Bluewater Resorts: 25 years of suite success

MANILA, Philippines - When was the last time you kicked up your heels, walked barefoot in the sand, and basked in the warm glow of sunshine and the crisp, cool breeze on an island?

Me, I hadn’t done that in a long time and probably never would hadn’t an invitation to the Bluewater Resorts’ 25 years of “amuma” (more on this a wee bit later) in Maribago, Mactan Island landed on my desk one muggy day.

So, I packed a light weekend bag that I thought was resort-worthy and boarded a PAL flight for Cebu, along with a group of media people, all raring for some fun in the sun or simply to get away from the urban grind.

Fun, yes — tons of it — but sun?  Well, not as much as the sun worshippers in this group of accidental tourists would have wanted. Fact is, it starts to drizzle as we sip our welcome drink — a nice, healthy and zesty lemongrass tea. Tea-licious!

“Coming down here, it was raining and I thought I’d take care of it as I have taken care of it all the time,” says Bluewater Resorts’ well-loved patriarch, Arcadio “Dodong” Alegrado, former Consul General of Austria, as he welcomes guests to Bluewater Resorts’ 25th anniversary dinner on the beach. “Most of the guests we have here, mostly Europeans, when we have rain, they complain. They say, ‘You advertise you have sunshine 24 hours a day, but why is there rain?’ I said, ‘Yes, we really do have some rain in Cebu, but I can take care of it.’ I know the weather situation in Cebu 25 years ago. When it rains, then the sun comes out after a while. So, I told them, ‘You watch, I’ll do some magic, the rain will be there, but I will switch it off.’ And after 10 or 15 minutes, the sun appears and the rain stops. That’s the Alegrado magic! Today, I tried that trick to some Manila guests and I said I could stop the rain, but it stayed on. So, my magic didn’t work, sorry to say. But there must be a reason for this. Some say this is good luck, some say it brings us another 25 years.”

Not minding standing in the rain without an umbrella, Dodong has got it covered in the next 25 years.  “We thought we should have a constitution in our organization because we wanted to protect the next 25 years,” he asserts. “One group from Harvard came; a few months later, a group from Ateneo and then a third group, and we perfected the constitution.  They have been saying we have to prepare for the next 25 years. Why? We’re doing all right. By statistics, the first generation puts up the business, the second enhances it, and the third sells it. If that’s the case, we should prepare them to sell, to protect the company. We have the third generation creeping in. I have a grandson assigned in Panglao. The rest have been sent to the best schools. One grandson is now in the US, a magna cum laude graduate, hired in Silicon Valley. A granddaugher is going to the University of San Francisco. The fourth one is most likely going to San Francisco University, too, where his grandfather studied and where his name is embedded for one reason or another. In other words, we’re all protected and we hope to stay another 25 years.”

What is now a seven-hectare property amid sparkling blue waters was just a small beach house 25 years ago. “My dad was a furniture maker; we had a rattan furniture factory and we used to live in the middle with all the noise, the clanging, and the dust,” Julie Alegrado Vergara fondly looks back. “Every weekend, us siblings  — two girls and one boy — would help out in the factory. It was too much living amid dust so my father finally decided to buy a small property in Mactan. This started out as our beach house, we had a small one. But the rest of the neighbors started selling their lots so our beach house got bigger and bigger.  They started selling more so our property became even bigger. And then my dad’s friends started borrowing our beach house. We lived in Mandaue and we would be so excited to come to Mactan because it was a weekend. We’d say, ‘Pop, let’s go to the beach.’ But we couldn’t go to our beach house because all of my dad’s friends were going there.” 

Julie adds with a chuckle, “So, finally, my dad decided to build a resort in 1989 and charge his friends!”

Dodong Alegrado’s buying binge has not stopped and now, Bluewater Resorts has three properties: Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort, a lush seven-hectare tropical paradise in Buyong, Maribago, Mactan Island, Lapu Lapu City, Cebu; Bluewater Sumilon Island Resort, a 24-hectare coral island on the southeastern tip of Cebu; and Bluewater Panglao Beach Resort, a sea escape amid white sand beaches and marine sanctuaries in Danao, Panglao Island, Bohol.

We’re here at Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort immensely enjoying Bluewater Resorts’ amuma (which means to nurture, to pamper in the Visayan dialect) brand of service, which is its mantra. A golf cart brings us to our room. There are 168 rooms — four Royal Bungalows, 23 Premier Deluxe, 50 Amuma Spa Wing and 90 Deluxe.

My room is a mere strolling distance to the beach. It’s big enough to accommodate four persons and the bathroom is big — as in BIG — enough to accommodate more than four persons at any one time.

