Safety, Highly Qualified Staff, and Location, Location, Location.
Can’t recommend this place any more.
They have the single best location for freediving in Bohol (and perhaps Asia).
Highly professional and courteous staff, easily contactable and always willing to help…
Great for ALL levels of freediving – 10meters to 100+
Competent instructors and a fun basic freediving course!
As a beginner, I was a bit terrified of freediving. I had worries before I even started the course and panicked when we finally had to go into the open water.
But thanks to our reliable and (very) supportive instructor, Kuya Edwin, we enjoyed every minute and had fun during our basic freediving course, despite the slightly choppy waters!
My friends and I were complete newbies to freediving. But after just a day of learning breathing techniques and realising just how capable the human body really is, we were able to go into the open water, apply what we learned, and had a blast in the process.
It was amazing how Freedive Academy Panglao encourages you to challenge your understanding of your limitations and break that mould you put yourself into. The initial discomfort that the unknown brings slowly turns into something wonderful that you take with you forever.
My friends and I are already planning to return soon and get our SS1 Level 1 training. We’re excitedly talking about bringing new friends in and sharing the experience with them.
We are particularly grateful for Kuya Edwin! We couldn’t have asked for a better instructor to introduce us to this amazing sport. I personally felt safe from start to finish, and I wonder now why I was so scared in the first place.
To those of you who, like me, had hesitations and fears about freediving, I encourage you to give freediving with Freedive Academy Panglao a try. They’ll help you to open your eyes to the beauty of the ocean depths and make the process very enjoyable, too!
A great Level 3 course!
I had been looking for a place to do my level 3 for a while, and I’m super happy that I choose Freedive Academy Panglao, not only did they get back to my first enquiry email super fast but it is also a great learning environment! I got sick during my course and taking a couple of days off was not only not a problem but also encouraged rather than rushing through to the finish! 🙂
The school is located right by an amazing reef so when diving you usually run into a whole bunch fish which is always amazing. We even did a night snorkelling/diving session around the full moon which was amazing to get to look at the reef with the moonlight.
10/10 would dive here again! 🙂
Must go place in Panglao. I learned so much cool stuff. I learned to stay underwater for 3 minutes in a day. It was very professional and fun.
World class freediving dive center (plus cats)
I have nothing but love for this center. Vincent really created a dive center that feels like a home away from home.
I did my level 2, level 3, and my instructor course at this center over the course of a couple months and I’m so glad I was trained at Freedive Academy Panglao. The training conditions really cannot be better. The water is flat, warm, and inviting every single day, and visibility is easily 15-20 meters. You can swim out to the surface line and have access to as much depth as you want. The thing that makes Freedive Academy Panglao different, though, is the people.
The staff is incredible. I was lucky enough to train with all the English instructors during my stay, and every single one of them made me a better diver (thank you Vincent, Kim, Edwin, and Nejc!). Their coaching helped me set new personal bests, all while making training fun. I was able to train not only with instructors but also with other master divers. Freedive Academy Panglao has a master’s training program with insanely talented divers, and I learned so much from diving with so many people. It doesn’t matter if you’re diving to 10 meters or to 100 meters, everyone was so welcoming and supportive of each other. I looked forward to all my training sessions because I liked the people I trained with.
Bottom line – the instructors are informative, everyone is fantastic to train with, and the location is perfect. As a bonus, after a long training session, you can relax in the hammock or spend some time cuddling with one of the dive center cats (all of them are perfect and adorable and fuzzy). The Freedive Academy Panglao is a world-class freediving center, and they have the best dive center cats. I absolutely adore this place!
Excellent freediving school
A special thanks to our great teachers, Nejc and Kim! We had good fun, learned a lot & enjoyed the super nice reef and the sardines.
Location is perfect, with a house reef directly nearby dive centre.
We hope to come back soon!
Simone & Bernd
A great place to be and greater people to be with. 🙂 😉
One of the best locations for training serious freediving that every freediver would dream of!
It is a very good place to chase depths in a very convenient manner as the place is just nearby a drop off cliff. No need for boats and tiring swimming as after a more or less 10 meters swim, you`re at an awesome training ground. 🙂
Also, it is not just a good place for depths but also for fun diving. The cliff has its own very beautiful reef and colourful coral which is the habitat of a different variety of marine life from amazing sardines, to yellowfin jackfish, beautiful scorpionfish, etc. If you get lucky, from time to time, you get to see mantas, whale sharks and some serious whales passing by the area!
But what makes me even more happy about this place is the amazing owner, the professional and knowledgeable instructors, and the super friendly staff that make you feel home away from home. They make you feel like you are part of a family. The owner and the instructors are very high skilled and definitely know what they are talking about and make sure you are safe. Safety is their top priority. 🙂
Kudos to everybody, especially to Vincent, who bestowed his knowledge when he taught me my Level 1 course. Hope to train with you guys again and looking forward to my Level 2 course soon!
Amazing Environment and Instructor
Obviously, they are extremely geographically well-positioned, as you can see their website etc.
My room was just located 100m away from the point where we can go 100m depth.
Wake up and change, walk to the shore, and you cantor up the buoy just a few kicks away from the shore.
My amazing instructor Nejc just accompanied me for a week and pushed my PB down over 10m.
Muchas gracias amigos!!!
Super professional, experienced and lovely team. Great courses and location.
I’m a scuba diving instructor, and last year I decided to try freediving. I took the SSI level 1 with free diving Guru Vincent Sparreboom. Having taught scuba for 4 years it was great to be a student again, learning something new. Vincent’s professionalism, knowledge and experience was astounding. Definitely one of the most professional coaches I’ve ever had over my 20-year diving experience. In the water, we were joined by Edwin and Sebastian who at the time were training to become instructors. Both of these guys were so supportive and encouraging. I felt completely supported and safe throughout the whole experience. Previously when chatting about freediving, I managed to hold my breath for 2 minutes (only once). After Vincent coached us on the breath up and relaxation techniques, I was totally surprised that I managed to hold my breath for over 4 minutes!
After such a great experience, of course, I went back and did my level 2 with Vincent. Once again, the training was superb, and I surpassed everything I had learnt at level 1.
I cannot recommend this place enough.
Thank you, Vincent and Freedive Academy Panglao!
Freedive Academy Panglao has the best location to learn freediving.
It is convenient to train when the sea is pretty much in your backyard. There is a beautiful reef wall with plenty of marine life to explore after training. It is exhilarating to have schools of fish swimming around you when you do your training.
The Instructors and staff at the academy are extremely nice and friendly people, always ready to lend a helping hand (or their personal fins). I did both my Level 1 and level 2 with Nejc. He is very knowledgeable about freediving, and he always related back to the theory when we were doing the practical sessions. It makes understanding the theory easier for me. His patience and encouragement helped me to persevere to the end of the course. He even went out of his way to help me look for other accommodations because I didn’t like the one I was staying at and when I had an ear infection, he got medication from the pharmacy for me. Having a caring instructor like Nejc makes learning to freedive more assuring as I can count on him to cover all the safety aspects and focus on executing my techniques.
If I could, I would return here to continue my freediving lessons because of its location and superb Instructors.
