My wife and I have just returned from a 10-day stay with Atmosphere at Dumaguete. Just prior to writing this, I was prompted to have a look at the "Poor " and "Terrible" reviews that had been posted. Not that I wanted to give one of those, but because I was amazed that any such existed. Having now stayed with Atmosphere, I can only conclude that either those reviews had been written by their competition seeking to undermine them or the reviewers were confused as to the resort they had actually stayed at!
We were with a large group (of 19) from our dive club. At the end of the stay, most the group said they were ready to sign up for the next trip and indeed we booked a slot for next year. So that says a lot about our experience. In my opinion, this is one of the better dive resorts around. Yes, it is expensive, but it was far from the most expensive trip we have been on, and yet met or exceeded our expectations in most things.
The rooms are great. Very comfortable beds. The grounds are well laid out and have great gardens with flowering trees and shrubs all over the place. Yes, the beach is "rubbly" - but hey that is pretty normal for this part of the coast, and can't be changed since this is a marine reserve here. It is more than made up for by the pools onsite - catering to both families and adults. Diving is great - both the muck dives (for small and exotic critters) and the dives at Apo Island. Dive boats are well appointed and comfortable. The dive guides have a great knack of finding all the small critters. They were also very helpful to our less experienced divers as well as tolerant of those more experienced of us who pushed the times out to 90 minutes even though the briefing always stated 60 minutes or 50 bars whichever comes first. Food was fantastic! We were on a full board package and all really satisfied with the menus and quality of food.
There is an excellent camera room. Very well laid out and very important for those of us that like to take underwater photos. The diving equipment storage area is great, and the staff made sure that our gear was all correctly returned from the boat, washed and hung up.
Excursions are available. We took advantage of the excursion to see the whale sharks across on Cebu. This was very well organised and we had a great day and a lovely lunch (also provided by Atmosphere).
There were a few areas that could be improved - hence not an "excellent" rating. The service in the restaurant was rather slow, and the staff got a bit confused at times, especially in bringing out the food at the same time for the group. I do hasten to add that we were not all seated together, so this shouldn't have been an issue. The wine was rather expensive and we did think that the spa was a bit overpriced. However, we very much enjoyed the experience in using it.
Overall a great trip - and yes, we would recommend to others and would return ourselves. Take no notice of any review that is less than Very Good!!! They stayed somewhere else ...