Dive Review of Blue Ribbon Divers/Blue Ribbon Dive Resort in
Philippines/Anilao

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Blue Ribbon Divers/Blue Ribbon Dive Resort: "Good value with a small dive operation", Jan, 2020, by Eileen J Councill, N/A, China ( Contributor 14 reports with 7 Helpful votes). Report 11401.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Anilao is not easy to get to and not cheap. We traveled from Puerta Gulera by fast boat and then a private van and it was clsoe to $120 US. To/from the airport the cost is about $100/one way. You pay all this to have world class diving...unless you arrive 3 weeks after a massive cyclone that drives all the critters away. This was our story, but we still had some really good dives. Though the variety and the density were far less than normal, we still had great encounters. The dive resort is set at the bottom of a huge cliff - it's about 90 steps down (and up...) - don't carry your bags as the steps are uneven and can easily trip you up. You can buzz down( if the buzzer is fixed...everything is "broken from the cyclone") or send someone down to let them know you arrived. The resort is only 7 rooms at the moment and one of the rooms sits behind the reception desk. We were unfortunately placed in that room for 3 nights and it should not be a room they rent out...ever. The owner, John was great to work a deal with us to make us happy since we were staying with them 10 days. But, make sure to state, if you get a standard room, that you do not want to be behind reception. They are building on an additional 14 rooms (I think) which will then allow them to convert the room behind reception to an office space. The dive operation runs very well with Laura in charge, however things were a bit chaotic for the first 2 days of diving without her around. We left very late, we didn't know the organization of the dive operation, we didn't know they washed and hung our gear after dives, etc. This all changed when Laura returned. The diving was a mix of muck and corals which was great. The dive operation lost a boat in the cyclone, so there were days when the boat was packed and days when it was very full and they could rent an additional boat. This is understandable. Earlier in the week we were 2-4 with a DM. At the end we were 6. I am not sure of why things changed, but it was the holidays and maybe they were just short. At one point, some of the guests that were return guests seemed to be assigned as part of the dive guides though this was not told to us clearly. They started asking us for our air and telling us when to start our safety stop. This was a big change as the DM was really chill and never asked us for our air consumption and never told us when the dive was ending. To have guests (I don't even know their certification? Are they DMs? Why are guests now leading dives? Why was this not explained to us?) change the tone of the dives (watching us constantly yet not pointing out unusual critters that they had found, shaking their dive lights at us, asking for our air, telling us dives were over at 55 minutes, etc) was unfortunate and given no explanation, we just continued our dive as we saw fit; we didn't appreciate the lack of communication and lack of respect of our experience and dive history even for the 7 prior days at the resort. This only happened on 2 of our dives, thankfully. Overall, the dive guides were very nice and helpful, but they had little to no knowledge of the names of basic critters. They could say "moray eel" but they didn't know which kind. This was disappointing after a week in PG and the dive guides could give the Latin names for the critters. They took pride in that; the guides at Blue Ribbon didn't seem to care. We had a solid 60 minutes underwater and in some cases longer. They were very flexible and diving nitrox gave us more options. We did a bonfire dive and loved the experience - first time ever doing something like that. We saw some great things. I wish the resort gave a discount on 10+ dives, but they seem to be barely getting by at the moment. The staff was very nice. The view is lovely, the bar is in a great location over looking the ocean. The food was decent, but we needed a break every couple of days and went off grounds to OMG across the street. Just remember that you have 90+ stairs to climb to leave the grounds! There is very little other than the other hotels to visit off grounds. Anilao is truly remote. We hope to return when the animals are back. Given the reports I had read about the area, I was disappointed in not seeing some of the basic things that were regulars like blue ring octopus, hairy frogfish, other octopi, more variety of nudis, etc. The best thing after dives were the hot water showers. They had great smelling soap and shampoo available to use. The middle shower was the best. The rest just kind of dripped similar to in the rooms. It's essential to take a shower down at the dive shop because the rooms have zero water pressure and it's truly not possible to take a shower there. I have medium length hair and I could not wash my hair in the shower.
Websites	Blue Ribbon Divers Blue Ribbon Dive Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Red Sea, Galapagos, Bali, Egypt, Philippines, Indonesia, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Mozambique, South Africa, Hawaii, Pacific, Palau, Guam, Yap, Maldives, Lembeh Strait, Kenya, UAE, Oman
Closest Airport	Manila	Getting There	Fly into Manila. Take a private car to Anilao. It costs about $100 USD. It's not cheap! The alternative is a nightmare journey of three changes.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy, currents, no currents
Water Temp	79-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	15-50 Ft/ 5-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	You were accompanied by a DM but at times, we were allowed to stay down longer than the rest of the group.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	They did have a designated room for photographers, but we didn't really use it. It was inconvenient. I didn't see anyone using it but it was well equipped. The boat just had a place for cameras. They carried on/off for you.

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Dive Review of Blue Ribbon Divers/Blue Ribbon Dive Resort in Philippines/Anilao

Blue Ribbon Divers/Blue Ribbon Dive Resort: "Good value with a small dive operation", Jan, 2020,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Blue Ribbon Divers/Blue Ribbon Dive Resort in
Philippines/Anilao