Alona Vel Condotels

Alona Vel Condotels: A Condotel in Purok 5, Tawala

Alona Vel Condotels sits in Purok 5, Barangay Tawala, on Panglao Island, about 300 metres from the Alona Beach shoreline. Panglao International Airport is roughly 2.4 kilometres away, the public market is about 4 kilometres off, and Tagbilaran Seaport is around 45 minutes by road — a workable set of distances for a property built around independent, self-catering-style stays rather than full resort service. Room types run from Standard Rooms to larger Family Rooms, and the property keeps a garden area, a front desk staffed from 6 a.m. to midnight, and bicycle and motorcycle rental for guests who want to get around Panglao on their own schedule. Room service, laundry, and massages can be arranged on request, and WiFi covers the public areas.

The property carries a 4-star classification with no aggregated guest-review score on Agoda and no active Booking.com listing; on Google, it holds a 4.2 rating from user reviews. This listing runs through Agoda rather than Booking.com, with data last checked in late July 2026. The property also maintains a public Facebook page, which is a more active source of current photos and guest questions than most small Panglao condotels bother keeping up.

Orientation: Panglao Island Itself

Panglao is a separate island municipality from the Bohol mainland, connected to it by two bridges, covering about 44 square kilometres with a population of roughly 40,000 as of the 2020 census. Purok 5 in Barangay Tawala places this property inside the same barangay as Alona Beach itself, putting guests within the busiest tourism corridor on the island rather than in one of the quieter interior barangays where the population still works primarily in coconut farming and fishing.

Guests who rent one of the property’s bicycles or motorcycles and head north instead of toward Alona will find Doljo Beach, a quieter, north-facing stretch generally preferred by families and calmer during the southwest monsoon — a genuinely different experience from Tawala’s dive-shop-and-bar strip, and one most Alona-based visitors never bother reaching.

300 Metres From Alona Beach

The short walk to Alona Beach puts guests within reach of a 1.2-kilometre coralline-sand arc whose house reef drops from shallow coral gardens to a wall starting around 20 to 30 metres offshore — close enough for casual snorkeling trips without needing to arrange transport. Diving and snorkeling operators along the beach run boat trips out to Balicasag Island, a marine sanctuary about 20 minutes and 8 kilometres offshore known for sea turtle cleaning stations and the Black Forest wall dive past 40 metres; the Panglao local government caps access there at 150 people a day with advance booking and a roughly ₱250 environmental fee per diver, a genuine reef-protection measure rather than red tape for its own sake.

Local Food and a Piece of Local Folklore

Being based in Tawala puts guests close to the Larsian-style barbecue stalls that set up along the road toward Alona Beach from late afternoon, and to kinilaw na tanigue — raw Spanish mackerel cured in coconut vinegar, ginger, chilli and onion, made with vinegar produced locally on the island rather than trucked in. Inland, most visitors combine a beach stay here with a countryside day trip to the Chocolate Hills, a field of roughly 1,776 cone-shaped mounds around Carmen, Batuan and Sagbayan reaching close to 120 metres at their tallest — local legend holds they formed from the tears of a heartbroken giant, a piece of oral folklore worth enjoying as a story rather than treating as documented geology — and to the Philippine Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary in Corella, a protected forest reserve of more than 130 hectares where over 500 tarsiers breed and live under strict no-flash, no-touch viewing rules, separate from the smaller roadside tarsier-viewing stop in Loboc that’s often confused with it.

Getting Around and Practicalities

The bicycle and motorcycle rental on site is a genuine point of difference from most Alona-area budget stays, which typically leave guests dependent on tricycles for every trip. Panglao itself has no river system, and every property on the island — this one included — draws its water from a freshwater lens sitting above saltwater in porous limestone bedrock; tap water isn’t treated as potable anywhere on Panglao, so bottled or filtered water is standard practice here as elsewhere.

Who It Suits

A condotel layout with self-catering-style rooms and its own transport rental suits independent travelers and small groups who want to explore Panglao at their own pace rather than rely on hotel-arranged tours. It’s a weaker fit for anyone wanting full resort service or a verified guest-review track record to lean on before booking, given the gap in confirmed rating data. Check the live Agoda listing directly for current rates and guest feedback before booking.