Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Wedding Anniversary, Canyon Cove (review)


I've been wanting to create a blog for myself for months now so I thought that maybe 2013 is the right time for me to start new things in my life. Welcome to my first blog, enjoy!!



As a full time mom it become a habit that i browse and shop through group buying sites such as metrodeal, ensogo and more (name it and I've seen it). My sister also lives in Japan so when she's free she browse there and ask my help to purchase some as a gift to us or to my mother. Last year, she wanted to buy me a gift and we ended up choosing ensogo's Canyon Cove plan.


this is the actual voucher that we purchased last year.....



So you probably might be asking why it takes us so long to go there knowing the fact that i had the voucher for a year, well... as a mom i budget stuffs, like rent, meralco, maynilad and all that stuffs so i need to make sure that we have enough money once we go there to avoid hassle and also for us to enjoy more nadin.




I need to make sure how much will it costs us for the bus fare, tricycle fare and foods to eat. I asked my everday friend MR. INTERNET and found out the fare and guide what to do when we go there since it will be our first time out of town with my husband and daughter.






After the long time planning and wait we finally decided to go there. First thing you need to do when availing for group buying sites is to read some review which i find very helpful. Afterwards, I called the main office which i think is in Makati and schedule our trip from there. It was JANUARY13-14, its what i want since my husbands off and perfect timing for our 4th anniversary, it was also my late father's birthday.




Before we go there i make sure that the foods that I'll bring wont be obvious so i bought sandwiches and some snacks i think they will allow it since we have a child with us.





We got up early around 6-7am since the travel time will be no more that 5 hours we bought some snacks and we ride the lrt to makati, we thought that since there are a lot of busses there to batangas we anticipated that one of it will be a ride to nasugbu. We got there and to our disbelief the 3 bus terminals there does not cater to trip to nasugbu, only batangas pier. We asked some people and told us that we should go to rotonda, we have no idea of where that is so we took a taxi and found out that its just one (1) station from buendia lrt, its in EDSA STATION, argh.... the cab fare is 100 pesos we kinda lost 70 pesos of our budget (as a mom can you blame me if i wanted to take the cheapest fare there is... well...) so yes now we found the bus that caters nasugbu, batangas. Yes, now the long bus ride just started.




BUS FARE: 155 PER PERSON  (children below 7 are free, as long as you put the child in your lap though)


Meet my daughter Cayleigh and my husband Jim



It took us 4 1/2 hours to reach nasugbu , so we arrived to nasugbu bayan around 12:00.


I know that we should take another ride to get to Canyon Cove but I want to make sure were full once we get there, since a lot of reviews says that their food a little pricey so tipid tipid muna. We ate our lunch in JOLLIBEE. There's Mang Inasal too but since it was Sunday all of the restaurants and carienderia's are packed back then.


It was just outside Jollibee where you can find tricycles to take you to Canyon Cove, as my husband had his yosibreak he approached one of the drivers how much it will cost us to get there. Well Manong tricycle told us that its a bit far from there so it PHP 50 each person and my daughter will be PHP25. Its a bit pricey if you think since its just tricycle but you have no other choice. Once we finished eating we packed our bags and head there. It's like 10-15 minutes away from Jollibee.








The tricycles are not allowed to go inside the facilities since its a private area, the tricycles are allowed not to go beyond the gate. Once you pass through the gate you can see the main entrance from there but its like we're on the top of the hill and its hard to reach to the bottom. SO DONT WEAR ANY KIND OF HEELS!!!.






From the "hill" we can see that there are a lot of guests that day mostly Koreans but we don't know why, we thought that they wont have time for voucher users like us since its stated in the voucher that the vouchers cannot be use if there's a conference going on. SO MAKE SURE TO READ YOUR VOUCHERS ONCE YOU PURCHASED IT.... It's kinda surprising how the staffs of the resorts are accomodating. We got there around 1:30pm I think and the we still have time to stroll around the resorts and take pictures.


@ the lobby




You can play in the playground while you wait
 
Canyon Cove, not bad huh....
priceless




They let us in an hour early so we took advantage of it. The room is big for 3 person, my daughter is free of charge again this time. The room is so clean, they even have free shampoo and bodywash, and towels are ready too. I thought that the deal is too good to be true since its a private resort. CANYON COVE IS WORTH YOUR MONEY.
view from our room


















We stayed in the room to eat our snacks and were now off to the pool and beach.



