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While on a brief break, my family and I took off to Bacolod and went down to search for THE beach. My father mentioned a newly opened resort which supposedly boasts beautiful cottages up par with resorts in the north. THAT got my attention. For one, Bacolod is a simple place and having travelled to several Triple A resorts here in the country, I was curious to see the place and experience why the Negrenes were raving about Paradiso Beach Resort.

paradise n 1: any place of complete bliss and delight and peace [syn: eden, nirvana, heaven, promised land, Shangri-la]

Locationwise, the place was easy to find. After the town of clean Pontevedra, look to your right and you will find lots of signs to whatever beach and so on… 10 minutes or so, you will find yourself staring at a very big sign of the resort. Turn right and you won’t miss the resort.

I have been to three or four beaches in the area of Pontevedra and San Enrique in Negros, and I have not seen any posh or resort that would compete the resorts in Batangas or anywhere in the north. The beaches there are mostly simple, down to earth beaches with cottages made of plain coconut fronds and split bamboo. Those beaches would probably charge P10 per person or P75-100 per hut for the entire day! Not bad, if you only wanted a place to sit around and laze while some members of your family cook and swim on the not so nice beaches…

Back to Paradiso… this one was nice! Ambience wise, the resort is cute, and I could only imagine how much the owner paid for the renovation of the place! The cottages were beautiful, but unfortunately the beach was crap!

Sadly, my family were there expecting to have a nice time in the beach– swimming! The shore was rocky uh, shelly?!? I meant, the beach was riddled with broken shells which makes walking or even wading unbearable. My daughter had cuts on her heel and my father sliced his big toe! Thanks a lot!

After discovering how bad the beach was, we decided to hang around our P1,500 worth of cottage (the rent for the day). To make things from worse to wirst, there was no electricity that time and the resort’s generator conked out, so my children were not able to use the shower to wash off the sea water.

To make this resort bashing short, I was so unhappy with the resort. The service was good, meaning the people were nice and accomodating, but what about it?!? We were there for the beach and the beach was crap! What a waste!

For our trouble and wounds on our feet, I was charged, P1,500 for the nice cottage, P250 for the entrance fee of 5 adults (@P50/adult) and P100 for the children (@ P50/child). So my verdict, thumbs down!

The next day, my family and I checked out another beach in the area– actually the one next to the Paradiso and it was called Bilubituon. The place is not posh nor elegant. The huts are made of the usual bamboo and coconut fronds, and the beach was not at all rocky or shelly! To my surprise, the gray sand was nice and warm and my children loved the simple place! Who said you have to pay to have a small piece of paradise?

To go to Bilulituon, you take the same road to Paradiso and take the same right turn but before reaching the fork to Paradiso, turn right and this will lead you to the simple but better beach in the area. And yes, the cottage we rented was only for P500 a day and it was screened! Not too bad. And yes, you have to pay P5 for the use of the public shower room.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 4th, 2005 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Bacolod, Road Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.