Philippines in Sept/Oct - Batangas vs Negros/Cebu (Puerto Galera vs Dumaguete)

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luckiePenguin

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Location
Chicago
# of dives
25 - 49
Greetings all!

I'm looking for some advice on narrowing down some dive ops for a group trip (nonprofit scuba shop) I've been handed the reins to plan. Some basics: most likely 10 - 20 divers (varied levels of exp) out of Chicago. We were originally planning last week of Aug 2019, to give people Labor Day weekend time to recover, but I'd rather not chance with possibility of typhoons affecting flights, related storms affecting diving, etc. This would be most likely everyone's first time diving this locale.

I'm thinking it might be better to focus more on September/October, if someone's been diving recently and could shed some light, that'd be fantastic. Also interested in biggest differences between the diving around Puerto Galera/Anilao (low chance of pelagics, correct?) versus Dumaguete/Dauin/etc. Went to DEMA this year & came home with a treasure trove of info, now just to narrow down some more. Batangas options are: Halo, ScandiDivers, Altamare; other side of coin are Kasai Village, Salaya, Magic Resorts. Atlantis is out of our price range, before anyone mentions (but it looks lovely, same with Pura Vida).

Many thanks in advance & happy to provide more info!
-Amy
 
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.
 
I really hope that you are not going to the Philippines from Chicago for a week, as this would be crazy IMVHO.

Both are great area. If you can get a direct I.e. non stop flight to Manila , Anilao and PG are great options. Anilao is a long three hour drive . Neither have big animals , but have superb macro.

Dumaguete is easily reached from Cebu international airport and has a mixture of excellent macro and amazing reefs at Apo Island. Kasai Village is on the main island of a Cebu and also has great diving. If you are only traveling for a week , then try if you can to fly into Cebu , which has a brand new airport and is within driving distance of the resorts in Maolboal.

To get a better picture of the resorts you mention above take a very good look at the TripAdvisor reviews and the Facebook pages of the resorts.

Best fishes x
 
One week in the Philippines is not going to give you much time for diving, especially if that includes travel time. If you do want to limit your time traveling in the Philippines I'd recommend going to Anilao or Puerto Galera (Sabang Beach). Travel time to Anilao is about 2 hours and to Sabang about 3.....this assumes you use a private transfer in either case (which I'd recommend considering the size of your group). Anilao is great for macro and Sabang for fish and coral.

Whichever you decide pick a dive shop/resort and get them to help you with accommodation and transportation arrangements. We went with Buceo Anilao and South Sea Divers in Sabang. Unfortunately the latter is out of business so we are going with Frontier Scuba for our next trip. You can search the Philippines forum for other recommendations. Have fun, it's a great country to visit and to dive in.
 
I would favor PG/ Anilao over Dauin.
My reasoning.
PG is going to please everyone with its abundance of coral reef sites. Anilao is excellent also and has excellent reef sites but is mostly known for its world class macro. With the large group in Anilao you could have a boat heading to wide angle sites and a boat heading to macro sites. One advantage of Anilao over PG is since it is typhoon season you don't have the chance of your transfer getting delayed due to sea conditions.
Dauin has excellent black sand macro and Apo Island for coral dives, but if your group wants coral over macro dives Apo might get tiring.
With Dauin and your short time frame you also loose an extra day for transit and no fly times.
 
Gracias, thanks all, appreciate what's been tried&true versus what dive ops are telling me (& will keep accepting advice!). I see most of you are against us being there one week, but unfortunately, that's the way it is. We historically have a hard time selling long-distance trips over a 10-day span, and we try to keep it in an affordable price range, especially since we're all traveling from a non-coast area.

. . . . I should clarify that our diving is 8day/7night, not the entire trip + flights being one week—silly scuber dervers! Most people will probably plan to arrive early or stay later to see some of the towns/sights (I for one plan to), so "vacation" could be up to 2 weeks, pending stay times. But the diving portion itself will strictly be with one resort for the 8D/7N period.
 
I would still go even if it was a few days short of what Id prefer it to be. Make sure you see as much above sea level as well, there is more unique life on land than in the sea. I like to think of it as the Discover channel thats playing 24/7 Cant say that about most the places Ive been.
 
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