Mermaid Resort and Dive Center

Mermaid Resort is made for a diving holiday in which the practical details stay close at hand. You have an outdoor pool, a restaurant, a bar, massage services and a billiard table on site, while Sabang’s evening bars and pubs are within easy reach when you still have enough energy for one more outing.

The resort has 34 rooms and suites, with air conditioning, free WiFi throughout, room service and a 24-hour front desk. It is a straightforward base for divers who want the day organised around the sea, without turning every evening into a logistical exercise.

You are in Sabang, Puerto Galera, on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, with the resort on the seafront. Sabang Beach is right by the property, and Small La Laguna Beach is about 0.3 miles away. Big La Laguna Beach is roughly 0.7 miles away on foot, while Coco Beach is about 1.2 miles away by road.

This is a useful spot if you like having options beyond the resort gates. Vesuvios Pizzeria is about 0.1 mile away, with Luckys Saloon and Relax Restaurant also close by. Sabang Disco is roughly 0.1 mile away, and Pirates Den is about 0.3 miles away. Manila is a few hours away, so the journey is part of the plan rather than a quick airport hop.

The room choice is less about collecting category names and more about deciding how much space you want around your diving day. A Superior Deluxe Room suits a couple who want a king-size bed and a compact base, while the larger suites make more sense if you are travelling as a family or simply prefer room for bags, clothes and the general debris produced by a day beside the sea. The Suite with Balcony gives you outdoor space; the Suite with Pool View puts the pool into the view instead.

Every room is air-conditioned and has a private bathroom with shower, a minibar, refrigerator, safety deposit box and wardrobe. There is also a fan, a flat-screen television with cable and satellite channels, a DVD player and a telephone. The practical benefit is obvious: cool down properly, keep drinks cold, and put your valuables somewhere sensible while you are out.

Balconies and terraces give some rooms a place to sit outside, while the private entrance attached to the accommodation keeps the return from the pool or the shore uncomplicated. Room service is available, although its hours are limited. Children of any age are welcome, but cots and extra beds are not available, so your room selection matters if you are travelling with children.

Mermaid Bar & Restaurant handles breakfast, lunch and dinner, with an international menu that also brings in Asian and Filipino flavours. Breakfast covers international, Filipino and American styles, including different omelettes, so you can keep it familiar or vary the routine. Ingredients combine local produce with selected imports, and the menu includes a Texan cheeseburger made with beef tenderloin.

There are two drinking spots. Mermaid Bar & Restaurant serves shakes and cocktails, and the bar stays open around the clock — useful when your body clock has taken a battering from travel, early boats or both. The separate dive bar is the more obvious place for a snack and a drink while discussing the day’s underwater highlights, with fewer grand theories required than usual.

A minibar is available in the rooms, and room service gives you another way to eat without changing out of whatever passed for post-dive clothing. The resort does not operate a stated board formula, so you can use the on-site restaurant while keeping the surrounding restaurants and bars within easy reach.

The outdoor pool is the easy answer when you want to stay horizontal but are not ready for bed. Pool and beach towels are available, and the resort also offers massage services for the particular knots that appear after a full day in the water. A billiard table, books, board games and a shared lounge give you quieter alternatives when conversation has reached the point where another coffee is doing most of the work.

For a more active afternoon, the resort offers sailing, jet-skiing, boat excursions, banana boat rides and parasailing. These are available on site, with some activities carrying an additional charge. You can also arrange outings to Tamaraw Falls, Tukuran Falls, Bulabod Beach, White Beach, Mangyan villages and Ponderosa Golf Club.

Land-based options include golf, hiking, wildlife observation and cultural excursions. Sabang’s nightlife district adds discos, pubs, pool bars and other late-evening venues, while the resort itself has its cocktail bar and the cosy café at the dive centre. In other words, you can make the evening as quiet or as noisy as your surface interval allows.

Mermaid Resort, the hotel's own dive centre, affiliated with PADI. The integrated centre keeps the start of the diving day simple: breakfast, a short walk, and you are at the meeting point rather than waiting for a resort transfer.

The centre offers nitrox and night diving, with spaces for equipment and briefings, changing rooms, a classroom and a shop. Its twin-engine boats are used for local diving and excursions such as Verde Island.

More than 40 dive sites are available in the Puerto Galera area, with most less than ten minutes from the centre. The page for Mermaid Dive Center covers the operational detail; here, the useful point is that the diving is genuinely close to your room.

The hotel can organise transport from Manila or provide directions for getting there. Airport pick-up and shuttle services are available on request and should be arranged with the resort before you travel. With Manila a few hours away, allow time for the full journey rather than treating this as a quick transfer to a nearby coastal hotel.

Check-in starts from 14:00 and check-out runs until 12:00. The front desk is open around the clock, with private check-in and check-out, concierge service and a tour desk available when you need help arranging the next part of the trip. Car hire is also available.

Free WiFi covers the whole resort, and laundry, dry cleaning and ironing services are available. Payment is by cash, and pets are not allowed. Children of any age can stay, although children aged five and over are charged as adults and there are no cots or extra beds.

The resort uses two automatic standby generators, giving it an on-site power back-up system. It also has a high-end water filtration system.

These are practical infrastructure measures rather than a named environmental certification. For you, they mean that power resilience and treated water are built into the resort’s operation while your days remain focused on the sea.