Softstone resort

Overview

Softstone Resort sits in Purok 5, Danao, roughly 1.7 kilometers from Danao Beach and, by several guest accounts, about a 20-minute walk from Alona Beach — a real distance rather than the “adjacent to Alona” framing many Panglao listings default to. It runs 19 rooms and carries a Booking.com score around 7.8 (“Good”) from 299 reviews, a large enough sample that the property’s mixed but generally positive review pattern is worth taking seriously rather than dismissing outlier complaints. One consistent theme across reviews: guests specifically value how far the property sits from Alona’s evening noise, describing it as noticeably quieter than a beachfront address, even as the same distance is the reason reaching the reef and dive shops takes a proper walk or short tricycle ride rather than a stroll.

The Accommodation

Room categories include a Deluxe Double Room, a Standard Queen Room, and an Economy Double Room, each with a private bathroom, air conditioning, and garden views, with some categories offering pool views as well. There’s no 24-hour front desk here — guests are expected to contact the property directly with arrival details before travel, a genuinely small-scale, more personally managed operation than a standard hotel check-in process, and worth planning around for anyone arriving late or without local phone service.

An Honest Read on Guest Feedback

Softstone’s reviews run a wider range than most properties in this batch, and that range is worth reporting plainly rather than smoothing over. Some guests describe a spacious, nicely decorated room and a genuinely helpful staff who arrange scooter repairs and excursions directly; others note the pool water hasn’t always looked its cleanest, that furniture around the pool has been in poor repair at points, and that room dampness and secondhand cigarette smoke from neighboring rooms have been recurring complaints. One review specifically links a rough patch in service quality to the compounding impact of Typhoon Odette, which struck Bohol and the wider Visayas in December 2021, and the pandemic period immediately preceding it — a candid acknowledgment that the resort’s operations took a real hit during those years rather than an isolated bad review. More recent feedback trends more positive, suggesting recovery since then, though the spread across the review timeline is worth checking directly before booking rather than relying on the aggregate score alone.

What a Stay Actually Costs

Softstone prices several services as add-ons rather than folding them into the room rate: a cooked-to-order breakfast runs roughly PHP 200 per person, an airport shuttle costs about PHP 300 per vehicle one-way, and a rollaway bed adds around PHP 1,000 a night. That itemized structure is common at smaller, family-run Philippine resorts operating on tighter margins than branded chain properties, where bundling everything into one rate would mean charging non-breakfast, non-shuttle guests for services they don’t use.

Local Taste and Nearby Diving

A dive shop sits within about 130 meters of the property, per nearby-landmark data, making Softstone a workable if not walk-to-the-beach base for divers who don’t mind arranging boat departures locally rather than from Alona directly. Kinilaw na tanigue — raw Spanish mackerel cured in coconut vinegar, ginger, chili, and onion, made with vinegar produced on Panglao itself — is worth ordering at a Danao- or Tawala-road stall over a resort restaurant menu, and Danao’s own fishing families still carry some traditional boat-building knowledge, even as fibreglass has mostly replaced wood for the area’s working outriggers.

An Honest Environmental Note

Panglao’s entire water supply comes from a freshwater lens sitting over denser saltwater in the island’s limestone bedrock, and dry-season over-extraction has pushed chloride levels in some wells past the World Health Organization’s recommended threshold; tap water isn’t potable anywhere on the island, this property included, so bottled or filtered water remains standard regardless of budget tier.

Practical Notes

A tricycle to Tagbilaran City or the ferry terminal runs the standard PHP 150–200, and fast boats to Cebu depart roughly hourly for about PHP 200. Inland, the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary in Corella are both roughly 45 minutes to an hour by road. Given the lack of a staffed front desk and the property’s distance from Alona, confirming arrival logistics directly with Softstone ahead of time is a more necessary step here than at a standard Tawala-strip hotel.

Who This Suits

Softstone reads as a fit for budget-conscious travelers who prioritize quiet over beachfront proximity and don’t mind arranging their own airport pickup logistics in advance, particularly divers willing to use the nearby dive shop rather than Alona’s more established operators. It’s a weaker match for anyone wanting round-the-clock front desk service, a guaranteed-pristine pool, or absolute certainty about noise levels, since the honest review record shows real variation on those specific points across the property’s operating history. The itemized pricing for breakfast, shuttle, and rollaway beds also rewards travelers willing to compare the base room rate against what a fully-inclusive nearby resort charges before assuming Softstone is the cheaper overall choice for a given trip.