Dahilayan Adventure Park and Dahilayan Forest Park

Forgive me for the few photos in this post—I did not plan to write about this Dahilayan trip and had purposely left my camera in Cebu, leaving me with just my four-year-old phone and its less than stellar camera. I had to grab some photos from friends.

Why, at the end of that Friday, did I decide to blog about Dahilayan? Because my friends and I had a ton of fun even if we only tried very few of the activities offered.

Rewind to around 10am on said Friday. A short walk from Emerald Suites CDO, my friends and I found the Magnum Express Terminal in Limketkai. We were disappointed to find that they only had one shuttle per day and it had already left at 845am (Php 249/way; the return trip is at 445pm)! We almost resigned ourselves to malling (eee-yuck!) had the Magnum Express staff not suggest we rent their 6-seater which would cost Php3000 roundtrip. We were six in the group and that was perfect—it would cost each of us Php500—about the same had we taken the shuttle roundtrip.

On the way to Dahilayan

It was a 1.5-hour drive to Dahilayan and because it was four of my friends' first time in Dahilayan, we made a quick stop at the giant pineapple for their mandatory tourist photo!

Pine-a-Paul!

We arrived in Dahilayan Adventure Park with growling stomachs. Top priority? Lunch! It had started to rain lightly so we herded ourselves to their lodge called Pine Grove Mountain Lodge where there was a restaurant.

Photo by Diane Pacatang

By the time we finished lunch, the drizzle had transitioned to heavier rain and we were forced to sit it out and ponder what activities to spend our money on. One of my friends who was so excited to try the Drop Zone (Php500 single/Php750 tandem) was dismayed to find out she was strictly not allowed(!!!) to do any of the activities because of her recent root canal. She just watched (in envy?) two of our friends do all three ziplines (ZipAll Package Php600, includes the 840m, 320m, and 150m ziplines).

 320m zipline

840m zipline

Since no one was brave enough to try the Sky Jump (we did not see anyone try this out), nor were our wallets brave enough to try the Python Roller Zipride (it looked like a rollercoaster-ish zipline; would have been interesting, I think)....

The Sky Jump tower

...it was time to head next door to Dahilayan Forest Park (admission fee Php 130), where our target was to try the luge (two rounds of luge for Php600, includes hanging bridge and mini golf). Before the trip I had kept bugging them to try the luge with me. Thankfully they had prepared their nerves (well, the ladies' nerves) and wallets for it!

In order to get to the starting line of the luge, we had to don a helmet (with a hairnet under!) then cross the hanging bridge. My recently-root-canaled friend bravely stepped on the bridge, leading our group. A few steps across and then we came to a halt! She was not prepared for the shaking and swaying (I intentionally made the bridge shake and sway *evil laugh*) and had stooped and walked across very, very slowly...like a great grandpa.

Hanging bridge

I don't know how long it took us to cross that short bridge, but it seemed like a pretty long time! We were all shaking (from laughter) and coughing (from laughter) as we trudged toward the starting line of the luge.

We were told to hold down the handle bars to prevent the luge from moving forward as we settled our butt on a luge and to push the handlebars forward to release the brake (the farther you push it, the faster the luge goes). We zigzagged along the track and were soon at the finish line (we like speed!).

We piled into the shuttle to take us back to the starting line for round two.

At the finish line!

Round two was slow: another group was causing a traffic jam because they were taking selfies. The evil half of me wanted to ram into them but that might land me a punch in the nose. Patience, self, patience. We will all get to the finish line. And when we did get to the finish line, my friends and I wanted more! Alas, money was no more!

We skipped the mini golf—there was no time (we wanted to leave by 4pm to avoid the rush hour in CDO). There were other activities at the Forest Park, and before leaving the park, we checked out the classic cars outside the 50s Diner, and the picnic grounds.

 Classic cars outside the diner

Picnic Grounds (Photo by Diane Pacatang)

Right across the entrance/exit of the Forest Park, we found our rental van and inside it our slumbering driver. We were all buckled in and ready to head back to CDO by 3:59pm. Right on time.