CAVITE DIARIES: Gingerbread House and Reptiland Adventure (10.01.2022)

This is going to be one of those posts where we had to plan a day in haste. 

So my cousins suddenly arrived at our family house. Since they're coming with us to visit our father in Manila Memorial we thought we might make it a day instead of grocery day. 

+ Gingerbread House +

Gingerbread house is one of those places that I always heard but hasn't been. Apparently it has changed through the years that it has added more features and as we've went there still expanding. Other than the large Gingerbread house that doubles as their dining area, they now have little pockets of places for kids to run and play and some places for couples as well. They also have varying tiers of entrance fees:

 

Photo courtesy of my sister. Visit her shop!

 For a Gingerbread House I was hoping there's a wafting air of baking gingerbread or perhaps cinnamon or chocolate or maybe pine (?) just for the Christmas theme. But I suppose it's too much to ask since that's probably a hard thing to accomplish (again, unless they constantly bake gingerbread cookies? Wait, why not an unlimited batch of cookies for guests? Hmmmm). I imagine it would set a nice tone for visitors and maybe coax them into dining. We haven't, my mom wanted a "real restaurant" in her terms. Would have loved to try out their offerings but I don't want to ruin my appetite on our later meal. 

They also offer some Japanese street food and milk tea further on and if you've noticed one of the tiers grants you milk tea as you walk on their lavender path. We have not chosen to purchase this and up to now I felt like I should have seen it IRL if it was worth it the extra moolah. 

When you have kids who are happy with miniaturized places they would love it. As of writing they're building another house which if it was me would have enclosed it on weekends instead of continuously working on visit heavy days. It kind of ruins the fantasy of year round Christmas seeing construction workers. Also, they really need to maintain their current 

The mini museum is meh, It's just a room of small gingerbread houses that honestly does not spark joy. I actually felt sad coming out of it. I love dioramas and thought that maybe if they could have staged it better it would have been a cute highlight. 

Overall, the visit is just OK, but you can see that they're trying to please not just kids but IG obsessed kids who love another opportunity to pose for. 

Entrance Fee: 150 PHP/adult ; 100 PHP /Kids below 

+ Reptiland Adventure +

We're already hungry (I sure am) but we collectively decided to see another attraction some minutes away. While Gingerbread house is probably close to IG-worthy, Reptiland is the "rugged" version of it.  My mom initially didn't want to come in afraid that there would be snakes but other than plants and visitors there are no other living things there.

The statues and animatronics that move via sensors need maintenance. I appreciate what they did but the full immersion to the experience would come with working sensors especially the large snake near the end. 

It's either this guy had eyes before or someone forgot to put them in. 

Love this guy, although the sensors needed to be fixed, sometimes it works, sometimes it forgets to growl

They also have a dining area inside but we missed eating there as well as it might be too heavy for a light snack. 

When I said a bit rugged it's because they have some activities that maybe frightening to kids but too tame for adults. They have a low zipline and small ATVs. Apparently they used to have horses as well but like the supposedly haunted forest all had gone to disarray and waste due to lack of maintenance caused by COVID. Maybe this is why they've recently reopened  (and very cheap entrance fee too) to gain funds. 

One gripe of mine is that there are some areas that really need to be cleaned up. Sample is right at the dry creek near the Hobbit houses there are some thrown wood furniture that is a big eyesore. I also find it funny that even though they're supposed to have the reptile theme on them they can't seem to pick a lane. There's a hobbit village (just 2 or 3 houses), there's dinosaurs (ok I can forgive that) and somehow, anime and cartoon character statues and murals? Whyyyyyyyy?

My gorgeous husband who does the stupid things I suggest

Entrance Fee: 150 PHP

Even with all of my complaints, I truly believe that both still deserve patronage. Hopefully in the future there will be enough funds to fully utilize a cohesive vision. The potential of both places are very high, they do not seem to have any lack of space, just the lack of activities and probably better planning perhaps on which goes which. For example in the Gingerbread house maybe they could extend their museum to be a full gingerbread town on a mountain with a train running through it. Or an extended tiny town for kids to play in, complete with different kid sized gingerbread houses where they can roam around and play. Or for Reptiland, what if they could have more activities like the Adventure Treetop Adventure, or host camping nights (stargazing, or through telescopes perhaps), or have special dishes that maybe have more exotic ingredients that would entice new and adventurous patrons to name a few. There are so many wonderful ideas they could incorporate and still keep on theme.

I hope for the best, perhaps in the future we'd see improvements.