Alona Vikings Lodge

Alona Vikings Lodge: The Original Property on the Vikings Site

Alona Vikings Lodge is the sister property to Alona Vikings Lodge 2, both sitting on the same inland plot roughly a seven-minute walk from Alona Beach in Barangay Tawala. On Booking.com it holds an 8.4 rating (Very Good) from 35 reviews — a somewhat larger review base than its annex — and Stay22 lists rates from around PHP 2,730 a night, benchmarked against comparable Panglao properties scoring near 8.4.

Rooms and Common Areas

Rooms are air-conditioned with private bathrooms fitted with bidets, hot water, flat-screen TVs, and seating areas; furnishings run simple — bed, shelf, hanging space — rather than styled. Guests describe the property as clean and easy to manage, with a shared porch area where travelers tend to end up talking to each other in the evening, and staff who handle requests directly rather than through a formal concierge desk. The lodge has a garden, a terrace, free private parking, and a restaurant on-site, plus room service and free Wi-Fi.

Location and Reef Access

The seven-minute walk to Alona Beach puts guests within reach of Panglao’s main dive-shop row without paying a beachfront premium. Alona’s house reef drops from shallow coral gardens to a wall around 20–30 metres, still showing the patchwork of recovery and rubble left by the 2016 bleaching event — sections have rebounded with live coral and reef fish, other stretches remain thin. Boat dives run daily out to Balicasag Island, a roughly 20-minute outrigger ride southwest, known for its sea turtle cleaning stations and the Black Forest wall, which drops past 40 metres.

History Behind the Beach

Alona Beach’s tourism industry is younger than it looks. Organized dive tourism here only began in the early 1980s, when backpackers passing through the Visayas started putting up small huts and dive shops along what was then an undeveloped stretch of coastline; growth continued through the 1990s and accelerated sharply after Panglao International Airport opened in 2018, redirecting much of Bohol’s air traffic away from Tagbilaran’s older airfield. A lodge like this one, simple and locally run, sits closer to that original backpacker-era model than to the newer four-star towers now going up along the same strip.

Inland at Poblacion, the municipality’s most visible landmark predates all of this by more than a century: the Panglao Watchtower, a five-storey hexagonal coral-stone tower built in 1851 and declared a National Cultural Treasure in 2011, sits beside the St. Augustine Parish Church, whose nave was completed in the 1920s after construction that started in 1894. Guests booking an inland day usually pass through this compound en route to or from the Chocolate Hills.

Dining and a Local Dish Worth Knowing

The on-site restaurant serves Filipino and island seafood — grilled fish, shrimp adobo, coconut curries — priced roughly 150–300 PHP a main, with the bar staying open until around 10–11pm as an informal social space for solo travelers and small groups. A few minutes up the coast in Danao and Boljo-on, fishing households make a version of kinilaw na tanigue at home rather than for tourists — raw Spanish mackerel cured in coconut vinegar, ginger, chili, and onion, using vinegar tapped and produced on Panglao itself rather than shipped in. What’s on the lodge’s own menu runs milder than that household version.

Reef Protection at Balicasag

Boat trips from Alona to Balicasag Island, about 20 minutes out by outrigger, are capped by the municipal government at 150 snorkelers and divers a day, with a maximum of two dives per diver and an advance-booking system that charges a roughly ₱250 environmental fee per visitor. It’s a deliberate limit rather than a formality — the reef there, known for turtle cleaning stations and the Black Forest wall past 40 metres, could not sustain Panglao’s current visitor volume without it, and the fee funds the patrol and booking system that enforces the cap.

Practical Details

Tricycles to Tagbilaran run roughly PHP 150–250; the trip to the airport is shorter and cheaper. Fast ferries link Tagbilaran to Cebu in about two hours. Evening noise carries from nearby restaurants and bars until around 10–11pm, typical of anywhere within a few minutes of the Alona strip; earplugs are a reasonable addition for light sleepers. Free cancellation is typically available three to five days out, though guests should confirm current terms at booking.

Who Should Book Here

This lodge suits divers and budget-to-mid-range travelers staying multiple nights, couples who want walking-distance access to Alona without beachfront pricing, and anyone content with simple rooms in exchange for a lower rate than its neighbors along the sand. It’s less suited to travelers who want a pool on-site, resort-level service, or absolute quiet — the shared porch and nearby restaurant row mean some ambient noise most evenings.

Getting There & Booking

From Tagbilaran City or the airport, tricycles reach the property in 15–20 minutes over the Tagbilaran–Dauis bridge. Book through Stay22 or directly on Booking.com to confirm the current rate against the PHP 2,730 estimate and check real-time availability.