If you’re thinking about going to Cebu with kids, just stay at the Shangri-La Mactan and no need to go anywhere else or visit any other places, it’s all here.  First up, snorkelling.   I got a brand new snorkel for my birthday so was excited but a little bit scared to try out snorkelling in the sea.  Absolutely no waka though, I had nothing to worry about, got my life jacket on and away I went, saw loads of fish, the water’s warm, you don’t have to go out too far to see all the good fish, in fact, if you have kids that are quite scared, you can just hang around the shore and still sea quite good fish.

My Mum and Dad insisted I go out further and that was quite good too, there’s a coral garden that is roped, and has most of the fish, just make sure you go at high tide, which you can find listed on a board near the entrance to the Ocean Wing swimming pool. You can still snorkel at low tide, but the coral garden will be very shallow, so make sure you don’t stand up and destroy the coral reef. its dying, but still has enough around to attract some quite good fish.  I would say the Shangrila Mactan is a great place to go in Cebu with kids if you want to introduce them to snorkelling. I got a little bored after a couple of days but it was still well worth while.  Oh, and we saw a sea snake!

I also went on a banana boat which was not bad, I hung on tighter than bicycle shorts and thought it was okay, you can ask the boat driver to go as fast or slow as you want, I wanted a bit slower but as usual my Dad gave the thumbs up to go faster.  Mum and Dad tried to convince me to go Parasaling but I wasn’t having any of it and will stick to activities on the ground for now thank you very much.

The kids Adventure Zone was pretty good, only had one session in there, but they have some good slides and you have a good run around for an hour. Make sure to bring socks and long sleeves. They have socks to buy, but no long sleeves, which you will need for ripping down the really steep slide, which I found a new friend to play with on.  The E-Zone they had a really cool motorcycle racing game where I got to ride on a motorcycle, I was so excited I peed my pants right in the E-Zone center. Dad wasn’t too impressed about that and we had to go back to the room to get changed.

I loved the mini-golf and had a couple of goes on that, even got a hole in one.  The big pool has many more people at it than the Ocean Wing, but it’s also much bigger. I hang out there on afternoon and spend hours going up and and down the slide.  Didn’t go very fast but still good fun for me.  Around the pool there’s even a New Zealand Natural Ice Cream Shop.  Dad got stuck into some Hokey Pokey, I’m not one for Ice Cream so gave it a miss, but most kids will probably pig out on it.

Much to my great pleasure, I also saw loads of Geckos, you need to go to Cowrie Cove and the Dive Center to see them on the walls at night, the main buildings in the main wing and Ocean Wing don’t have many around.  If you know me, and now about my obsession with lizards, you’ll know that Gecko hunting is my favourite activity so I was very pleased.  For me, there’s noting better to do in Cebu with kids than Gecko hunting.

We also watched the Filipino show at the Filipino BBQ (which you can read more about in the Things to Know section) which I quite enjoyed.  My Mum and Dad are not culture vultures at all and we don’t usually get to see things like this, but I found it quite good.  There was this slightly chubby guy whom my Dad said might have liked other guys, which I didn’t think there was anything wrong with, and I nicknamed him “Master Chubby”.  Both guys and girls do some dancing and play with some fire, it’s all quite good if you ask me. Not the absolute best thing to do in Cebu with kids, but worth checking out if you’re staying at the Shangri-la Mactan.

The resort is on a huge property, there’s loads of grass areas to run around and the beach area is great for kids.  After I’d had enough of fish feeding, I was introduced to “BoomPa”, this is where you take a run up from the beach and charge down into the sea and “BoomPa” into the fish to scare them away.  Probably didn’t make any fans doing that but it was fun nevertheless. Apparently BoomPa comes from the likes of Jonah Lomu and Julian Savea “BoomPa’ing” players away.  I didn’t really understand but “BoomPai’ing” the fish was most excellent.  I also did a lot of Mud Pie on the last day, which is getting some wet sand, rolling it up into a mud pie, and throwing it at Dad.

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