The Philippines Private Island Resort For Your Bucket List

As the captain steered the speed boat around a tiny, rocky outcrop of an island, our first glimpse of Two Seasons Coron Island Resort & Spa came in to view. I excitedly pointed out this or that while Tim snapped away with the camera.

Bungalows dot the island tip

The narrow island tip was ringed by a sugar sand beach that slid off in to water so clear and blue that it looked like a swimming pool and was dotted with a half dozen little houses. The island tip grew wider into a lush hillside with swaying palm trees and more houses zig-zagging up to the very top. Beyond that, there was nothing but the pristine jungle of one of the 7100 islands and sandbars that make up the Philippines.

This dreamy scene we were taking in from the water would be home for the next seven nights {technically, it was only supposed to be five nights. But we loved Two Seasons Coron Island so much that we scrapped the two nights we were supposed to spend in El Nido and stayed put}.

At low tide, a sandbar connects Two Seasons to a tiny nearby island

Two Seasons Coron Island Resort & Spa

Though the resort is called Two Seasons Coron Island Resort & Spa, it’s actually located about a 40-minute speed boat ride away from Coron Town on Busuanga in the province of Palawan. The resort is perched on the end of Bulalacao island, an otherwise uninhabited island surrounded by massive coral reefs and WWII shipwrecks.

With virtually no other civilization anywhere around, the 5-star resort is 100% self-sustaining. The 42 individual bungalows, restaurant, pool and pool bar, spa, gym and staff housing are all powered by generators. Hot water is supplied by solar power. And the island even produces its own fresh water with a desalination plant and its a zero-waste establishment.

You feel like you’ve got the island to yourself

Having visited other parts of Palawan where an unfathomable amount of rubbish was floating in the water, it was refreshing to see the amount of care that goes in to keeping Two Seasons Coron Island Resort and its surroundings an absolutely pristine slice of paradise.

Island tip bungalows feature sun decks with jacuzzis

The Bungalows

The resort is made up of 42 individual bungalows spaced far enough from one another to afford every guest a little slice of privacy. Honestly, not a single bungalow has a bad view; you can see at least a glimpse of the sea from all of them.

Many hours were spent reading from a lounge chair on our porch

We stayed in one of the five island tip bungalows, all of which have views of the east beach and sun decks equipped with their own jacuzzis facing the west beach. Though all of the bungalows at Two Seasons Coron Island Resort are within a few minutes of the beach, I do have to admit it was magical to have not one, but two beaches literally outside our doors on both sides of us.

The island tip bungalows can only accommodate two guests, which is perfect for a romantic rendezvous like Tim and I were having after spending the last four months living on different continents. The hilltop bungalows would be great for a family or group of friends traveling together.

Our island tip bungalow was perfect for a romantic rendezvous

Our tastefully decorated Filipino island style bungalow had a king size bed, small sitting area and a desk. There was plenty of storage space between the closet and dresser, so that we could unpack and really feel at home. Though our bungalow didn’t have wifi during our stay, the resort was working on supplying wifi throughout all of the bungalows and all public areas.

There’s a tv, amazingly that has satellite and a variety of channels including several movie channels. Each bungalow also has a DVD player and the main building has a DVD library where you can borrow movies from a pretty extensive collection.

We loved waking up to this view every day

The well-stocked mini bar includes everything from Pringles and dried mango to Filipino beer and juices. It is complimentary in the island tip bungalows and is restocked daily, which is actually a really nice amenity to have included. Plus, there’s a Nespresso and pods that are also restocked daily.

I’m fairly certain the rain shower head was the entire size of the shower in our house in Italy

Our bathroom was huge with double sinks and an ample vanity. Though our favorite feature was the massive shower with the biggest rain shower I’ve ever seen. A sliding glass door led directly from our shower out to our sundeck and jacuzzi.

Just one of the colorful and stunning sunsets we watched each evening from our bungalow

The bungalows are cozy and a place that you truly want time to be able to relax in them. We definitely enjoyed reading on our sundeck and watching sunset from our jacuzzi each evening.

Paddle boards and kayaks are complimentary for guests

Water Sports

We’ve been to handful of private island resorts now, and typically a couple of days is enough to cover it all {especially for active travelers like us}. We never once got bored at Two Seasons Coron Island Resort and we definitely weren’t ready to leave, even after eight days there. There’s so much to see and do!

The resort offers several complimentary water sports including snorkeling equipment that you can borrow for the duration of your stay from the on property dive shop, stand up paddle boards and sea kayaks.

We spotted copperband butterfly fish snorkeling in front of the resort

Each afternoon the chocolate chip starfish reveal themselves in the sand

There is fantastic snorkeling right from the resort. From the very calm west side, chocolate chip starfish dot the sandy bottom. There’s also a lovely shallow reef rich with everything from families of clownfish to butterfly fish. And snorkeling out just to the end of the jetty, you’ll find a giant clam sanctuary.

A family of clowfish in an anemone

The east side can be a bit more challenging to snorkel. The wavy water is very shallow for quite a ways out, making it a bit difficult to navigate through without touching {or scraping yourself} on the reef. But when you reach the deeper coral wall, there’s incredible corals rich with sea life and a drop off just beckoning you to dive it. {You can also borrow a kayak to paddle out, tie up to the buoy and snorkel over the much deeper reef to avoid the extremely shallow reef and rocks.}

The Molokini transparent kayaks are perfect to observing the shallow reefs

Snorkeling isn’t for everyone, but you can still take in the marine life in the crystal clear water by hiring a transparent Molokini kayak. We tried one out and while we did find it less comfortable than the regular sit atop sea kayaks, you can see quite a lot. The transparent kayaks would be perfect for kids too young to snorkel.

