green-aa-garden-resort

Green AA Garden Resort: A Sikatuna Garden Stay

Green AA Garden Resort sits in Barangay Abucay Norte, Sikatuna — a landlocked, farming municipality about 20 kilometres northeast of Tagbilaran, with no coastline and thin visitor traffic outside those drawn specifically to the town’s few attractions. The resort’s setting is a working garden property rather than a beach or riverfront, roughly 1.4 kilometres from the Philippine Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary in neighbouring Corella. It carries a Good 7.3/10 score on Booking.com from 16 reviews, current as of 2026-08-26, with a live-fetched nightly rate from 1,139 PHP.

The accommodation

The property runs about 25 rooms across three configurations: a Double Room with one full bed, a Family Room with one twin and two full beds sleeping up to five, and a larger Studio with five full beds for groups of up to ten. That spread makes it one of the more group-friendly small properties in this part of inland Bohol, suited to extended families or barangay-level groups as much as to couples — a useful option given how little accommodation choice Sikatuna otherwise offers. Review category scores put staff service at 8.9 and value for money at 8.8, both strong; cleanliness and comfort sit at a middling 7.4, and WiFi is the weakest-rated category at 5.0 — worth planning around for anyone needing reliable connectivity.

Amenities and dining

An outdoor swimming pool and garden anchor the property, along with an on-site restaurant serving local cuisine, free WiFi in common areas, and free private parking. The resort is also pet-friendly at no extra charge, and guest reports mention a bar area with a pool table and videoke — informal, family-oriented social space rather than a resort bar scene.

Local taste

Sikatuna has no distinct restaurant scene of its own — households and small poblacion canteens serve standard Cebuano rice meals such as sinugba (grilled pork), utan bisaya (a vegetable broth with leafy greens and squash), and dried fish, with corn grits (bugas mais) served alongside fish as is typical of inland Bohol generally. The resort’s own restaurant is likely to be the most convenient option for most stays, given how limited food options are once you’re outside Tagbilaran or Corella.

History and economic context

Sikatuna takes its name from Datu Sikatuna, the Boholano chieftain who performed the 1565 blood compact — the sandugo — with the Spanish commander Miguel López de Legazpi, an event widely cited as the first formal treaty between Filipinos and European colonisers. Beyond that legacy and the town’s small blacksmith industry, which still hand-forges blades from reclaimed leaf-spring steel, Sikatuna’s economy runs on corn, coconut, and root-crop farming rather than tourism. A garden resort of this size is a rare piece of dedicated tourism infrastructure in a municipality where accommodation is otherwise essentially nonexistent outside informal homestay arrangements through the municipal hall — which also means it functions as one of the few real overnight bases for visiting the Rajah Sikatuna Protected Landscape and its tarsier-conservation area without commuting back to Tagbilaran or Panglao each night.

ESG note

Proximity to the tarsier-conservation landscape carries a responsibility that a garden-set, low-density property is reasonably well positioned to meet: unlike a roadside photo-op sanctuary, the conservation area here depends on the surrounding forest cover staying intact, and a resort that keeps its own footprint to a planted garden rather than cleared land contributes less pressure on that margin. The pet-friendly policy and family-room sizing also suggest a property built around longer, quieter stays rather than high turnover.

Practical details

From Tagbilaran, a jeepney or habal-habal on the Corella–Sikatuna road covers the roughly 20-kilometre distance in 30–40 minutes; there is no direct bus terminal service, and most connections pass through Corella. The road is paved but narrows in sections. Cash is essential — there are no ATMs in the Sikatuna poblacion, and none of the smaller attractions nearby take cards. Day trips from here easily reach the Chocolate Hills and the Loboc River cruise, both roughly comparable in distance to a return trip through Tagbilaran, and the Philippine Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary in Corella is close enough to combine with a half-day covering Sikatuna’s own hanging-coffins site and blacksmith workshop.

Who should book here

Works well for: families and small groups wanting private rooms with a pool and garden, travelers building an itinerary around the tarsier-conservation area, and anyone wanting a genuinely inland, agricultural-town base rather than a beach or river setting. Less suited to: travelers who need dependable WiFi for work, anyone expecting resort-level polish given the modest review volume, or those wanting Sikatuna’s limited restaurant scene to carry the trip — bring flexibility on food, and lean on the resort’s own kitchen.

Getting There & Booking

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