Grande Island in 2011

Our company had the yearly summer getaway aka outing at Grande Island Resort in Subic, Zambales. As the name says, it is a resort in an island. You need to ride their ferry boat from the Subic Bay Freeport to reach Grande Island.

In 2007, we had our company outing here which we enjoyed. Most memorable for us was the food! Delicious selections in their buffet for lunch, dinner and breakfast. Those of us who went to Grande Island and who are still in the company rave about the resort's food.

Four years thus make a big difference to Grande Island. First thing we noticed is the time of the ferry ride. On our first getaway there, the ferry leaves the port before lunch, around 11am. After 30 minutes, you arrive at the resort and have lunch. Now, we were able to ride the ferry at 2pm! This left us a few hours of swimming before night time.

You can see that the resort has its share of wear and tear. Pathways have unruly grass sprouting here and there, the supposed wave pool remained a big hole collecting rain water which turned brown and the rooms are old. The floor has scratched tiles, the cabinet door in our room was unhinged.

But, nothing can dampen our spirits. We quickly changed to our swim wears and went to the beach and then the pool.

After swimming, we eagerly looked forward to dinner. It is buffet style beside the beach!

Horror of horrors! On the buffet table were four chafing dishes only -- rice, fish, chicken and pasta carbonara. There was also a bowl of chopped fruits (watermelon and pineapple). No barbecued pork and fish. No unlimited serving of iced tea. We went back to our rooms dejected of the dinner served to us.

Breakfast and lunch were the same affair as the dinner the night before. We were even served spaghetti during breakfast! Yep, that's the breakfast buffet.

As we were having breakfast, a server mentioned that there is an island called Chiquita Island near the resort which guests can go to. There was an early tour that day which we weren't able to join. During low tide, people can walk the man-made path to the Chiquita Island. But, during high tide, you have to swim back to the resort. The customer service personnel informed us that we can go to the back beach instead. The back beach has less stones compared to the beach we went to the day before.

We rode the resort's buggy (is that what it's called?) that took us to the Back beach.

Yes, the back beach is beautiful. The water is quiet and clean.

You can see Chiquita Island too.

We went back to the front beach to have our banana boat ride. Each guest has a banana boat coupon. As we waited our turn, some of my officemates decided to snorkel and float. I decided to come along. I'm afraid of deep waters, I need to be able to touch the bottom of the beach (or pool) for me to be confident that I won't drown. Even wearing a life vest doesn't comfort me. But this changed. My officemates convinced me to join them as they float away from the shore. They confessed they're not swimmers but all is OK since we're wearing life vests. After an hour of wading and floating and swimming (sort of), I felt confident! I'm not longing to touch the stony bottom of the beach! Yehey!

This confidence helped me enjoy our banana boat ride.



Grande Island Resort
Subic, Zambales
www.grandeislandresort.com