Vitalis Weekend Escapade

Vitalis Villas

Weekend travel getaway that doesn’t involve trails or mountains has been as rare as it gets for me.  Since I just finished 50K worth of Cordillera trails, I guess I earned this one.  Vitalis Villas boast of Santorini like architecture and makes it really worth your time and money’s worth.

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• Lovin’ La Bellarocca

Vitalis Villas

Vitalis White Sands

Last month, our cousin started organizing the tour to Vitalis. We got a two bedroom room and another one bedroom room to accommodate the 10 of us.  We stayed in the one bedroom room and the rate is surprisingly affordable, which is Php 11,450, which includes the room complete with kitchen, masters bedroom, enormous living room area and a porch overlooking the sea.  That’s also inclusive of 3 buffet meals for the whole stay.    The two bedroom unit (Php 19,000) is perched on a hill and has two floors with one room on each floor.   The cost of the accommodation is between Php 3,000-P3,500 per person inclusive of all buffet meals, rooms and the services.  You can have a golf cart bring you to your room to the other facilities. It includes use of facilities in Vitalis Villas and Vitalis White Sands though water sports facilities is priced separately.

My sister and I came from Manila while the rest of the family came from our hometown in Baguio.  We had the longer travel time but we arrived earlier in Vitalis Villas in time for the buffet lunch.  The buffet meal was overwhelming as you get to have a lot of choices plus Petra sits atop of the property so you have spots overlooking the sea and the whole property.

Touchdown Vitalis

Check in time is between 2-3 pm so we had a few hours at Petra for lunch. The rest of the family came at around 1 pm.  We had our one bedroom Villa at around 2 pm while the 2 bedroom Villa was available at 3 pm.  We were surprised at how enormous the room was. There was 2 king size bed, several sofas, kitchen, comfort rooms and bath rooms and our villa was on the lower part and nearby the lower pool and the view of the Ocean. You can easily fit 10 people comfortably in the room though the room is only for four people.

Vitalis

The room felt really comfortable so the first order of business was to catch some sleep. We woke up between 4-5 pm and then we checked on the rest who also fell in love with their beds at first sight.  It was then that we regrouped so we can try the water sports at the nearby Vitalis White Sands.

The View from Our Room

There are shuttle services from Vitalis Villas to Vitalis White Sands, which is on the lower end of the resort.  There are several pools in Vitalis Villas but the beach and water sports is located at Vitalis White Sands.  We arrived past 5 pm and we discovered that the water sports area is until 5 pm only.  They have kayaks, pedal boats, jet ski and an area for inflatables.  Since the water sports is not available we just took our time to swim in the beach.

Vitalis White Sands

It felt good to swim.  After swimming, we went back to Vitalis Villas at around 7 pm for dinner.  One of the pool area is just beside Petra, the dining area. Instead of going to dinner immediately, we took another dip in the pool before dinner.  This was followed by another buffet feast for dinner.  We’d regroup later into the night to take a deep on the lower pool in our room and had drinks at the mini bar after.

The Chapel

It was really nice to bond with my cousins once again, which is something we haven’t done in a while with shifting priorities and a lot of events happening the past few years.  After that it was time to rest for the next day.

Day 2

Happy Sunday

I woke up just in time to catch the sun rise view above at around 6:30 am and had breakfast at 7 am.  Of all the buffet meals, I have to say, breakfast was my favorites with longanisa, dried fish, pancakes, palitaw and a whole lot more.  We’d love to reload on this meal too as the next one is in Vigan already after we check out. Vitalis is located in Santiago, Ilocos Sur, which is around 45 minutes before Vigan. Up next was going back to Vitalis White Sand to try the water sports.  My niece tried out the zipline too.

Chillin’ like a Villain!

There was the early morning sea breeze to make it really relaxing to chill for the beach.  I could do this for hours but we also did try the pedal boat and the kayak.  It was fun to add some activity to this relaxing weekend. I must have gain x number of pounds just on the buffet dinners.

Vitalis White Sand is the perfect place to see the Santorini like infrastructure of Vitalis.  Just an interesting piece of trivia, Vitalis White Sand has been there for decades though it gained prominence when Vitalis Villas was completed last December 2016.

View from Vitalis White Sands

So we spent the rest of the morning at the beach.  I did drop by the hilltop adventure area where there was a mini zoo and a zipline area before going back to check out.

Vigan

Lunch at Uno Grille in Vigan

We then spent the next 45 minutes heading to Vigan to have lunch and a stroll along Calle Crisologo.  I haven’t been to Vigan for almost 2 decades so its nice to be back to appreciate the heritage city of Vigan.

Calle Crisologo

We left Vigan at around 4-5 pm and that was our long trip back to Manila. On hindsight, we should have done a a minimum of 2 days and 3 nights type of vacation since it’s a bit tiring to spend one day on the resort and one day on the road.  I guess that now proves my point that I recover faster from races than family vacations. Looking forward to the next one.

Vigan!