Evolution Beach and Dive Resort — Hotel in Malapascua

Coming to Malapascua is a dream for many divers. Given the long travel from Cebu, I guess a dive resort's primary responsibility is to ensure that divers can enjoy their holiday with ease and peace of mind, both in and out of the water. While Evolution delivered exceptionally on the diving front, we feel there’s room for improvement in the accommodation experience (and that's just our personal take!)

Rooms: We paid over 5,600 pesos per night for a deluxe room, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite meet the expectations of a “deluxe” standard. The room felt a bit run-down, and while the slightly salty tap and shower water might be common on the island, we adapted to it by using bottled water whenever necessary.

We encountered a few unwelcome visitors—lizards and even a cockroach on two separate nights—which made it hard to sleep. I guess they crawled in through the gaps under and above the room doors (NOT that the rooms were not clean).

The bathroom floor felt often sandy (perhaps it's just me!) and we ended up buying extra indoor flip-flops from the local stores just to keep our feet clean. At this price point, we believe the housekeeping could definitely be improved to ensure a cleaner, more comfortable stay. We are easy travellers who often stay backpackers hostels and did not have issues with dive resorts' accommodation.

Diving: This was the highlight of our trip. The diving operations were incredibly well-organized, with a variety of options available daily—shark dives, local dives, night dives, and day trips to Gato & Kalanggaman. Dive guides were rotated regularly, giving us the chance to dive with different guides, all of whom were excellent. Our diving experience was definitely a solid five stars here! Of course, the threshers showed up very often and we loved the sunrise trips whereby we are almost the first boat every day!

A shout out to Elena who was such a great dive instructor!! Professional and well-knowleged.

Food: The Craic House restaurant was fantastic. In the entire week, we tried almost the entire menu and were impressed by how great everything was. Huge kudos to the chef! We also appreciated the thoughtful breakfast arrangements for early shark dive guests, as well as the tasty lunch (loved it!!) served during the day trip.

Beachfront and Surroundings: Being right on the beachfront meant plenty of sand everywhere—including the restaurant area. Along with the sand came a constant presence of houseflies and ants, which could be bothersome during meals. Perhaps some might see it as the rustic island charm? But we returned home with many mosquito bites all over.

Overall: Evolution offers a fantastic dive experience, but we hope they can elevate the accommodation standards to match. And perhaps to give guests a heads up on bringing mosquito / insect repellant, and also to share more pictures of the accommodations and dive resort area so we would have known it is,...

I think the staff of this resort hotel may not know one thing, the resort where they work has the word "diving" in its name. The main purpose of all diving tourists coming to this island to dive is to see sharks. To see sharks, they must get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and take a boat to a far place at 5 o'clock to see sharks. Therefore, every diving resort must have the ability to help tourists prepare breakfast early. When we asked his service staff to prepare simple sandwiches for us as breakfast tomorrow, we were rejected by his staff, who said: The breakfast service we provide is not that early. We then asked them: Breakfast is included in the price we paid. You are a diving resort, so you must provide breakfast to divers who get up early to see sharks! If you don't provide us with breakfast, you should have told us in advance! At this time they gave an even more infuriating answer. They did not provide such service to ordinary guests who only stayed in the hotel. They said they only provided breakfast to guests who signed up for diving activities and stayed in their resort. They insisted on not giving us breakfast, and we had no way to get breakfast for the next day anywhere else, so we compromised and said to them: At least give us white toast. The next morning, we saw diving tourists staying in different B&Bs on the boat. Everyone brought a hearty breakfast. Only my family and I did not have enough calorie food to eat. We only had white toast. Such food could not provide us with the calories we needed to dive in the cold water. We could only shiver while watching the sharks. For the next two days, we didn't want to ask him to provide breakfast because we didn't want to eat white toast. On the last day, when we were having breakfast before leaving the resort, we discussed with their service staff: Since we skipped breakfast for two days and we paid for it, can you prepare an extra portion for each of us? We wanted to bring some food with us to eat during the long-distance bus journey, but his staff still refused us and laughed at us in private. We endured it until it was time to check out, then we told the resort manager what had happened. The manager defended himself by saying that they provided early breakfast service to all guests, and did not differentiate between guests who had dived or not. We were very angry at this excuse, as his staff had clearly told us that guests who did not dive at their resort could not enjoy the same services as other guests who did dive at their resort. We paid for breakfast, so if we are not given breakfast, the money should be refunded. I think this resort is not qualified to call itself a diving resort because they discriminate against customers who do not dive in their dive shop. We were also laughed at by the staff next to us. I felt deeply bullied by their staff. I will tell all my diving friends not to go to...

I spent two weeks on Malapascua initially planing to do my OW certification which I can say I only got thanks to my instructor Gino who like a rock stood by my side while I was dealing with psychological blockages under water on my first dive. I joke around that I haven’t held any other man’s hand longer than Gino’s (under water). 😅#truestory Gino didn’t only help me get certified but overcome a fear I didn’t know existed. Therefore I highly recommend him for anybody nervous to try diving. Of course after I managed to get my OW certification I wanted to see the thresher sharks which was the coolest thing ever and I’m glad that’s my first shark viewing. I doubt any other one will be as impressive now. This dive has also motivated me to add my advanced open water dive license although not even considered before. This time around Cleng was the cheerful bundle of jokes who took me easily through the advanced course and helped me learn about marine lives and navigation 😍! I felt as safe with Cleng as I did with Gino and he even managed to show me a sea turtle on one of our dives. Which after the sharks was my second highlight. My final dive was a night dive with Cleng which I highly encourage to do as it’s truly an experience of its own! Overall, considering my fear of the first dive I managed to dive at night within 10 dives and felt as safe as on land with my instructors. I think it speaks for itself how well Evolution is performing as a diving school!

Now the Craig house deserves equally as much text when it comes to food quality, kitchen and floor staff and their customer service as well as the facilities and management of it! I think it’s one of the three places on the island which operates successfully fulfilling all customers’ desires. Whether it’s the daily coconut supply or the wifi access, I felt like at home. The Team has outdone itself tending to my needs and sometimes reading my mind before I wanted to order something 😌. I felt lucky. I’m happy to say many of the people are now very dear to me and I am looking forward to coming back and spend more quality time of my life with them.

Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart. Especially to Orsi for being my doctor when in doubt, köszönöm. ❤️thank you Matt and Nick for being flexible and offering me space to do my work and leech off your good internet. 🛜 Ralph, you’re an amazing kitchen manager and I rarely meet people who diligently inquirer on customer requests like you did.

To all the ladies on the floor serving food: if I would remember names more easily I would like to mention them 3 times each for you. So I hope you will feel as appreciated without me remembering 🥲sorry! Next time I’ll write them down. Keep up the good work everyone.

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