Now for the pool.












Its a big pool as you see but it is divided into 3 parts, there was a side of like knee level water for toddlers, the other quarter is for bigger kids and the other half of the pool is for the adults (its not that deep though its like 5feet or so). You can see that its so clean and doesn't smell like chlorine at all.

The resorts has cabanas around it (feel free to grab one for your towels) and they have bedchairs (as i call it) around the pool as well.

By the way, you don't need to bring towel during the trip since they provide different towels for the rooms and the resort. You can even ask them to change your TOWELS from time to time if you want to.






Since it late already we decided that we spend the whole afternoon in the pool till evening and wake up early the next day to enjoy the beach.

January is a bit cold weather to go to a beach but if you don't want crowded places this is the perfect time to do it. We gone back to our room around 7pm since its a bit windy and cold we cannot take it anymore, hehehe. We enjoyed what the room has to offer for us.



There's coffee for us if you want it cold there's also a small fridge there. The view from our room is remarkable, you can hear the beach,  you can see the pool, the people passing by, and our room has a little terrace for smokers. My daughter got so tired that she slept early that day, we sneak out and look for other things we can do in the resort. The Activity area where there's billiards and stuffs is closed back then its under construction i think. There's a bar from the lobby, but the beer will cost you 90 pesos per bottle , so no thanks. We just hangout in the lobby where there's WIFI, check our mails and gone back in the room. We just watched cable that night since there's nothing left to do.
bedroom fam pic "priceless"
strolling






We woke up early in the morning and gone to the restaurant, the voucher also include FREE set breakfast for two but if we wanna avail the breakfast buffet we just have to pay PHP150 each , that's what we did, since our plan is to take the beach in the morning until we checkout.

scrambled eggs
Foods in the breakfast buffet are not so much, there pandesal (fruitjams, butter) , there's this lumpia with rice in it, scrambled eggs, pancakes, pancit canton, spanish sardines, lugaw and champorado and fruits for dessert. I forgot they also longanisa which im not a fan of. What else, they have rice both plain and fried. I just wish that there's some king of meat instead of the longanisa like tocino or tapa. They have kapeng barako too and OJ i forgot. The foods OK just OK



spanish sardines
pandesal , jam and turon (burrito style)





pancit canton
























that me and cayleigh




jim and cayleigh

cayleigh's breakfast


We headed straight to the beach after we ate our breakfast we don't wanna waste any more time before we leave. We asked the lifeguards if we can use the FREE KAYAK which is also included in the deal but they say something about low tide and waves that time so we have to wait till the weather's good for us to do it.

In the meantime let me take you to the beach.

The beach is white Yes, but its a bit grainy i think, i was expecting like fine sands, so where your slippers when you stroll around, i took some pictures of the sand. In all fairness to the beach its so private, its what you want, there's no other people on the beach except the guest. We also decided to go in the water even though its still cold, but we didn't stay long cold is one reason and the other reason is the beach itself is rocky so but not to the point that you can be injured with it. There's also this line they make so that the people swimming on the beach won't be too far from the sands and near people Kayaking in the middle of the water. SAFETY FIRST as they say.



my daughter, doing her thing

its not fine sand but its ok

this are the rocks Im telling you about



They allowed people to do Kayak around 9am so we hop in but one at a time for us since my daughter will be unattended, we don't want to make any chances on her.

*pix of kayak


there's me in a kayak
jim in kayak





There are also lot of thing you can do, SNORKELING is one of them , JETSKI, BANANA BOAT, ISLAND HOPPING and a lot more. Here's a picture of the activities you can do there.

"mammee pitue mo ko sa boat" she said




















My daughter just cant get enough of the pool she loved it so much that she had friends teaching her how to swim so we go back to the pool and spend our time there till an hour before checkout.

waiting




Her new friends






Time to say BYEBYE now....





Overall, Our Canyon Cove deal is absolutely WORTH THE MONEY you can see that the people enjoyed staying there so much and so are we.



Before we hop on the bus we had lunch in INASAL bought pasalubong and head back home.




I'm not a fan of celebrating anniversaries or monthsary but this is a perfect way to celebrate it, what a great family getaway.








Hope you enjoyed my first blog. This wont be the last. Have a good one



                                                                                                                        ---- CHARLY....