Cordova Reef Beach, Mactan

Cordova Reef is the Mactan beach the new bridge changed. For years the southern tip of the island in Cordova town was a slow, traffic clogged drive that put most travellers off, and the resorts here traded on being cheaper and quieter as a result. The Cebu Cordova link expressway rewrote that overnight, dropping the run from Cebu City to twenty or thirty minutes and turning a far flung village into an easy day out. As a guide I rate access above almost everything, and this is a case where a remote feeling spot suddenly rewards the effort because the effort has largely gone.

Set your expectations on the beach and the water and the place still makes honest sense. Cordova Reef is a village style resort with a groomed white sand front, cottages and gardens, an outdoor pool and a restaurant, calmer and simpler than the big Punta Engano and Maribago properties. The shore sits on the usual shallow reef flat at the island tip, where the Camotes Sea meets the Bohol Strait, so it is calmest and deepest at high tide and the pool carries the swimming when the tide drops. It is a quiet base, not a showpiece beach, and it does not pretend otherwise.

So my honest read is that Cordova suits travellers who want calm and value over scene, and who like that the bridge has made a once awkward corner simple to reach. If you want a wide natural beach and deep open water from the sand, Mactan cannot give it anywhere and you should look to Boracay or Palawan. If you want a peaceful village style base a short, easy drive from the city and the airport, Cordova Reef earns its place, and the move is a slow day on the sand and by the pool, timed to a high tide for the swim.