Acuatico Beach Resort

DH, DS and I went on a family holiday in Acuatico Beach Resort. The resort is located in the 7-km long shoreline of the Laiya stretch in San Juan, Batangas. We stayed in that resort for 3D2N last January 2009. It was a triple celebration for us: DH's 31st birthday, our 3rd year wedding anniversary, my 1st year anniversary at work. DS tagged along, of course. Besides this R&R vacation was also our bonding moment with him. here are some of our pics when we arrived the resort.

As you can see it was a bit dark already when we got to the resort. We got lost in Lipa! LOL. We missed the Mercury drugstore at the corner of P.Gomez St. Imagine I was even using the getting to Laiya guide and the road map. We only realized we were on the wrong way when we couldn't see any signs of the drugstore in the suburbs. That was after 30mins of driving so we had to endure another 30mins to get back to Lipa. One good hour wasted there. :p Apparently the Mercury drugstore is really just a drugstore right at the corner. It's not the usual grocery store-like Mercury drugstore you see in Manila. And remember, the drugstore is still in Lipa downtown. Lipa city, especially the bayan (downtown) is quite busy like Manila. The local government there tends to do rerouting so you can easily get lost if the map you're using doesn't even tell you the nearby streets and the other landmarks beyond what you should expect. Oh well. What should have been a 3-hour drive became a 5-hour drive (excluding our one-hour lunch break over at one of the gasoline stations along SLEX). But overall it was one well-spent road trip with DH and DS (slept 30mins only during the entire trip). We only had to endure a barely 500m rough road at the end of the Laiya road. It was such a long and tiring drive that all of us were already asleep before 10pm. Normally we sleep at 12mn and beyond. :p Next morning (Sunday) was a different story.

We took a plunge at the resort's amazing infinity pool. The water was terribly cold then especially if you get near the fountain. DS didn't want to get out of the pool though even if he was already trembling. LOL. We also went out to the beach and had fun playing on the sands and walking down the shores.

Sunday evening was Chinese New Year's eve so DS was wearing a cheongsam. We had dinner near the infinity pool with DS as our Chinese New Year symbol. LOL.

Acuatico is more beautiful at night since the lighting and the infinity pool give that much drama and effect to the whole resort. You need to have a camera with a good night mode to take a shot of the romantic beauty of the resort at night. Otherwise, just be lucky to have a DSLR and get amazing un-photoshopped pictures like these ones:

Next day we didn't waste our time and enjoyed our last day at the resort. The water was still terribly cold but that didn't stop us from getting into the waters again, especially DS.

And of course, more pictures before we finally left the resort.

Review:

• Hotel Room - PhP5k/night, inclusive of buffet breakfast (unfortunately the same menu for two days). The room is just enough for a couple or a small family like us. But if you're true blue claustrophobic (I foundthe room so small), better get a bigger room, which would cost around Php7k-10k per room per night.
• Food - Buffet dinner was at PhP500/pax. DH didn't appreciate it and I agreed with him. We liked it better when we had the ala-carte lunch which only costed us PhP 500 or less (for the three of us). The food is so-so. And I must mention (again) that breakfast for two days was just the same. We didn't avail of their merienda since we brought a lot of snacks: cookies, biscuits, chips, etc.
• Service, Amenities - Service and amenities were commendable. They have free kayak but since the sea waves were not that cooperative when we were there, we opted not to avail the free kayak. All of the resort crew were helpful, attentive, friendly and courteous. And yeah, they even have 24x7 security guards at the gate and inside the resort.
• Transportation - Not really a review for Acuatico. But for this one, you need to gas up for a 140km drive from Manila to Batangas. So that's a total of 280km for a round-trip drive. If your car is at its best efficiency (and you didn't get lost! LOL), you'd probably spend just PhP300-500 per one-way. For us, we probably spent at least PhP1000 of gas for the whole trip. Still ok because had we pushed through with the Bora trip, we would have spent at least PhP8k of airfare for the three of us. Pricey!