Amanpulo

My family went on a trip to Amanpulo for my dad's birthday last year, which is also during Thanksgiving week, so this post is long overdue, but I guess it's better late than never.

My two younger siblings have been dreaming about visiting Amanpulo for as long as I can remember, until finally, my dad agreed to fund the trip. Both J and M were so excited about going that they wouldn't stop talking about it for months, planning non-stop, sending me countless links to reviews about the place and even setting a countdown on their phones. Did it live up to their expectations? I believe so, since M still wouldn't stop talking about it after and J had started collecting funds for his next trip to the island. In my case though, it was different and I'll explain why later, but as I was looking at the pictures just now, I think I wouldn't mind going back (if only it weren't so painful to the wallet).

Lodging and Accommodation:

We reserved a tree top casita, but since they had beach casitas available, they upgraded us to the beach casitas on arrival.

Welcome snacks and drinks at our beach casita. They slice fruits up really nicely here. My sister commented that she would not want to have fruits served to her any other way after this trip.

J, M and I shared one casita so they provided three separate twin beds in the room. The one you can see peeking from the left is where I slept.

J and M slept in these two other beds.

A really small portion of our huge bathroom. I didn't have good pictures of the rest.

This is what the back entrance to our casita looks like.

There's a water jar and a wooden scoop right outside of our casita for washing our feet  when coming back from the beach.

The really comfortable hammock outside our casita.

Private pathway leading to the beach from our casita.

Common Areas:

We drove our golf carts to the beach club every morning where we would have our breakfast. 

View of the pool from inside the beach club (or was it the country club??).

Sometimes we would have breakfast by the pool while my siblings swam. My siblings and my dad all agree that this is the best pool they've ever swam in. My dad says there's something about how the water feels. I'm not really sure what that means...

Food:

Breakfast is part of our package. We could choose either a Continental or a Filipino style meal and a drink. There are also other restaurants in the resort. The Lagoon serves Vietnamese food, while Picnic at the Grove  serves pizza.

If you ordered Filipino style breakfast, it would come with pandesal with three kinds of jam. Yum!

Bangus belly, scrambled eggs and garlic rice!

Spring rolls at the Lagoon for dinner!

We were also given a free lunch at Picnic at the Grove. This meal was probably my favorite because it came with free dessert (see below)!

Dessert pizza!!! Mmmm, so good!

The Beach:

Here are a few pictures of what the beach looked like. For most of the time we were there, it really felt like we had the beach all to ourselves.

Beach outside the Grove

Beach right outside our casita!

Transportation:

We were given a golf cart to drive ourselves around the island.

My brother parking our golf cart outside our casita on our last day.

Activities:

I think people go to this island mostly to relax, but if you wanted something else to do besides lounge on your beach chair, you can...

...star gaze and see the moon!

... go windsurfing at the Windsurf Hut!

... go snorkeling!

... ummm, kite flying? Sure, if you can manage to properly assemble this toy kite.

Or pay extra and go scuba diving!!!!

Service:

Since we paid so much for this trip, we all expected a 5-star service, and I think we all agreed that that's indeed what we got. Every time we passed by an employee, we would catch them waving and smiling at us. It made me smile so much that I wanted to take a picture of it, but when I finally got my camera ready to take a shot of the next employee we would pass by, he sadly didn't wave at us like all the others did. 

The service was so good that at one point I thought we were already testing them to see how far they would go to make us always feel contented. When we went star gazing, the sky wasn't clear enough and the guide said that it would probably clear up around 8pm. Unfortunately, we had dinner reservations at that time so we won't be able to be back in time to "stargaze," so he said he'll just wait for us to come back and extend the star gazing activity for that evening for another hour. There were also free snacks that were refilled every day in our room. This consisted of dingdongs, cookies and assorted dried fruit. While eating the dried fruit, my brother commented that he only liked the red kind (papaya perhaps?) so then my sister left a comment on the feedback form asking if they could give us just the red fruit. When we arrived back at our casita that evening, the jar was filled with just the red fruit. Also, on our last day, my sister was bored and called to request for a kite because she just suddenly thought about kite-flying. Five to ten minutes later, an attendant delivered two kites to our casita. Other things I recognized was them running to give you a bottle of water when they see you running on the beach. They gave children playing on the beach some bread to feed the fish so they would come closer. They gave me a full box of Kleenex when I got sick and had a runny nose. Probably the best moment for me though was when I went snorkeling. We saw a lot of fish, but after going back up to the boat, I expressed my disappointment that we didn't see a sea turtle. So, the guides drove the boat slowly around the island, one guy standing on the ledge, watching the waters closely for any sign of a sea turtle. When we finally spotted one, it swam away, so one guy jumped into the water and swam after the turtle to catch it for me. When the turtle finally stopped moving, they drove me slowly towards and I got to spend five minutes or so with my sea turtle! :)

It would have been the best trip of my life (ok, maybe it doesn't really beat Italy), if I hadn't gotten sick on the second day. I was so sick I couldn't enjoy any of it anymore since all I could do was stay in the casita and sleep all day. :( So, if I had money to spend, I would definitely think about planning another visit, but I'd probably have to earn enough to take three people because I don't think my siblings would allow me to go without them.

Amanpulo

Palawan, Philippines