Ultra Mint Dive Resort

Ultra Mint Dive Resort: A PADI Base on Ester A Lim Drive

Ultra Mint Dive Resort sits on Ester A Lim Drive in Barangay Tawala, the same barangay that contains Alona Beach, and opened in 2021. What sets it apart from a standard Panglao inn is that the dive operation isn’t a nearby partner shop — it’s run on-site as a PADI Dive Center, covering the full course ladder from Discover Scuba Diving for first-timers through certification levels, plus daily fun dives to Panglao’s house reef, Balicasag, Pamilacan, and Cabilao.

That in-house dive desk is the reason to book here over a beach-adjacent hotel with a “partner operator”: logistics — tank fills, boat scheduling, gear storage — happen at the front desk rather than a five-minute walk away.

Rooms

The room mix spans two different traveler budgets under one roof. On the higher end are Deluxe Rooms and Superior Double Rooms — air-conditioned, with private walk-in-shower bathrooms, a wardrobe, a work desk, and a TV, built for couples or families wanting a private base. On the lower end, the property also lists a female dormitory room with bunk beds, priced for the solo backpacker-diver crowd that Alona-area hostels usually absorb. Few resorts in this price band mix a dorm option with private family rooms; it signals the resort is built around divers first, room category second.

The dormitory beds book primarily through Hostelworld, which carries its own separate guest-review pool for this property — 342 reviews at an 8.4 “Fabulous” score, close to Booking.com’s 337-review, 8.4 “Very Good” figure for the private rooms, and generally more flexible, no-deposit cancellation terms than a resort-style Booking.com reservation. Hostelworld’s booking base skews toward solo travelers and social trip styles, distinct from the family-and-couples mix a private-room booking usually pulls, but it’s the same on-site PADI dive shop and grounds either way.

Diving Balicasag, and Its Limits

Balicasag Island, the marine sanctuary roughly 20 minutes by outrigger from Alona, is the headline day trip Ultra Mint’s dive desk books — sea turtle cleaning stations, and the Black Forest wall dropping past 40 meters. What’s less advertised is that the local government caps access at 150 divers and snorkelers a day, two dives per diver, and collects a roughly ₱250 environmental user fee per head. It’s a deliberate volume limit rather than an open-access site, so dive slots at Balicasag can sell out on peak mornings — worth booking a day ahead through the resort rather than assuming a same-day walk-up.

Grounds and Dining

The property has a year-round outdoor pool and sun terrace, on-site massage service, and free Wi-Fi throughout the grounds and rooms. Breakfast runs across four styles — continental, à la carte, vegetarian, and Asian — a broader spread than the single-menu breakfast typical of budget Panglao guesthouses. Free parking is available for guests arriving by rented scooter or car.

Location and Access

Agoda lists the property roughly 0.5 km from the Tawala town center and 2.1 km from Bohol–Panglao International Airport — about an 8-to-10-minute drive. Ultra Mint’s own site puts Alona Beach at a 13-minute walk, or roughly 3 minutes by motorcycle or car; Booking.com’s estimate runs slightly longer, around 15 minutes on foot. Either way, it’s close enough to walk to Alona’s restaurants and bars in the evening but set back enough from the beachfront strip to avoid its noise.

Panglao’s dive-tourism economy, which this resort’s own dive shop is part of, dates back to the early 1980s on Alona and expanded sharply after Panglao International Airport opened in 2018, cutting out the old Cebu-ferry-plus-overland routing for most arrivals. The accommodation range that grew up around it still spans backpacker dorm beds at 600–800 PHP a night up to mid-range cottages at 3,000–6,000 PHP; Ultra Mint’s own dorm-to-Deluxe spread mirrors that same range inside one property rather than sitting at just one end of it.

Inland day trips are straightforward to combine with dive days: Chocolate Hills is about 45 minutes away, and the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary near Corella sits at a similar distance, usually paired with a stop on the Loboc River. Most guests slot these in on a non-diving day rather than the same day as a two-tank trip.

Who Should Book Here

This suits certified divers and dive students wanting course logistics and gear on-site rather than arranged through a third party, solo travelers on a dorm budget who still want a resort pool to come back to, and couples or families who’d rather book a private room in a dive-focused property than a purely beach-lounging resort. It’s a weaker fit for travelers who want beachfront rooms — Ultra Mint is set back from Alona, not on it — or for anyone prioritizing quiet: dive groups gearing up before 7am boat departures are part of the daily rhythm here.

At an average nightly rate Agoda lists around $136 (roughly 2,730 PHP per the frontmatter’s comparable-property estimate — confirm live pricing via Stay22 before booking), the resort sits above Panglao’s backpacker floor but below its boutique four-star tier, which tracks with its 337 Booking.com reviews at 8.4/10 “Very Good” and an 8.2 value-for-money score on Agoda. The resort’s own site doesn’t publish a fixed PADI course price list — course and fun-dive rates fluctuate with instructor availability, group size, and gear-rental needs, so confirm current pricing directly with the dive desk rather than expecting a published rate card.