How long are you going for. Two weeks is barely enough with the travel times and if your going to more than one island your travelling while travelling and in the blink of an eye youll be back home at your dinner table or couch at 2 am in the morning wide awake ready to eat dinner. Man does the jet lag from this type of trip hang around for a while. I think two weeks later we were still struggling with time changes.
One thing to know about late Sept and October is typhoon season is still a threat. I dont know if I could handle it in August it was hot and humid when it was storming in October. What is typhoon season. Often its medium hard rain and 75 to 90 degree temps with winds. Ok Im from the NW we have our typhoon season it starts in October lasts till June often times temps never break 40 degrees and the rain comes down in buckets. We spent two weeks there in early October and landed in a typhoon that came and went through the trip. We got off the airplane and could barely see the tiny little airport from the rain coming down. Two dives we had scheduled were cancelled one was pretty rough right up until the moment you got below water. I wouldnt worry about this just be prepared for some rain and wind. All of our diving was close to shore.
Myself you can keep Cebu I have no desire to travel across the planet to be in an area with that much population but it has many things to offer. We stayed at one high class hotel while there. My cousins wife worked there, we got a discount $80 a night would have ran $400 a night where I live and the toilets didnt work there either ( thats another story you should probably hear about) You have got to visit Downtown Cebu at night if your there long enough. Travel in groups but for sure its something to see. I have never seen so many cars wizzing along in utter kaos withought crashes everywhere. I will tell you I had a lot of fun in Cebu but the city itself is overpopulated and hectic. And you should for sure encourage one of your group to get FROG ON A STICK something that we found all over the streets of CEBU. I still talk about frog on a stick.
We also spent time on Negros cousins wife is from San Carlos we toured a lot of the island dove from Sipaway a tiny little island near San Carlos, typhoon hit the night before, boat dive was not an option so we did a few shore dives which were decent given the vis was 20 to 30 feet tops. I suggest tht you hire a van to drive you around the island its really neat to see. We had about 10 people in our van took a full day trip across the island before flying out. I will go back to Negros for sure. We wanted to dive from Dumaguete but there was a serious threat to tourists on the southern end of the island when we were there, drug cartels and a number of local militant uprisings pushed many criminal elements into that area. Travel is slow traffic winding roads plan extra long for any travel times. I think the worst thing you could do on Negros is spend all of your time diving. And Im not saying that you shouldn’t be there to dive either.
Spent almost a week on Boracay when we left there and landed on Cebu I wanted to get back on the plane and go back to Boracay. I still want to go back there now. They closed this island for tourists a couple years ago but Im hoping its going to be back in action soon. Its on my short lists of places to go back to. The diving was good to great. Especially considering the storms that kept hitting us all the time.
Get your money exchanged at the airport at least enough to tip the locals who will be helping you with your transfers and gear, even if you dont want there help. We had local insight on tipping and costs, these are somethings you'll want to have an idea on. I overtipped way to often. Overtip and youll find four of them have snuck into your luggage and wont leave. Dont tip enough and you might need new gear. Theres a learning curve on how to deal with the local peddlers theres always someone trying to sell you something dont be upset with it embrace it and work with it youll probably want to buy things from some of them you dont have to be rude either 99% of them are entertaining and will leave you alone if you deal with them right.
Then theres dining. Something thats can be a challenge. Dont forget frog on a stick or Durian if youve got some brave people in your crew push that envelope a little at least until someone throws up or spits out what they just bit off. There is wonderful food and some unique food. We had a seafood feast on the beach in Boracay one night near the end of our stay. It was about $23 US a head my meal was two lobster tails half a dozen giant shrimp and a few side dishes. I actually felt guilty about eating a meal like this $23 whole dollars id eaten for less than $6 a meal this entire trip
But my favorite was in the seafood market where every possible critter from the sea was in buckets tanks tubs rack hooks strings. I can describe with great detail the visual but I can’t begin to describe the smells
If you have outgoing people eat dinner with them leave the boring ones back at the hotel. Eating out was every bit as enjoyable as the diving. Average meals ran us $3 to $6 US for nice meals. But your starbucks coffee will cost you about the same as it does in the US.
I dont know if you are carrying your own gear but id for sure bring my own mask computer and wetsuit. We had a couple of issues with our rental gear. Our trip was not dive specific carrying dive gear would have really hampered a lot of travel. In just over two weeks we visited 6 islands dove every chance the weather was good enough.
Ok Im rambling. I just booked a flight to Bonaire for my whole family. Im optomistic were headed back to the Phillipines in 2020 so it wasnt on the slate Ive already got regrets that Im not headed there.