Tim and me diving in Coron, Philippines

Of course, we ultimately selected Coron to visit of any other destination in the Philippines because our research told us it’s the best place to dive in the island nation. And we definitely weren’t disappointed with any of the six dives that we did. The dive master at the resort’s dive shop is knowledgeable and talked with us to plan our dive locations for both our skill level and interests.

We Recommend

Diving Coron’s Wrecks and Reefs

Taking in the sunset with the resort’s complimentary kayaks

Between all our diving, snorkeling, SUP and kayaking, we were beat. Though the resort does also offer waterskiing, wakeboarding, kiteboarding and a banana boat.

The viewpoint on the hike to Kayangan Lake

Excursions

If complete and utter relaxation is the only thing on your agenda, then Two Seasons Coron Island Resort is definitely the place for it. But if you also get a little restless and have the urge to explore, the resort offers a number of excursions to Coron Island and some of the other surrounding islands and reefs.

Admittedly, the additional boat fee on top of the cost of the excursion can make it a bit pricey. But you can round up some other guests who are interested in the same excursion to share the boat fee with.

Unless you’re diving, we probably wouldn’t take an excursion just for snorkeling. The snorkeling, especially if the water is calm enough on the sunrise beach side of the island, is just as good as any of the spots that we snorkeled at.

The excursion we did feel was unmissable, though, is the Coron Island tour.

There’s two options for the Coron Island tour: the first is around 5 hours and the extended version is around 7 hours. Both visit some of the arguably most beautiful places we’ve ever seen anywhere in the world with stops at Kayangan Lake and the Twin Lagoon. The extended version also includes Barracuda Lake and for the minimal additional cost of the extended tour, we’d say to definitely just make a day of it and see all the natural wonders of Coron Island.

The branches of the narra tea embrace the hilltop spa

Narra Spa

Two Seasons Coron Island Resort is home to one of the best spas in Palawan. And as much as I love spas and indulging in massages, I was seriously considering cancelling my massage after suffering through a horrible experience at another resort. I was extremely glad I didn’t.

Tim and I had a couple’s Narra Spa massage, which is an hour and a half Swedish massage with light to medium pressure.

You select a colorful sarong and keepsake for your spa treatment

Our couple’s massage was set up in a spa suite with gorgeous views over the sunrise beach and mangrove forest. We each selected a sarong, which the spa offers as a keepsake after the treatment.

Our hour and a half of relaxation began with a foot bath, followed by a massage that blissfully put both of us to sleep. After, we were left to relax with a Salabat ginger and honey tea, which is made by boiling fresh ginger with honey from the resort’s organic garden.

The spa also has a sauna, jacuzzi and yoga meditation deck if you feel so inclined.

Sulu Restaurant

I’m sure I’m about to endure the wrath of Filipinos everywhere for saying so, but while I absolutely loved Palawan, I didn’t love the food in the Philippines. Perhaps it was just the variety of local dishes I had the opportunity to try, but I found much of the food to be fatty, fried and incredibly sweet.

Chili bomb – bacon wrapped cheese stuffed fried jalapeños

Gilled US Angus ribeye steak

We may have indulged in lobster more than once

Two Seasons Sulu Restaurant, thankfully, featured a menu as big as the Cheesecake Factory’s with a variety of dishes from Asian and around the world. With such a large variety of dishes to try, we also never got bored despite eating three meals a day at the island’s only restaurant.

With seven days and nights at the resort, we were able to cover a good portion of the menu between and there wasn’t anything that we had that wasn’t delicious. A few of our favorites to order were the roast beef sandwich with homemade potato chips for lunch, the Japanese pork katsu and the grilled lobster.

One unique dish on Sulu’s menu is Palawan crocodile and you can try it barbecued or in a coconut cream sauce. Another guest highly recommended it, so we gave it a try. As the age old saying goes, it tasted like chicken. Well, a slightly gamier chicken that we’d definitely eat again.

Our one and only slight disappoint was breakfast. For the first part of our stay, we were offered an a la carte menu. I mainly stuck to fresh fruit platters with ripe, juicy mangoes each morning keeping it light before diving. Tim tried french toast and pancakes.

A buffet was offered for the last two mornings of our stay and we definitely preferred the a la carte breakfast menu over the buffet offerings.

Lazy afternoons with a cocktail at the swim-up pool bar

Other Amenities

The resort features a wonderful pool that is divided into a deeper adult pool and kid play pool with waterslide. There’s also a swim-up pool bar. Though neither of us passes up the sea for the pool, there was definitely appeal in indulging in an afternoon cocktail while staying cool at the swim-up bar.

With all the water sports, we never made use of it but there is a well-equipped gym with a variety of machines and weights. The gym is also air-conditioned and I’d probably get on the treadmill more often at home if I had the dreamy view the hilltop gym affords gym goers.

The chapel would make a beautiful location for a destination wedding

And if you’re thinking about a destination wedding, there’s a lovely chapel with 360-degree floor to ceiling glass doors that can open up to let in a wonderful cross-breeze. It would definitely be one gorgeous, though not inexpensive to get to, location for a destination wedding.

Know Before You Go

Our stay was provided by Two Seasons Resorts in partnership with Tourism Promotions Board Philippines and TBEX in order to bring you this story. However, Luxe Adventure Traveler maintains full editorial control of the content published on this site. As always, all thoughts, opinions, and enthusiasm for travel are entirely our own. This article contains affiliate links. When you book on Booking.com through our affiliate site, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. It just helps us keep things running here at Luxe Adventure Traveler!