Heyo Family and Friends,
Hoping everyone is having a great week and you’re well. We’re writing a quick throwback blog post about our trip to Mactan Island for Merrick’s 2nd birthday celebration. We debated having a birthday party at our house but decided on a family trip instead since Merrick’s happy place is on the water, summer was coming to a close (end of May), and knowing it would likely be our last family trip for a while with baby brother joining soon.
We flew into the Mactan-Cebu International Airport on Wednesday, 18 May and stayed on Mactan Island at the Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan until Saturday, 21 May. Mactan Island is just east of Cebu Island and both are north of Bohol Island, where we visited with Mom and Pop Jansen in March of 2020 just before the world locked down for COVID. The area was, and is still, recovering from the devastating Typhoon Odette, which hit the area in December of 2021. We visited the resort shortly after their reopening of ~35% of the resort. They’re planning to shut down again next week until the end of November to fully revitalize the resort due to the damage. While these impacts were significant, it wasn’t greatly felt on the resort during our stay due to the incredible people and service.
On Merrick’s birthday, 19 May, our good friends, the Floritys and their two kiddos, joined us for the celebrations. Carolyn’s birthday is a mere 4 days after Merrick’s, so we celebrated the both of them. We were fortunate to have Charity agree to join us, as well as the Flority’s helpers. Their joining was helpful and fun, especially because one of the Flority’s helpers was able to visit her family in the Cebu area during the trip and the other two ladies were able to enjoy a part of the Philippines they had not yet seen.
Our family rented a beach casita, which had a private lanai and served as the landing pad for the crew along the beach front. We recommend. The sand was soft and we really enjoyed our time on the beach. We decorated the casita for the birthday celebrations with decorations Samantha packed and the resort prepared the cake for everyone to enjoy. The resort also offered a beautiful infinity pool, a kid-specific pool area, and a ginormous open air playground, which also had an activity area with a daily schedule of activities for the kids. The entertainment for the kiddos was abundant and one of the main reasons we chose to stay at Crimson. Merrick played his little heart out with his friends and truly enjoyed his long birthday weekend. Us parents were able to sneak away for a quick snorkel trip and we enjoyed an adult-only dinner at the resort during the trip, which was super yum. As always and with abundant gratitude, a huge shoutout to the ladies for watching the kiddos during those times. Travis also kept up with his triathlon training by completing an open water swim near the resort’s beach, while Mama kept it pretty low key with Merrick on the beach because she was 31-weeks pregnant at the time.
Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Cebu and recommend the area. There is a lot more to see there but given the on-going typhoon recovery and our desire to stay low key, we didn’t leave the resort. It’s a quick 1.5 hour flight and can easily be added on to a trip to visit us, as flights to Cebu are daily and abundant. We’d also recommend Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan. The service and facilities were great and the food was good too. Collectively we lived off of the paella. It was so yum.
Samantha’s memorables. Merrick running around the coffee table on the morning of his second birthday in excitement, playing in the kiddo pool as a family, and being able to enjoy the weekend with his and our friends.
Travis’s memorables. Merrick jumping into the ball pit. Family breakfasts and dinners with the Floritys, nice to have everyone together.
Merrick’s memorables. CAKE! COOKIES! Playing in the ocean and pool and going down the slide with Daddy into the ball bit. His own seat on the flight back to Manila since he was now two-years-old.
Charity’s memorables. Playing in the kiddy pool with Merrick. Ordering fried chicken meal to the room with the ladies and kiddos while the parents had their dinner out.
Take care and sending lots of love. Next time you hear from us, we’ll be Team Jansen, Party of Four.
All our love,
xo Team Jansen
Team Jansen Abroad 