules for the comfort and enjoyment...

Honest review for this place. First impression, it looks like Calaguas shores and upon arrival, there are too many trash na kaagad on sands. 300 for fees overnight and 200 for daytour. It is a good place, but the tourists who go there are very gross, trash everywhere on the sands and especially on the waters, saw too many while freediving. For freedivers, you can go to the right side which has 6-7 meter depth, just beware of the strong waves. 3 CRs for men and 4 for women, 4 for both which is lackluster for a resort that deals with hundred pax. I just want to say kudos to the maintenance staff but they aren't enough to clean up all of our mess so please people, do our part to clean up our waste. There is also a cliff diving spot there, go right. The resort has bad amenities, especially comfort rooms. There are no shower rooms and you have to get your water from the source while going in line and guess what, cut your own bottle or get your pitchel for a dipper and their water source looks like ground water as it is very murky. The price of a 3 gallon mineral water is 100. So better bring yours if you are on a tight budget. 1.5 softdrinks priced also as 100. Ice priced at 40 pesos up for a kilo. The store there is quite complete of stuffs you need except rice. The beach runs on the generator for the night. Here's what I suggest before going to "this place": Bring sandals when going offshore for rocks with oysters, slippers won't save you. Bring your garbage bag, please do not litter, it is a place with potential. Bring pocket fans as there are no winds until night. Lights Ropes for sampayan Powerbank Tabo alternatives Extra cash Other necessities such as coffee, food, etc. If you want to save.

Kudos to the maintenance and tanod on the resort, napakabait and always keeping the guests safe even how they are hard-headed. Ps, will not...

Laki beach is one beautiful place which I hope to visit again soon with my family. The locals are very nice and friendly. They even have a morning clean up schedule to pick up the trash left by guest who were so busy enjoying their stay and forgot about handling their own trash properly that includes paper/plastic cups, empty alcohol and softdrink bottles, plastic packaging etc. Since Laki beach is a public place, most guests also do Karaoke and sound trip without consideration to others. Most of them are too loud that you can't get a good night rest at past 10pm, imagine being between a war of blasting sound systems, and there was even one family who started blastic music at 6am and so I had to go and ask them to lower the volume. Luckily we only experienced this on our first night. That is why it is best to visit the place on weekdays instead of weekends because the place is usually packed during these days. A local even said that "most tourist really don't care about how loud their music can be and it's pretty much PASENSYAHAN at wala na lang pakielaman". Based on personal experience, we are in the "pag pasensyahan" end because most the guest playing very loud music were composed of big groups and were pretty loaded with alcohol. That's why I implore the local government to get involved in maintaining the place's cleanliness and orderliness so that more opportunities will be given to the locals and that tourists like my family will also experience the calmness of the place, it's beautiful sunset and it's morning fresh breeze without having to bare the loud music at wee hours but most of all so that we could all continue to enjoy this beautiful place for more...