Buena Vida Resort and Spa

Buena Vida is welcoming, serene, and beautifully designed. Walking there from Malapascua port, you step off the hot and narrow street into a cool oasis of relative luxury. The path to the beach is short and safe, so walking to the dive shop (even carrying your own equipment) is no sweat. The coordination between Buena Vida and their beachside partners Ocean Vida (restaurant and sister resort) and Sea Explorers (the dive shop) is also excellent. Ocean Vida was always prepared to take us for breakfast or leave our bagged meals at the dive shop for us on morning-dive days. Sea Explorers made our return to diving (after just over a year) comfortable, safe, and fun, and led us on an amazing dive with thresher sharks. In addition, Sea Explorers has multiple locations, so we were able to dive with them again (and enjoy a slight discount based on our total number of dives across their locations) in Dauin. The service at Buena Vida was at a high level in laid-back Malapascua, and may have slightly spoiled us for other stays in the Visayas. Specifically, we appreciated the ease and graciousness with which the staff shifted our 3-night stay forward by one day (with no extra charge, though we had a non-cancellable reservation), when we told them we’d be arriving a day later due to a flight cancellation by Scoot. Though they were fully booked, they made a new and gorgeous room (under the yoga platform) available to us, so we wouldn’t have to miss a day of diving or change hotels. They even let us shift rooms a day earlier than needed, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about packing up on the morning of our early dives. The staff also greet guests every late-afternoon or early evening with a turn-down service sweet treat, which they hand to you as you arrive back from the day’s adventures. We did not personally try the spa, but heard great things about it from others on our dive excursions. The only (very minor) suggestions I have for improvements would be to offer a few non-sandwich choices for the bagged meals to have on the boats, and to install some hooks or extra bars in the rooms for hanging clothing (since you’re always trying to dry a few things at once during a dive vacation, and it was often rainy outdoors). Aside from those tiny enhancements, I wouldn’t change a thing. I can wholeheartedly recommend this place to people traveling to Malapascua for diving.