“We renovated the rooms, they used to be so small,” Julie tells us. “We expanded the rooms in the beach wing, the garden wing, and the amuma wing. When I took over, I told my dad, ‘I’m going to change the design because I can hardly fit in the banyo.’  I said I wanna go ballroom dancing in my banyo, I want freedom, I want to breathe. So, with the new design by Benjie Reyes, the bathroom is as big as the bedroom.”

According to Julie’s dad Dodong, their Japanese guests who come in droves especially love the new big bathrooms — hai!

Apart from the big bathroom, Bluewater Resorts is also big on Filipino architecture. “We focus on being Filipino,” stresses Julie. “My family is proudly Filipino. My dad is Cebuano, my mom was from Mindanao. I grew up in Mindanao. What makes us different is we want our guests to experience everything about the Philippines, what Filipino is. They should experience Filipino hospitality, they should have Filipino food, they should stay in a glamorized Philippine architecture. We really want our guests to experience what it is living in the Philippines, because they come all the way here from wherever.”

In Maribago as well as in Panglao, we get an ample taste of what the country has to offer by way of glorious Pinoy food, colorful culture, one-of-a-kind sights (like Bohol’s tarsier, probably the smallest primate in the world, and the centuries-old Loboc Church, which was destroyed by the recent 7.2 earthquake that hit Bohol), and warm hospitality.

So, what’s cooking at the Bluewater Resorts?

A lot to delight the taste buds and warm the heartstrings!

For instance, for tonight’s anniversary bash, guests are treated to a rare Filipino fare. For cocktails, we’re having the following, served street food gourmet style and passed around by the resort’s wait staff in native attire: Balut pate in puff pastry, pinakurat gelee shrimp okoy (that’s A-OK) in a shot glass with red egg vinaigrette, fishballs in skewers drizzled with sweet chili sauce, sisig shooters with poached quail eggs, and laing escargot vol au vents.

For dinner, we’re having the following for appetizers: phyllo-wrapped Ilocos empanada, Atching Lilian’s fried lumpia, dinuguan maki with bagnet, seared tuna with watermelon and mangosteen vinaigrette, and oysters done three ways (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao styles).

Then there are the beef station and the seafood station (mudcrabs in Alavar sauce, Bohol tiger prawns on a banca, Gen San tuna, assorted shells and crustaceans with dipping sauces (like pinakurat, sukang tuba na may sili, lemonsito, lemon, etc.).

If you want to pig out, there’s bagnet done three ways (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao versions) with assorted sauces, lechon Cebu with achara and puso, sisig foie gras, and Cebuano humba.

The chicken station has US duck halang-halang (the chili hot ginataan version of chicken tinola), roasted chicken stuffed with paella, chicken galantina, and hinurnong manok sa dulao (baked chicken in yellow ginger).

And the desserts? They’re to diet for! Our favorite chef, French-trained Sau del Rosario, sweetly created the most divine native goodies. The dessert tables are laden with suman sa lihia with chokolate eh! dipping sauce, Brazo de Mercedes, Doña Edith’s Spanish bread pudding, Pampanga tibok tibok, durian panna cotta, mangosteen parfait on bamboo shell, leche flan, Chocnut tablea tartlets, and assorted truffles in cones.

The live cooking dessert station has ube, pandan palitaw with condiments, churros con chocolate, and Bibingka de Cebu.

To spice up our dinner is a whole to-rave-for concert by no less than maestro Ryan Cayabyab and his superb singers. Before that, we had a spectacular  Philippine cultural dance show by Cebu’s young dancers.

As Bluewater Resorts fills your plate and your heart with glorious food, it makes sure it fills your stay at all its properties with fun activities which you can enjoy by yourself or with family and friends.

“Here at Panglao, you can go stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving, riding the all-terrain vehicle,” says the amiable Leo Go, Bluewater Panglao rooms division manager.

But if the idea of adventure fazes you, you can simply laze around on the beach, have a most relaxing spa treatment, or go mango picking.

Indeed, time flies when you’re having so much fun. But when it’s time to leave, you realize that once the soil of Bluewater Resorts touches the soles of your feet and warms your heart, it will never leave your soul.

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For inquiries, call the Bluewater Resorts Manila office at 817-5751, 887-1348, 893-5391 (fax); Bluewater Maribago at (639 32)492-0100; Bluewater Sumilon at (639 32)318-9098, 318-3129; Bluewater Panglao at (639 38)416-0702 or 416-0696.

Visit www.bluewater.com.ph.