Heaven in Laiya, Acuatico Resort Experience

Oh well, I am glad to say that the looong wait to experience Acuatico Resort was worth it. Our staycation fell on a Monday-Tuesday but that did not hinder us to enjoy. Since all our car’s plates end in 1, we decided to hit the road as early as 5am to avoid the number-coding scheme in the Metro. After following their direction carefully, we arrived at Acuatico’s lobby at around 9am. Coding turned out to be a real blessing in disguised because we had maximized our stay there.

The courteous staff served our welcome drinks at Oceano.

And since we’re way too early for their standard 1pm check-in, she advised us to stay at the playroom 1st for the kids to rest and/or sleep. Do you really think these kids can rest with toy overload?

Even the kids-at-heart partook with the toys.

And since the playroom just pumped-up the kids' energy, they 1 by 1 asked demanded to swim. And they changed inside the playroom. Lol

What’s good with Acuatico was that there were outdoor shower rooms and toilets at every corner and funny how they named those, very Batangueno.

FACILITIES:

Aside from the playroom and the public rest and shower rooms, Acuatico Resort also offers a lot of fun activities inside their premise. There’s an open basketball court at the parking lot, a game room at the 2nd floor of the hotel and a souvenir shop.

ACCOMMODATION:

Since we’re a family with 9 adults and 4 kids, we were asked to get 2 rooms. 1 was actually a villa called Estancia (P21400) which the (PIL’s) children and their family was assigned, while my parents-in-law stayed at the hotel room, called Vista de Laiya (P6950). The rate includes complimentary breakfast, bottled water, slippers, toiletries, towel and complimentary uraro.

Estancia has 3 rooms which can occupy up to 8 adults. 1 room have 2 twin size beds and 2 rooms with 1 queen size bed each. It has a private lanai, a loft, a sala area and view deck. It also has 2 LCD TVs with cable, 2 telephones, a personal ref, 2 shower rooms and 2 toilets. 

Though the villa was generally nice, the size of the shower room where notably small. How small? A little less than my kalahating dipa. I was literally outside the shower area as I gave bath to my kids. Also, they used smoked glass as a divider to the shower rooms, which was disadvantageous since 2 adults cannot take a bath simultaneously (unless they're okay to show their bare bodies to each other). I also dislike that 1 of it's bedroom don’t have privacy because 1) it only has curtain to cover the bed and 2) everybody need to go inside "that" curtain when going to the restrooms or upstairs. What’s the use of the curtain? If I were the architect I would definitely not design it that way.

Vista de Laiya was more luxurious, we think. This was where my parents-in-law spend their nth honeymoon. It has queen size bed, safe, LCD cable TV, personal ref and bath tub. It also has a view of the whole resort. It also have spacious cabinet to play hide and seek with. Lol   

Acuatico only accommodates a maximum of 70 guess at a time. I think it is safe to say that the resort was fully booked during our stay. But surprisingly, we hardly felt that. We felt like the whole resort belonged to us alone. And according the supervisor we spoke to, the resort is fully-booked until July. If you're planning to visit the place, better reserve at least 2 months prior your date to guarantee a slot, especially if it's within the peak seasons.   

AMENITIES:

Acuatico has an in-house restaurant called Oceano  (full review here), where we relied our main meals at. A spa and of course what we came there in the 1st place “the” infinity pool. For me, their version was the best I have seen so far. It’s perfectly flawless. It was actually divided into 3 parts, the deep (kiddie pool), the deeper (I’m guessing 3-4 feet deep) and the deepest (about 4 - 5.5 feet). I just named the divisions, actually. Lol Aside from those, there is also an outdoor Jacuzzi right in front of Oceano. Lifeguard was very visible, btw.  

The Infinity Pool

Outdoor Jacuzzi

BEACH:

If you’d been to Laiya, you probably know how the sand was. It’s white but not-fine kind of sand. But I like how that not-fine sand tickles my toes as I walked barefoot. Water sports facilities like pedal boat and kayak were complimentary with our stay too. But there were other fun activities available like banana boat and speed boat rentals. And if you’re a little romantic and can shed a little more than what you have actually spent, you can request for a dinner set-up by the beach.

With all the words written in this post, I can actually summarize our staycation in 1 word, F-U-N (ang dami ko pang sinabi noh). Here’s more photos just in case the photos above were not enough.    

               

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Never Too Late!

TGIF! 

