Travel Footprints

Weekend Warriors

For those looking for a way to spend all the upcoming holidays this August, we strongly recommend a weekend trip to Camsur Watersports Complex in Pili, Camarines Sur. Just a friendly advice, though. If you’re into leisure trips, I would avoid going to CWC on the weekend of August 23 because the Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 will be held there. But, if you’ve heard of the Ironman 70.3 before reading this post, I’m sure you’re the type who wouldn’t mind joining the bandwagon (we’re actually very proud that an event this big will actually be held in Philippine soil).

So here are some of our CWC faves during our weekend stay that might be useful for you :

1) Budget – lodging, meals and activities within CWC cost us about Php3,800++ (airfare included) so this definitely falls into our category of travelling on a shoestring budget.

2) Airline Schedule – we left Manila via Air Philippines flight at 6:15am on Saturday and arrived back in Manila at 5:00pm on Sunday. Plenty of time to still catch up on errands in Manila before the work week starts.

3) Food – we got all our meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-betweens) at the CWC restaurant and it did not disappoint at all. All the food they served us were oh-so yummy and delicious! We especially liked the Chocolate Caramel cake and CWC signature burger (with a choice of single, double or triple patty).

The CWC signature burger is a must-have

4) Free shuttle service – CWC offers not only free shuttle service to and from airport, they also offer free shuttle service to and from Naga City for one hour miscellaneous errands including drop-offs at the bus terminal! This added-value service allowed us to hear Sunday mass service at the Basilica of Peñafrancia in Naga City during our weekend stay. How convenient is that? I told you, we love this place.

The view of Villa del Ray at night

5) Accommodations – We wanted to try the container rooms just out of curiousity but it was under renovation. Luckily, the lodging at Villa del Ray gave us a great place to rest our weary bodies from all the intense day activities for a reasonable rate at about Php700 per person.

6) Winch park for wakeboarding newbies – not everybody who goes to CWC would have the skills and the guts to try out the cable park (including us), so we loved the fact that the Winch Park is the comfort zone for beginners who are trying to master the art of wakeboarding. With very friendly staff to boot

Trying (and succeeding) to do some graceful wakeboarding acts at Winch Park

7) Government Revenue – all our expenses inside the CWC were issued an official government receipt from the Province of Camarines Sur. Judging from the foreigners and locals flocking the complex, there must be a lot going around to stimulate the local economy. Yehey for the people of CamSur!

There’s more to CWC than just wakeboarding action apparently. And it’s just across the wakeboarding park in a place called Lago del Ray. Talk about going back to second childhood –

Getting on it is much harder than it looks, trust me.

That is just a glimpse of our laugh trip. What was especially hilarious while we were trying out the inflatables at Lago del Ray (e.g., giant slide, trampoline, iceberg) was we were actually imagining a voice-over narration of all our bloopers ala-Takeshi’s Castle. The fee of Php120 (good for one hour) per person was totally worth it. All the fun and laughters while we complete the ‘challenges’ of the inflatables were absolutely priceless!

On the first weekend of August, the Roños with a couple of friends escaped the drab weather of Manila and boarded an early morning flight to Naga in Bicol region via PAL Express (Air Philippines) to finally experience the world-renowned CamSur Watersports Complex. We’ve been hearing a lot about this state-of-the-art wakeboarding park that put the tourism right smack on an otherwise sleepy town of Pili, Naga. We arrived Naga at 7:00am and we loooved the fact that CWC offers a FREE shuttle service from the airport to the complex!

The free shuttle service comes with our stay in Villa del Rey at only Php1,350 for 2 persons

As soon as we arrived at CWC, we secured our day villa with the best view of the wakeboarding park (those same day villas we got were reserved for ‘Aga Muhlach and Friends’ for a private party on August 8).

First order of the day was to catch up on our sleep in our day villa

This would be the same group who, back in 2004, trooped to Calatagan, Batangas to try out Lago de Oro’s cable wakeboarding park. But after seeing the regular wakeboarders do their run at the CWC wakeboarding park, we were totally mesmerized.

Wakeboarders at CWC

Mr. Roño was not about to let the day pass without trying on the wakeboard, though.

To ramp or not to ramp?