Blue Star Dive & Resort

In my 70 plus years, I do not think I have been treated better than I was during my week at the Blue Star Dive and Resort! Both the diving center and the resort were excellent, and the price was reasonable. I’ll start with the resort. After four flights, and many hours of travel, our pre-arranged transfer from the Cebu airport was smooth. (This involved a taxi to the ferry in Cebu, the ferry transportation to Bohol, and a two-hour van trip, from the Bohol port, to the resort). Sayong, the manager, is very good at organizing everything! The Blue Star Resort is situated above a cliff, and has marvelous ocean views. If you want a quiet location with great diving, good nutritious food, a large comfortable room, and great service this is the place for you! There are only ten rooms, so you are never just one of many tourists here! Furthermore, the grounds are beautifully maintained. And, although the staff are very service orientated, they do not fawn over you! I cannot say enough good things about the dive team. And they are a real team. They all work very hard, and any gratuities are shared amongst the whole team. Just carrying the tanks up and down the steps, plus your dive gear, is a lot of work for them! Nitrox is available and every level of diver is catered to. A group of underwater photographers from Europe arrived when we were there, and they were very happy with Blue Star. Since my husband’s ear was troublesome for much of our stay, I did not have my regular dive buddy. But I was still encouraged to dive, and I was treated like a special grandma. I even had my own night dive with Arjie where we saw critter after critter including a huge green turtle as soon as we descended, and seven octopus! Furthermore, I had never been so close to any turtle, as I was on one dive with Dive Master William. The dive teams are really knowledgably about the macro critters as well, and William wrote the names on his wrist slate while we were diving. They are also great at spotting critters. The coral walls are extensive so one does not have long boat rides to the many dive sites. Just on a single snorkeling excursion, with the Blue Star Team, a family saw at least 20 turtles. Besides diving, we saw numerous local attractions including: Anda Beach, the cave pools at Cabagnaw, the Candijay Rice Terraces along with the adjacent Can-umantad Falls which are the highest in Bohol, and the mystical island of Labanok with its ancient cave paintings, and the Danao Adventure Park with a zipline over an amazing gorge! Our transportation, to these attractions, was always quickly arranged. One could dive in the morning and see other things in the afternoon. In summary, it was wonderful!