Recommendations for 2-week trip to Philippines?

[scotttmichael]

Hello Good People

My buddy and I are planning a 2-week holiday in the Philippines at the end of February and were hoping we could ask your sage advice on destinations. We have an overly ambitious itinerary and know we need to cut it down some. Here was our original plan:

-Arrive in Manila and fly down to the Visayas the next day - either to Cebu or Bohol
-Dive several days at each of these areas: Bohol, Moalboal, Dumaguete, Malapascua
-Travel up to Puerto Galera to dive for a few days until we finish the trip

We think we have too many Visayas destinations for a realistic 2-week itinerary.
1. What would you recommend keeping or not?
2. Is it worth making that extra trip up to Malapascua or would we be better off concentrating around Bohol, Moalboal and Dumaguete?
3. If we do go to Malapascua, should we axe Bohol or Moalboal or Dumaguete?
4. Would Siquijor be worth a side trip?
5. Are we missing anything you would most recommend? We figure that, given limited time, Palawan would unfortunately not be in the cards this time.

Thanks so much for your help.

Happy diving, Scott

[sonar]

sounds very ambitiotious indeed. Don't forget you cant dive at your flight days..

I would skip either PG or Visayas.. Perhaps PG + Coron is an option? PG is easy 4 days of diving without same spot twice. you might want to do Canynons more often though

think like this:
day 1: arrive manila
day 2: fly to Visayas; no diving
day 3: dive 3x
day 4: travel to next location: make 1 dive
day 5: 3 dives
etc.

Travelling is slow in Ph. Lot of islands (really?) so lot of car-boat-car spots. It's not like the boat leaves when your car arrives.. Manila - PG costs half a day.. if you leave early you can make 2 dives (1500 - 1800 nightdive) Which means arrive, go to divestore, dive, bring your stuff to the hotel, return and dive again..

Travelling for travelling is not travelling; it's just moving

[Kilili]

Way too much to do in two weeks, cuts down on time in the water.
I would split in 3 parts:

From Manila, fly to Dumaguete City and dive Dauin & Apo Island.
Mikes Beach Resort is good. I also like Apo Island Beach resort, and you can split between the two if you wish. It's only a short boat ride.

From Dumaguete, take the ferry to Tagbilarin and get transport to Alona Beach.
I like the Oasis and their dive operation.

Then fly back to Manila and take bus/ferry to Puerto Galera.
Many places to stay here, and The Mermaid is is very nice place, just a short stroll up the road from the beach.
Their dive operation is fine, but I prefer SeaRider Dive Center, on Small LaLaguna Beach which is just around the point.
El Galleon, also on Small LaLaguna, is a nice place to stay, with a very good dive operation.

You can find rooms for just about any budget at all of these destinations.

Siquijour can be reached by both Dauin and Alona Beach dive operations. I didn't think it was that great.

Not been to

Moalboal, but have been told that it's little different from diving Alona Beach.

Peter's Dive Resort in the Visayas offers whale sharks, but you need to check on the season. To me, they're just too big to photograph, so I've never bothered.

By the way, Anilao, which is on the near side and across from Puerto Galera has, to me, better diving than PG, but everything is isolated and no nightlife, a big contrast from PG.
I like Club Ocellaris. They don't promote themselves and the web pages are almost devoid of information. Rooms can be scarce there. Can be difficult to contact, and phone works best.
Anilao has quite a few dive operations.

[Kenr]

I agree with Ken, I would fly to Panglao and dive out of Alona beach for 3 or 4 days, add a day if you want to do the Bohol land tours. Then fly back to Manila and head off to PG for 4 days and off to Anilao for 3 or 4 more. You have two travel days and that will cover your 2 week trip. The Oasis resort and dive shop is very good. I dove with AB Wonder dive in PG. They have a good operation and have some rooms for rent.
enjoy
Ken

[Kevrumbo]

All of the above plus hang out there for an extra week into mid-March, and do a Tubbataha Liveaboard:
Tubbataha Schedules & Rates | Expedition Fleet Liveaboards: Scuba Diving Philippines and Palau!

[Centrals]

What is the attraction of PG besides Canyons and Verde island(weather permitted)? Nightlife has nothing to do with diving.
Just spend all your diving time at Visayas and you won't be disappointed. The only problem is how to divide the time among all those places!! Not an easy solution given you only have two weeks.

You can combine Bohol, Dumaguette, Moalboal and Malapascua in one go but you have to prepare to travel, packing, unpacking, washing and drying etc etc. I won't do that myself though.
Sea-Explorers run dive safari perhaps you can contact them for the itinerary.

[Stamatatou Amalia]

hi people,
was planning to do the dumaguette trip myself but not so many days
so do you think may is a good period?
has anyone stayed there at the liquid resort?and dived with them? i m on a budget
i ll do malapascua in august . what do you think about that?
the thing is i only have to spent around 10-12 days per month and along with the non diving and travelling dates it only gives me 6 days of true diving but that s ok , i dont mind going back home and come again( except for the air tickets, but yet one cant have it all ..)
so ..any thoughts about the above ?
thanks in advance ..

[travelpro]

Another vote for Bohol; staying on Alona Beach. There are so many places with even more opinions as to which is best as a first time visit to the Philippines. Tell us what your priorities and interest are and people here can be more helpful.

2 places is reasonable and 3 is doable but pushing it in my opinion.

[scotttmichael]

Thanks so much for all the responses so far. Very helpful. In response to Travelpro - this is our first trip to Ph and would like to get a "taste" of the underwater world. In other words, we would like as broad of a sample as we can in the time afforded. So everything from microlife around beautiful corals to macrolife too. We had considered Malapascua for the threshers but our research suggests that thresher sightings are not as frequent these days so we wouldn't want to go there justfor that reason. We do understand there's more to see there than just threshers. Hence wondering if it's worth the extra travel time or will we get a similar type of diving off Bohol?

Given your responses so far - perhaps we could chose 2 Visayas sites and then head up to PG. It seems the consensus spot so far is Alona Beach/Bohol. What would be your other favorite Visayas destination and one that would give us a broad taste of PH diving?

Thanks again, Scott

[Kenr]

Scott, all of the places mentioned have great diving. Getting around the phil is slow. Dumeguette is very easy to get to from Alona. Alona to Moalboal is going to take a bit longer the ferry ride is almost an hour longer then you have a 2 to 2.5 hour ride to Moalboal.

Another option would be to sign up on the Seaquest Dive Safari. You get Moalboal, Apo, Siquijor and Alona. I can be done in 8 to 12 nights depending how long you want to spend in Moalboal and Alona. For me I would do 10 nights, 3 nights each Moalboal and Alona, fly back to Manila and do 3 or 4 in PG. Wow. Unfortuantely with the Safari you have to fit with there schedule.

I mentioned diving Anilao before for two reasons. One it is one of the top muck diving destinations in the world and two you are going to so close when you go to PG. You can even arrange a boat from PG to Anilao and stop off at Verde for a couple of dives