What To Do? What To Do First!
May 13 '06
The Bottom Line Whether you're looking for relaxation or adventure, just ask at the desk.
What to do?
My husband is incapable of just laying on a beach for a week and after 15 years together, I’m not very good at it either. So one of the first things we did when checking out the hotel was ask what there was to do around the resort. Even before we’d committed to staying, the staff was more then willing to help us with that. Sadly, most things are not an easy walk or trike ride away and require a car. You could rent a car, but then you’ve got to park it. Or you could ask the hotel to arrange a driver. I would always ask the hotel to arrange the driver because they know the people in question and you don’t. They also know the price structure, and you don’t. At Blue Rock, whenever the desk arranged a driver for us we paid the desk and the desk paid the driver, which is a very tidy solution for everyone and takes the burden of negotiating off you. A half an hour ride generally ran about $4US one way or $12 if you had the driver wait to take you back. At Blue Rock at least, we were told we could call reception and they would arrange our ride back.
Zoobic
We didn’t do this. It sounded really interesting until hey got to the local twist on zoo. It is a zoo and at this zoo you can buy a live chicken to feed to the tigers. This struck both us and the desk clerk as a little gruesome. It appeared to be a safari type zoo and not a cage type zoo. It was about a half an hour ride.
Ocean Adventure
The desk clerk, Georchianne, picked this one up after Zoobic, and knew she’d struck gold when my husband’s eyes lit up. One of his life’s dreams has been to swim with dolphins. Ocean Adventure is a good size aquarium park where you can swim with dolphins or whales. (Little whales, not blue whales, the park is not that big.) Even better, the dolphin meet cost $40US per person and we each got a free photo. You could also buy disks of pictures, which we did because it was only $6US. They gave us a lock for a locker so we could stash our stuff in the bathroom. The dolphin meet lasted 20-30 minutes, but seemed much, much longer. They did shows, which we skipped because after you’ve been in the water with the dolphins who wants to sit in a stadium and watch them jump through hoops? The aquariums were beautifully set up and constantly cycled fresh ocean water through them (we met the engineer who helped design the place) and the staff member was very knowledgeable and helpful. They also had an otter show, which we had already missed that day. Attached to Ocean Adventure is a wild animal rescue park (so we got the zoo thing anyway.) Their goal is to reintroduce the animals to the wild or at the very least to a more natural atmosphere. Many of them were pets or have been injured. They had a number of birds, some lizards and the requisite monkeys. The entrance fee for all this? $6US.
Diving and Snorkeling
Blue Rock is not the only diving game in town, Johan’s is right down the road, but it was pretty easy to find Dave the dive instructor either in the dive shop or at the bar. The instructors are PADI certified. My husband did 2 dives for under $100US. Instruction started in the pool and then they went out to some of the reefs. I was invited to go out with them and went snorkeling. According to the hotel information you can rent snorkeling gear, but I was just handed a mask and snorkel when I asked for them. The reefs where they were diving were not so deep that I couldn’t see anything, in fact, I saw quite a bit. The boat driver, William, kept a close eye on me while I was in the water too. I thought it was nice of him. I’d have no reservation about handing over older children to the man if he agreed. Subic Bay has several good wrecks and some very beautiful reefs.
Bars & Restaurants
As a resort area, Barrio Barretto is pretty well saturated with restaurants and bars. The bars are "lady bars" where men go to find their Filipina "girlfriends." Not especially family fair. However, single males will be entertained because the ones I did get a look inside were pretty nice looking. The restaurants are excellent. The one we favored was called Cantina Mexicana. We ended up eating there almost daily.
Parasailing
We’re saving that for next time, but it’s available and cheap.
Banka Boat
A banka boat is the native boat with the double catamarans. You can hire one pretty much anywhere. The one we took was the sunset cruise departing from Blue Rock on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The captain pointed out areas of interest and explained what happened to the jungle. He’s an Aussie engineer who happened to have worked on Ocean Adventure and a few other projects in the area. He was a wealth of information. Unfortunately the banka boat had a noisy motor. It was a very smooth trip, but I forget how much it cost. Not much I’m sure.
Jet Skis
There are Jet Skis available every where of varying horsepower. I personally hate the things, but I can see the appeal. We were told by the hotel staff that you can get to many of the otherwise inaccessible places in the bay on a Jet Ski.
Trekking
Hiking trips can be arranged into the mountains varying from one afternoon to a couple of days. I don’t happen to have that information at my fingertips, but I bet the folks at Blue Rock do because we were told about one couple that does it by our banka boat captain when we asked. Make sure you go through a reliable source like your resort or travel agent for the arrangements. A friend who has family in Manila said that occasionally somebody gets kidnapped for ransom.
Massage
When one of the teachers we work with heard we were going to the Philippines she raved about the massages. I’m not a big massage person, but my husband is. I am a big bargain hunter and when I heard an hour massage cost $10, I was in. It was a transporting experience. She came to our room and gave us our massages on the bed. Both of us felt like Jell-O when she finished. If I had known, I would have scheduled a massage the first day we were there and another the last day. She also does manicures and pedicures, but I didn’t check that out because I was concerned about infection. Next time I probably won’t be.
The Beach
Of course, there’s always the beach. The highest I saw the waves was about 18 inches and that was very unusual. The water is calm and bathtub warm. In fact you can tell immediately that you’ve waded into deeper water by the temperature change. By deeper, I mean down to 9 feet. All in all it’s pretty shallow. And it goes on for miles.
Supposedly there’s also shopping someplace, but I never got that far. There’s also a really cool cemetery with a bay view and a mountain bird and butterfly refuge. More than enough to keep the average vacationer happy for quite a while and cheap enough to stay until you’ve done everything twice.
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