Chema's by the Sea — Hotel in Samal

We chose Chema's as it was one of the few resorts in Samal that allowed you to bring your pets. We had stayed at Chema's a few years back, so we were not sure what to expect. We booked an overnight stay (Sunday-Monday) in July 2022. Our whole experience was decent, here is a breakdown of our stay.||||- To get to Chema's you have to go to Waterfront Hotel to use their pier. They will be in-charge to bring you via boat (they should give you time slots of when they travel). We were said to be there at 1pm. There was a quaint waiting area indicated for Chema's guests with seats. We ended up waiting for 45+ minutes. We speculated that this was due to the resort wanting to let guests leave as it was a Sunday. During the boat trip, we had the vibe that the crew was rushing us to the resort. This resulted to us getting splashed by the water (current and weather may be factors here). Crew helped us with our bags, which was good.||||- Upon arrival we were met with welcome drinks at the reception. We were sent to our rooms after a few moments. We stayed in the Cabana 1 (Sea Garden View Room) This had 2 rooms, 1 Queen sized bed, bathroom, television, small refrigerator, and aircon each. An outside couch and table is on the veranda of the cabana. The room felt secluded and private despite its location in the resort. ||||- Chema's has a small beach front. The water has an amount of organic matter (not disruptive) and the sand is fine. To compensate for the small beach front, they have 2 pools, one on the shore and the other in the inner part of the resort. Both pools were clean and well maintained. All of the swimming areas had ample seats and tables. Take note room towels can not be used outside of the rooms and separate beach towels are provided.||||- Food here is good. I suggest trying their Twice Cooked Chicken Adobo and Greek Salad. Their prices are a little steep, but considering the ingredients and being in a resort, it should be fine. Dining may be done in their restaurant or at the table outside your room (preferred).||||Copies of their menus are available on the website.||Breakfast is free for overnight stays.||||- Service was excellent. All the staff answered all our questions and queries. They were attentive and very accommodating. All of our requests for water while eating was responded to quickly. Our request for late checkout was dealt with well and they sent a room checker in advance to have a smooth exit. ||||Overall, our stay was great. We felt like we escaped the city in a very peaceful vacation. I noted a number of negative reviews, but soon saw that they were all before 2019/2020. Their staff are very accommodating and friendly, greeting us with smiles whenever we walked pass them. Hopefully the delays and problems in getting to the resort will not be seen anymore, but nevertheless we will definitely...

Overall, happy with our stay and will consider rebooking in the future should we visit Samal Island again. Highly recommended if you find Pearl Farm above your budget. ||Main advantage of Chema's is they have direct boat ferrying guests to/from Davao Samal Island via private transfer, which is very convenient. Likewise, the resort is small-medium sized, hence you expect more privacy since number of guests is controlled. ||We booked a cabana for our stay. Really enjoyed dining in private (breakfast, lunch, dinner!) in our own veranda. We never really ate at their restaurant since we enjoyed the convenience of private dining so much!||The beach was never crowded, there's always beach lounge chairs available whenever we went. ||PROs:||- Very good service from staff, everyone is respectful and helpful|- Food is good! |- Drying rack provided|- Plenty of power outlets in the room|- Beach is divine! Powdery fine white sand, like that of Boracay's. Beach is very clean.|- Two pools to choose from! First time to try a salt water pool!|- They provided local Samal tour guide with a good/reasonable rate. Look for Arman. Highly recommended!|- Wifi is stable and accessible even at the beach... unless blackout strikes.||CONs:||- The following are NOT provided: hair dryer, safety vault|- Frequent power blackouts: we experienced multiple blackouts every day during our 4 day stay there. Once it was even at night (past 9pm). Generators take some time to kick-in. Likewise, the emergency lights in our cabana are not working. While all other cabanas have some light source during blackout, we had to make do with candles. They didn't replace or fix the broken emergency light even when we reported it on day 1. That probably never got fixed in a long time.|- The resort is NOT handicap-friendly (no wheelchair access, don't bring strollers too). All paths are stone steps (not paved walkway) , you need to take steep stone steps to head to the beach.|- Very long wait time for boat transfers both ways. Even if we had coordinated properly, it still took us an hour of wait time. We had small kids in tow so this was a struggle. Though I heard this is already better than taking the public boat transfer from Davao to Samal as queue can take 4 hours. ||OTHER NOTES:||- Bring plenty of insect repellant. They seem to provide this for guests but they never refilled the dispenser in our bathroom. They do provide katol (insect repellant incense coils) but I do not recommend using if you have allergies, rhinitis, asthma. |- Bring aqua shoes and snorkel gear / goggles at least. The beach waters have live corals a few meters away from shore, you can see small marine life ! |- We really liked the following items on their menu: daing na bangus (breakfast), beef...

The first time I visited this place was approx 15 years ago. I went there for lunch with a friend, per the recommendation of my colleagues from Davao ; I was there for a business trip and decided to stay the weekend for some sight seeing.||The place has not been maintained well.||It is sad to see, especially because the resort has a lot of good things going on for them - clear waters, nice landscape and design of rooms, friendly staff members||||Unfortunately, there are a lot of things not quite right: toilet does not flush well. When I informed housekeeping, they said "it's always been like that. Just don't throw bathroom tissue into the bowl. Even the used ones (for #2), to ensure it does not get clogged."||The a/c is an old unit; one need to choose the highest dial (turbo cold) to achieve a cooler temperature, unfortunately it gets too cold at night. We tried lowering it but it becomes uncomfortably musty and warm. ||||They don't have hair dryers. Some bedsheets have stains on them. ||||Service is slow, despite having so many staff members during the day. The way to ask for assistance/service is to ring a bell hanging outside the room. Aside from this being uncomfortable (like calling a servant), it only works half the time.||We had to repeat our requests twice, sometimes thrice before someone attends to it.||Food orders are also slow (takes 45 mins to an hour) which is weird because they have the same menu everyday. And they are not exceptionally good, very forgettable.||Service is also inconsistent: depends on who you're talking to or who's providing the service. Table set up and composition of our breakfast varies everyday - dependent on who's preparing it for the day.||Same is true with cleaning the room - not consistently good. ||||The swimming pools are not well-maintained. The one near the shore is not as clean or clear as what they have in the tripadvisor photo. It looks like it has not been cleaned for ages.||The one on the higher area is better, but some of the wood on the floor are broken, which poses danger to guests (we tripped on them twice). The chairs are not cleaned either, and there was a used glass that seemed to have been left there for a while, as it had so many ants inside it. ||||It is also surprising that the front desk is unmanned in the early morning; people start to come in at 8-ish but they are OJTs. the regular employees usually come at around 9am. It is therefore a challenge to find information if you want to plan something for the day.||||The only redeeming factor for this resort is the friendliness of their people. They genuinely care for their guests, they are respectful and nice. Unfortunately, that is not enough for us to rate our stay as memorable, nor to recommend this place to our family...