Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort — Hotel in Lapu-Lapu

We did a week-long stay at Bluewater Maribago and thoroughly enjoyed it! The staff were consistently kind and accommodating, the food was excellent, the facilities were very nice, and we found it to be a great value.

Booking process: We booked directly through their site, because we found it to have the best prices. We were a little confused about some of the room options, but we emailed the staff directly (maribago @ bluewater.com.ph) and they were extremely responsive and answered all of our questions in detail.

Food: I don't usually like to eat on resort, but this resort food was much better than usual. We ate at all of the restaurants on the resort and found the food quality to be consistently on par with the food quality at restaurants "in town" (on the highway nearby) and only at about a 50% markup. We did a reservation that included breakfast each day. I had no idea it would be a HUGE breakfast buffet at Allegro every morning! Since we stayed for a week, we got one free dinner at Allegro, so we did the Saturday night dinner which had the roast pig and a live cultural show. It was lots of fun! The Cove had excellent live seafood, and the pizza place was also worth visiting. Our favorite dinner setup, however, was sitting at one of the tables adjacent to the central pool and dining from the ala carte menu while our kids played in the pool.

Service: The people working on staff seemed to be quite happy, provided consistently good service, and gave real, helpful recommendations without trying to upsell you.

Sound: If you are a light sleeper, know that there is basically loud live music every night at the Allegro restaurant, and often there are private parties down by the beach. All of them end by 10pm. Also, the Amuma wing is close to the highway, and that gets noisy as well. When booking, email for recommendation about which sections of rooms are the quietest and they will tell you.

Transportation: The airport pickup service worked great. The driver who came for us was resort staff who we kept seeing around, which was nice. The folks at the gate will help you hail a tricycle (tuk-tuk) to ride to the locations nearby if you want. (They get one of the drivers from right outside the gate and don’t mark up the price.) Negotiate your price with the trike drivers before you get in. We went out walking directly from the gate of the resort, and the staff didn't discourage us and welcomed us when we came back carrying takeout or groceries. There were many restaurants and some open-air market stands you could get to within a reasonable walk outside the resort, as well as the Savemore grocery store. For less-rustic travel, just use the Grab app.

On-resort activities: The big pool with the slide (note: not the “main” pool by the Allegro Restaurant, which is actually smaller) is where we spent the most time with our kids. It was plenty for our kids, age 5 and 3, they could have stayed there all day with us bringing them takeout. The beach is also nice during high-tide, but a little bit bleak and rocky during low-tide.

Off-resort activities: Once you step foot off the resort, you’ll be inundated with folks trying to sell you island hopping tours. You could take your chances with these and do some comparison shopping, but it probably is better to look for some google reviews of tour guides or use a travel agent. It seems like the tour packages sold from within Bluewater are marked up about 2x what you can find outside the resort. We did not use these, but you would certainly have a quality assurance and 0 hassle.

Other tips: The check-in pavilion is super hot and you’ll probably wait for your room a while. Tell them you're waiting at the juice bar near the Amuma pool. Bring your foreign cash and change your money in the Savemore grocery store a short walk away. Island hopping or just one-island day trips in this area is not to be missed! But most islands are private islands with fees and the ports tend to nickel and dime you, so make sure your guide is clear in advance about whether all fees...

Since it is a resort, we have to comment from the perspective of the resort.

General environment The road connecting the resort is a double lane with one lane each. The road is not very big, and there is water on the roadside (very dirty). There is a small and beautiful SM mall nearby, which I think is very convenient. The exotic restaurants nearby are all delicious. It takes about ten minutes to walk to the main street. Overall, I think it is very convenient.

The environment in the resort Clean, nothing to say.

Room This time we booked two executive deluxe rooms with elevators. The balcony view is not good. Two average-sized double beds. The room is large and sunny. The toilet is large and separated from wet and dry areas. There is no bathtub in the toilet, the shower head has a large amount of water, and the hot water is hot enough, so you can take a hot bath very comfortably. A small hair dryer has a decent air volume, but it may not be enough for girls. Two bottles of water and a small refrigerator are provided in the room. The air conditioner is cool enough. I was worried that the air conditioner would blow directly on the bed and make me uncomfortable, but in fact it did not. The lighting in the room is good, bright enough from all angles, but not uncomfortable to the eyes. The outlet in the store has a USB port.

Beach The beach should be a man-made beach, clean, and there are fish (but small strips, not many). We went on weekdays, there were few people, so it was very comfortable. There is a floating island outside the beach, which looks good from a distance. After arriving at the floating island, I found that the floating island itself is okay, but you can take beautiful photos here. There are vendors provided by the resort next to the beach, which provide services for sea play facilities, which is convenient. There are washing facilities and clean toilets next to the beach.

Service Basic luggage storage after check-out, you can continue to use the store facilities including the beach after check-out, the service staff is good, and the ice cubes are delivered quickly at the counter in the room. Basically, the service is of a certain standard.

Restaurant in the store I looked at the menu of the seafood restaurant and thought it was very expensive. The cocktails in the restaurant are not very delicious, but they are not bad. The breakfast bar is exquisite and rich, but maybe the taste is not right, I didn’t think it was particularly delicious.

Overall, by resort standards, everything is good, but nothing special. It's a place I would visit again in the future, but I wouldn't recommend it to...

Bluewater Maribago boasts a slogan on signage outside the resort stating “our people are our brand” perhaps this was once true but today sadly I wouldn’t put my brand behind these people. House cleaning and general staff were great but the front office checkin staff were awful and gave a “don’t care at all about guests” feeling. Checkin on Sunday afternoon was a joke. One family were being catered to by six staff while others were kept waiting, finally we were called over and then perused some pointless questions which were all covered by our booking. We’d booked a suite room and were given room 333 but not told that the following day they would start building work on the neighboring suite causing considerable noise. Only the next day did we find a letter left on our porch explaining the work. Noise was so loud we couldn’t rest or sleep in the morning at all. We went to ask why we were given that room when others were seemingly available but again there was a “don’t care” attitude. We asked if it would be possible for them to hold back large noise until at least ten the following day to allow us to rest on our vacation and they said they’d look at it, however the following day large hammering and clatter of scaffolding woke us at 9:00am. It’s a great shame that the hotel management appear to put money over guest satisfaction and then don’t care when guests are impacted even in some of their more expensive rooms. As for the resort the rooms are actually well presented and pools are good but the beach let’s it down and isn’t as good or clean as neighboring resorts, perhaps due to the marina next door. Sadly with the lack of service and attitudes from the checkin staff I can’t recommend staying here and would suggest anyone wishing or considering to stay to wait till after December when work and renovations are complete. I’ve attached videos showing the noise next to our suite and the letter left on the porch. It’s sad to suggest people avoid a property but after the way we were treated I...