BOFFO Resort — Hotel in Sandingan Island

If you visit, you will pick up on the poor service; however, the quality of the facility is nice, modern with a native theme. Food is local cuisine and not local priced, tourist priced. BOFFO is actually located on Sandingan Island off of Bohol. Sandingan Island is connected to Bohol island with a causeway that is about two kilometers long that starts just after Moalong Bridge which is still under construction, but passable. After reaching the intersection of the causeway and Sandingan Island, turn left and the resort will be an additional 1 kilometer on the left, just before Basdio beach entrance. Other than a few local videoke nipa stands, Sandingan does not currently have any other tourist attractions. If you are wanting to see other parts of Bohol, transportation will have to be coordinated (plan in advance), which is normally high for tourist on the island. It is a nice place to stay if you want to be away from everything and don't plan on seeing the rest of Bohol. They do have security, although Sandingan Island is very safe, and possibly soon around October, a dive resort will offer some variety of outdoor activity. Currently Sandingan Island's main road that circles the island is under construction towards Mocpoc port which takes you to Cabilao Island that is only reachable by boat. Water and electricity on Sandingan Island has been regular for the last few months but BOFFO does have backup facilities. Once an attraction is present on the island other than BOFFO it would be much more nice of a stay as there are no bike rentals, no motorcycle rentals, and no car rentals, no restaurants (besides the food offered at BOFFO) no souvenir shops either. A trip to Tagbilaran City where there is shopping will be 2 hours round trip (travel time only) and normal vehicle hire starts at 3500 pesos daily in Loon (there are no vehicle rentals that is just working out a deal with some local owner). A Habal Habal to Loon Market from BOFFO is 25 Php per passenger; however, once you are identified as a tourist, the drivers will try to quote you a price around 200 - 300 pesos depending on how naive they think you are. Occasionally you can find a trike, if you want a taxi, it will be expensive because it is probably coming from Tagbilaran City and you will pay the cost of traveling 35 kilometers to Loon before the meter charge to where you are going, so plan transportation ahead. If you want to relax and not be bothered, this is the upside of BOFFO, no panhandlers and the island itself is pretty quiet, even a stroll around the island at night is safe, not well lit, but very safe place for tourist. There are native monitor lizards that are wild and can occasionally be seen, along with a crystal clear ocean with a variety of marine life that can be seen with...

Since our family relocated in Panglao, Bohol, we spend most of our time exploring other places of the province. Luckily, we found this home in Loon area. The place is best for those who wishes to just stay there and relax as it has a homey feel and since it is located in a remote location, it is very quiet. But make sure to have everything you need as again, it is quite far from everything else.||They have a small beach but not sure if it is swimmable as it was low tide when we got there. I also saw a few kayaks but it was not on the beach area so again, not sure if guests could use them. The pool is big enough and nice.||The restaurant and lobby has a homey feel. I would only suggest that it would be better if they have some board games to play with while guests are there. The place is also ideal for families but it would be nice also if they have some toys (sand toys would be enough maybe) as they do not have a kids play area.||The room is small but nice. 2nd floor has a greater view. I would recommend windowscreens so we could open the big windows if guests opt for fresh air especially in the morning. A few attentions are needed though like the bathroom fixtures, our bidet fell of the floor without any of us touching it. The toilet flush also took a long time before refilling. But the coffee making facilities are nice too! I also suggest that if the guests already book in advance the extra person, it would be nice if they have a set-up for three already so the guests don't have to ask from time to time.||Lastly, I would like to commend a few people who who showed exceptional service during our stay. Gina of the Front Desk was very helpful with all our needs and inquiries. She even extended us a discount right away when we asked for local residents rate. Unlike when we called through the phone, we were told by another girl that she will have it approved by the GM first. Until the time that we arrived, she still has no feedback. But she was nice on handling our booking. :) Eric from the restaurant was excellent! My husband had a problem with his stomache and since there was no gatorade available in their menu, he first offered nearby stores since we have a car of our own. But after a while, he went back and offered that they will just be the one to buy. And we were very thankful of that! Richard from the Housekeeping for buying tge gatorade, my husband felt better after that! :)||Overall, the place is recommendable and we will still consider going back here. If they work on some of my suggestions, for sure many families/couples who were just looking for a place to chill will go to...

First of all I would like to say, that the resort is very nice. It has a nice pool, a nice view and nice rooms. It is located on a spot where nothing much is going on and it's pretty far to all the tourist spots like restaurants and white beaches. But we knew that in advance, and we just wanted to chill and relax, so this was no problem for us. But if you like it more touristy, this is not the right location to stay on Bohol. ||What else there is to say about the resort, besides the nice pool and the clean rooms... Well, the service is pretty bad. We tried calling the hotel in advance to arrange an airport pick up - but we couldn't find a number, and when we called the number Expedia gave us, nobody answered the phone. There was also no email address. So we had to look for a taxi by ourselves when we arrived at the airport. When we arrived at the resort, there was a lady at the front desk. She gave us our room key and showed us where the room was. We never got an introduction, like 'breakfast from eight to ten' or something like this. We had to ask everything by ourselves later. |So we asked for: pool towels, water, tours, dinner, the beach, the air conditioning.|We laid on wooden beach chairs for 2 days until we noticed that there were mattresses for the chairs, but of course you just get them when you ask. No one offers you stuff like that. ||We had dinner in their restaurant every night, because there are no other restaurants around. The food was average i would say - a lot of things on the menu are local dishes - what we like - but no one could really explain us when we ordered, what exactly it is. ||In 4 nights of staying there we had housekeeping just one time coming into our room. || We asked for a shuttle to tubigon, which is 25 min away from the resort. It costs 1200 php one way ( around 24 euros) which is way to much for this distance - and it's the same price for an airport ride (45min -1h)- if you have the chance to get one. So we asked for a discount, because we didn't see why this price was so expensive and we also skipped breakfast because we had to leave so early, so we thought at least a discount of 200 php would be okay. After asking the supervisor the front desk lady told us that this was a fixed price, not negotiable. ||I don't want to be unfair - the people who work there are pretty nice, they just don't know it better. I think no one really trained them. ||We had a nice stay there, besides the lack of good service we enjoyed the pool and the view. This is why I give 3 instead...