Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in
Philippines/Pacific

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Crystal Blue Resort: "Crystal Blue Resort", Dec, 2017, by Patricia A. Sinclair, LA, US ( Top Contributor 31 reports with 10 Helpful votes). Report 10177 has 2 Helpful votes.
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	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Crystal Blue is a nice resort and has a beautiful camera room for your use for camera charging, lens changes, etc between dives. The room is locked at night, so you need to make sure you collect what you want (the SD card) so you can edit your pictures in the evening and night. The resort is nice and the food was good. However, the resort is built going uphill (or downhill, depending on where you are.) You are constantly running up or down steps to the camera room, to your room, to the restaurant, to the manager, to the bar, to the class area, and of course to the dive deck and then to the boats. For us older people, this can be hard, but it did contribute to weight loss during the time I was there. Dive guides are knowledgeable about the sites and know where the critters are. The down side, is the they do not seem to see an issue with moving an animal from one place to another so you can shoot them. The guide I had did that repeatedly and I was not happy about it. They do handle your gear for you, so all you have to deal with is your camera and getting yourself there in time for the boat to go out on time. I attended a macro workshop while there and surprisingly did not learn all that much, other than finally, how to use and focus my diopter. Beyond that, the workshop was not a real help to improving my skill set for macro photography. I did learn that I knew more than I had thought and that I might be developing an eye for the image I want to take. On the whole, these workshops can get you to nice resorts at a reasonable prices and I would recommend it to anyone who to go on a dive trip but does not have a buddy to go with them. Since I am single diver, that is good for me. The down side to the Philippines, to me, is the amount of trash in the water, and I don't mean just bottles or plastic junk, but diapers, t-shirts and so much other yucky stuff. I can't see how the critters survive in this environment, but they do. The muck diving can be wonderful and Anilao is rightly know for the number of nudibranchs to be seen there. Such lovely colorful little critters, you could spend months there and never find all the species that exist there. There were orangutan crabs, ghost pipefish, nudis everywhere, coconut octopus, mimic octopus, hawkfish, and all the other wonderful Pacific fish that you see in the documentaries but do not exist in my backyard Caribbean diving options. I would definitely go to the Philippines again, and I plan to do so in May of 2018, however I will be going to a resort built on a flat area and then going to another island for a week after that. I will also go when the water is warmer in the May time frame.
Websites	Crystal Blue Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Jamaica, Bimini-Bahamas, Grand Bahamas Island, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, Cayman Brac, Roatan, St Eustatius, Florida, Florida Keys, Dumaguette-Philippines, Cebu-Philippines, Bonaire, Curacao
Closest Airport	Manila	Getting There	Philippine Air or Delta Airlines or China Air
Dive Conditions
Weather	windy, cloudy	Seas	choppy
Water Temp	75-77°F / 24-25°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-75 Ft/ 15-23 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	try to limit to 65 minutes per dive. 3 dives a day and not deeper than 115 few.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Lovely and well appointed camera room

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

Subscriber's Comments

By Jeanne Reeder in MO, US at Jun 25, 2018 16:35 EST

I enjoyed your report. I've been there and found it to be consistent with my enjoyment of the diving and resort. But...where did you find an equivalent resort in the area in a flat area? I didn't know there was one!

By report author: Patricia A. Sinclair in LA, US at Jun 25, 2018 16:46 EST

I went to Anilao Photo Academy, which is built on a flat area. I was in an upstairs room, but unlike Crystal Blue, the weather could not make the covered stairs slippery. The cost was reasonable for me, as I had a dive guide all to myself the entire week, and I learned A LOT from him.

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Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in Philippines/Pacific

Crystal Blue Resort: "Crystal Blue Resort", Dec, 2017,

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):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in
Philippines/Pacific