It’s going to be a long weekend for the esposo and I. It’s not a declared holiday but we can always declare day offs courtesy of our vacation leave.lol On Monday, we’ll be taking the road to Laiya in Batangas for the much anticipated rest and recreation time with the whole in-laws. My PIL will be treating their children’s family to this posh resort for their wedding anniversary. Actually, we wouldn’t file our leaves if we had a choice, but since this resort was so elusive and the only available slot they can provide us is on a weekday, we took it. Their wedding anniversary was last April 25, btw, we we’re trying to get a slot as early as the 1st week of April. Hmp! Acuatico Resort must be worthy of our looong wait, or else. 

This R&R may be considered as our last hooray for summer too. I’m sure my kiddos will have fun with their cousins. I am hoping for a good weather too, the not-raining-but-not-sunny kind of weather, for we will surely be exposed under the sun most of the time. I already geared my babies too, and I am so excited in seeing them in their swimming paraphernalia and all.hehe 

It’s going to be fun!

Throwback Thursday

No, that photo is not the item for my throwback but the memories rekindled when I looked at it. Nakiki-hashtag lang.hehe The photo was taken about 2 Thursdays ago during my mini-reunion with my high school best buds. That night, we met with a classmate/friend who just arrived from Qatar. You see, what’s good about 4A (our class) is that we make it a point to see each other at every time possible. Every occasion is a chance for reunions. I’m not talking about my tropa alone but the class as a whole. We meet during Christmas, summers, weddings, child’s birthdays, baptism, even baby showers. We may not be in 100% attendance but we have a good number. We constantly communicate, our better-halves becomes part of 4A, our kids knows each other, we continue to grow (in age and in number) but maintains our high school spirits when we’re together. We always pick-up from where we left (how we were in high school) regardless of our present state of life (some may claim to be a “manager” now but we still tease him like how we teased “popsie” before). No wonder they are my favorite friends, ever.  

The bracelet above was from the same friend from Qatar. I have no intentions to “arbor” it but got curious by how it works so I borrowed it to see for myself. When I figured it looked good on my wrist, I just said thank you, that’s it, it’s mine. The next day, I tagged her in this photo and thank her for (indirectly) reminding me on how I used to collect snatched bracelets from dear friends back in high school. My collection is still inside my closet, although I do not use any of those anymore, the memories of fun and laughter during those days clings not in my wrist but in my heart.  

High school life oh, my high school life.     

This one is a throwback, my Tropang Alagad

I Fell in Love with Beautiful Strangers

A Chinese proverb say: There is only one beautiful child in the world, and every mother has it. I would just like to say that I feel so blessed because God gave me two of the most beautiful children in the world.

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers reading this.  Enjoy your day with the most beautiful child in your world. 

Oh, the photo clearly indicates I have three kids. Okay fine! :-p

It Takes an Iron Man and a Woman

The esposo and I had another round of our #NotYourTypicalDateNight series last Friday. It was a movie date, showing no less than the Iron Man. I’m not sure when our last cinema date was, I’m guessing years ago. I do not know that a movie pass costs P200 on a regular cinema now. #MissingMyMTRCBPass. Oh well, what makes this date not the typical one was the fact that we bought our last-full-show’s tickets a night before the screening. We wanted to be responsible parents 1st and sneak like teenagers later, so we secured a ticket before hand. lol 

So that Friday, after office, we went home as usual. Not giving the kids a hint, we performed our usual parental routine, which includes eating dinner and giving them night-bath, among others. We wanted to put the kiddos to bed as early as possible so we could be on time with our 20:25 movie date, but our Uno might have felt something and stayed awake after all the bedtime stories. When I realized we were running late, I decided to be honest with her. I told her, “Baby, go to sleep, Nanay and Tatay will go out and watch movie”. She said, “Okay Nanay, go out”. I never thought my girl was not as hard to deal with as my parents way back. Haha 

So off we go to the movie house. Mi esposo was still anticipating for an extra scene after the full length movie, so we waited until all the credits rolled up, maybe about 5 minutes and true enough a bonus scene came out. It was a little over 5 seconds and says nothing about what he's anticipating, a possible part 4. He was frustrated.

The movie was great, btw, funny and all. 

The photo above was taken at the parking. The esposo was astonished by the look of our car that he can’t resist say it out loud, he even took a photo of it. He never took any of his gorgeous wife’s (ehem) stunning (ehem, ehem) OOTDs mind you. I playfully squeezed myself in to destroy the moment. lol

I laugh to myself when I saw the photo. I thought, was this an act of responsible parents? Would a loving father be mesmerized by the charm of a toy? And would a caring mother breaks all the fun?

That’s what I like best about “us”, we’re parents yet we’re also children.