Doctors take vacations too and one favorite place often visited by doctors in Cebu is Bohol. This blog post gets to review one particular destination in Bohol which is Panglao Tropical Villa.
Panglao Tropical Villa is located in Panglao Island, Bohol. Panglao Island is known for each beautiful beaches. Unfortunately, the beaches in Panglao Tropical Villa is not its strong selling point. However, the location is, as advertised, a good place for guests to feel at home. It is probably a good taking point for those who will tour Bohol and go for dolphin watching, diving and other adventures. The villas themselves have themes. The Villa Angelus (where we stayed) for example has a Filipino theme with its nipa materials and bahay kubo appearance.
The villa provides a temporary home complete with amenities such as cable TV, some cooking utensils, a cooking grill, gas stove, refrigerator, water dispenser (hot and warm only, not cold) and comfortable rooms that give a "home-y" atmosphere. You can do the cooking yourself with your own raw ingredients or have the cooking done by in-house staff using the villa's own stock of ingredients of course with a fee. The price for the stay is reasonable. (Refer to their website at
http://www.panglaotropicalvillas.com/ for their rates). But prices of goods such as softdrinks or sodas are double the regular price and 1 gallon water refill is much higher at P100.00 per gallon.
The villa also has vehicles for rent like a motorcycle which you yourself can use for travelling to the market for instance. They also have a van for hire with driver for your travel needs like touring Bohol.
The villa is good for families who prefer a private vacation spot. It has 2 pools. A swimming pool for kids and a swimming pool for adults which may go as deep as 8 feet perhaps equipped with a diving board. They appear to be well-maintained and clean. There are no lifeguards so dive at your own risk and make sure children really are accompanied by adults when swimming.
There are other ways for recreation in the villa. There is a beach volleyball "court", a billiards table and pingpong table with net. You can borrow the respective balls from the restaurant.
Speaking of restaurant, the villa does have a restaurant although we haven't tried dining there but it seems nice. We once had "sinugbang" milkfish and "molmol" done by their personnel and they tasted good.
It might be boring though to just stay in the villa the whole time without exploring Bohol. The villa have people who offer dolphin watching at around P2000. There are several small boats or "bancas" standing by in the resort for this.
They also offer tour packages to the Chocolate Hills, Loboc River Cruise, Hanging Bridge, Tarsier site, Bilar man-made forest, and many more.
But when it comes to the beach, do not expect a very nice beach for swimming. Most of the time when we were there, it was low tide and the beaches are not as crystal clear as other beaches such as those found in Camotes in Cebu. The view is not also as nice. I did not appreciate the sunrise as well as the sunset. Perhaps there was a better location in Panglao or Alona Beach where sunsets are better appreciated.
Dog lover that I am, I noted there are few friendly dogs which I encountered there. One of them I even named Scooby Doo. The white dog with brown spots is the friendliest of them all. She is called Maggie. All of their dogs are "chubby".
Overall, Villa Angelus is still okay as a place to stay in Bohol especially considering the price as compared to a hotel. During our stay, the villa always has guests coming in replacing those who checked out. Thus it seemed to be always booked. Bring your mosquito-repellants though, for at night when you are outside your airconditioned room, mosquitoes are plenty.
This is not a sponsored review so I hope I have objectively provided a useful review for this place.
