Hotel Eight Fifty

Hotel Eight Fifty is a small, 10-room property in Jagna, on Bohol’s southeastern coast — a three-star hotel rather than the beach-resort category found around Panglao Island on the province’s other coast. Rooms come with air conditioning, a desk, and a flat-screen TV, and some units add a balcony; the property also has a garden, a terrace, a restaurant, and a bar, with free private parking for guests arriving by car or habal-habal. On Tripadvisor it ranks #34 of 46 hotels listed for Jagna, rated 4 of 5 overall, with couples specifically rating the location 9.0 for a two-person trip — a strong showing for a compact property with limited room count. Booking.com lists a similarly strong score of 8.3 (“Very Good”) from 69 reviews, putting it among the better-reviewed small hotels in town.

The hotel sits a four-minute walk from Can-uba Marble Beach, an undeveloped shoreline defined by smooth white and grey marble pebbles rather than sand, with no facilities on-site — visitors bring their own shade and water and come mainly for the geology and the quiet rather than resort infrastructure. The pebbles reflect Jagna’s underlying rock: this stretch of Bohol’s southeastern coast sits on uplifted limestone and marble-bearing formations rather than the coral-sand base typical of the island’s north side, a genuine geological difference from the beaches around Panglao rather than a marketing description. Lonoy Cold Spring is about a ten-minute ride away, and Kinahugan Falls — a triangular formation of three separate drops off a roughly 50-foot cliff in Barangay Cabungaan, reached by a five-minute jungle trail and swimmable in a basin about 15 feet deep — sits within a similar radius, making Hotel Eight Fifty a workable base for a day or two of inland exploring without needing to relocate closer to Tagbilaran.

Jagna’s own town centre is close enough for a short trip, and its coral-stone Church of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist — dated to 1697 and among the older surviving ecclesiastical buildings on Bohol — anchors a compact Spanish colonial core alongside the public market and a working port. That port is the reason Jagna carries a different character from Bohol’s beach towns: it functions as the island’s main southern ferry gateway to Mindanao, with 2Go Travel and other operators running overnight service from Cagayan de Oro (8–10 hours) and a shorter crossing from Nasipit (4–5 hours). Guests connecting through the ferry terminal sometimes use Jagna’s small hotel stock, Eight Fifty included, as a one-night stopover rather than a multi-day base.

Locally, the market’s best-known product is peanut butter made from roasted Bohol peanuts in small batches and sold in recycled jars — a genuine specialty rather than a packaged import — and Jagna is one of the province’s towns most associated with kalamay, the sticky rice-and-coconut sweet traditionally packed into coconut-shell halves and sealed with colored crepe paper. Local tradition traces the recipe to an Augustinian Recollect friar, Fr. Mariano Gutierrez, and dates its introduction to around 1825; Ching’s Calamay, a home-based operation in Barangay Can-upao where calamaderas hand-stir each batch over low heat for four to six hours before packing it into the shells, remains the most commonly cited producer, and the town now runs an annual Calamay Festival each April built partly around putting the product in front of visiting buyers.

Divers and snorkelers staying at Eight Fifty are within reach of Jagna’s own beach-entry dive points — Nausok Point, Pangdan, Canupao Point, and Cantagay Point — none of which see the volume of Panglao’s dive operators. Drift Divers, a small shop attached to Paseo Del Mar resort a short distance along the coast, rents gear and runs guided fun dives from roughly ₱1,000–1,400, and the reef here forms part of the protected Danajon Bank double-barrier system, marked with no-anchor buoys to guard against the blast- and cyanide-fishing damage that has affected other sections of the bank over past decades.

The hotel’s above-average review scores relative to its modest ten-room size suggest a well-run, owner-attentive operation rather than a scale play — consistent with a town where accommodation still primarily serves ferry travelers and local business rather than large tour groups. With only ten rooms, the property is also small enough that walk-in availability can be tight during Jagna’s own fiesta season around late December and April’s Calamay Festival, when the town’s limited lodging stock fills with visiting family and festival guests; booking ahead through Stay22 or Booking.com is worth doing for those windows specifically rather than relying on same-day availability. For visitors working a southeastern Bohol itinerary that pairs Jagna’s falls, marble beach, and church with an onward Mindanao ferry or a loop back toward Anda, Hotel Eight Fifty offers a comfortable, well-reviewed small-hotel option at a fraction of Panglao’s resort pricing.

Getting There & Booking

Book on Stay22 or Booking.com for real-time availability and confirmed rates.