The Jarvii Yesterday we ventured to Lakawon Island Resort and Spa. It is about an hours drive north of Bacolod and then a short (20 minute) pump boat ride (typical Filipino boat) to the island. You can do a day trip and rent a canopy or tent (depending on your group size); prices range from P 300 to P 1,200. You can also stay overnight in a bamboo house to get that authentic Filipino experience to typical hotel type rooms with air conditioning (prices range from P 2,500 to P 5,800). There’s also a restaurant onsite and the Philippines’ largest floating bar (AKA party boat).
This resort is fairly new, so it is heavily under construction when we visited. They are building more hotel rooms for sure. The bamboo houses seem pretty established and they had the first 2 floors of a large hotel completed and occupied, but you could see they were adding more floors. The canopies and tents are also completed, and seems to be the bulk of their business right now. They also had other buildings, I’m assuming were also hotel rooms but were smaller buildings. Just a lot of construction going on. It wasn’t an eyesore, per se, since you’ll be spending most of your time on the beach to notice.
Since it is new, of course they are experiencing some growing pains they have yet to work out. The restaurant is “turo turo”, which means all the dishes are made and displayed and you tell the staff (turo) what you want. Unfortunately, my mom said it was so chaotic and they ran out of dishes quickly at lunch time. Thankfully they ordered early enough to beat the rush. By the end of the day they also ran out of ice and cold anything, which is crazy since it’s summer time here (summer vacation for Filipinos).
Aside from these few kinks we still had a great time! Like all of the Philippines, the water was so crystal clear with greens and blues. Walking from the pier to the resort you could see little fish swimming around at the bottom of the ocean floor. As O pointed out the water was warmer than his baths recently (there’s no such thing as hot water taps here). The kids absolutely loved the beach because the waters were calm; the only time they saw waves were when the banana boat would swing by once in awhile. The only downfall is that both kids wanted to stay in the water the whole day–the struggle was real trying to get them to eat and then finally leave for the day.
Right now the island is family friendly, there were several children on the island playing in the ocean. I think the young folks were all on the party boat, which is great. We weren’t bothered by young adults pumping their loud music (I sound really old right now). The few activities you could do on the beach were only for adults too. I’m hoping they’ll cater more to families, but I doubt it as they are trying to advertise themselves as the new Boracay. I guess time will tell.
Anyhoo, great day trip for sure. Again, everything is so mother freaking cheap here, it is bordering on ridiculous. The kids are having a great time, the husband is looking more like a lobster, and, according to my FitBit, my resting heart rate has dropped almost 10 beats. So far so good I would say!
