Mactan,Panglao or?

[crocman]

The Dragon Lady and I will be joined by our antipodean friends on another mini jaunt through SEA.Now we are notorious for our long range and thorough planning,and these days are not known for making spur of the moment choices.

We have more or less locked in our choices for stops in Singapore and Thailand but we are still to finalise our time in the Philippines.

We only plan a 2 night stop in Manilla and we are having 8 nights in Boracay but we are unsure about where next.We still have about 8-10 days up our sleeves and have been looking at may be splitting the time between Alona beach on Panglao Island and maybe Mactan Island or maybe somewhere north of Cebu like Malapascua Island.

We have been to the Philippines before but our Kiwi friends have not and these days are more flash packers than backpackers so that sort of narrows the choices a bit.

So basically we would appreciate any input that would help us make our choice,even suggestions of destinations not nominated here.

Thanks from crocman and the pointy tailed one.

[terry57]

Maybe somewhere north of Cebu like Malapascua Island.

These days are more flash packers than backpackers .

I have friends who frequent the Phils and they always go to Malapascua, they reckon its a fantastic spot. hope that helps.

Regards the flashpackers, these are the norm these days, the days of the junkie dreadlocked looser is long gone. One will encounter a few here and there but basically rubbish and cant survive on 30 baht a day like decades ago.

Have a good trip.

[draco888]

samal island

[crocman]

samal island

Looks very nice,but how is travel in Mindanao these days.Is it dodgy all over or just in Zamboanga?

[crocman]

Maybe somewhere north of Cebu like Malapascua Island.

These days are more flash packers than backpackers .

I have friends who frequent the Phils and they always go to Malapascua, they reckon its a fantastic spot. hope that helps.

Regards the flashpackers, these are the norm these days, the days of the junkie dreadlocked looser is long gone. One will encounter a few here and there but basically rubbish and cant survive on 30 baht a day like decades ago.

Have a good trip.

Malapascua does look good.As I said we are thorough planners so this trip is still about ten months away.But the good news is we've got ten days in LoS in a couple of weeks.So should help the time to pass.

[draco888]

Samal is no problem, just a short hop from Davao city. It's nowhere near the south.

samal island

Looks very nice,but how is travel in Mindanao these days.Is it dodgy all over or just in Zamboanga?

[draco888]

Pearl Farm Davao, Davao Philippines, Pearl Farm Beach Resort

http://http://www.pearlfarmresort.com/

samal island

Looks very nice,but how is travel in Mindanao these days.Is it dodgy all over or just in Zamboanga?

[beerlaodrinker]

Crocman
you havent said what you want to do when you get to either mactan or malapascua/Alona, if its diving and lazing around the beach all of those places are fine, from boracay fly to cebu, mactan beaches arent bad, but there are better ones and mactans also a bit pricey now, one advantage is its not all that far from downtown, malls etc, For Panglao/alona beach the fast cat ferry takes about an hour to get to tagbilaran on bohol then an easy 30 minute transfer to panglao, ive not been to Malapascua, but its been described to me as how boracay looked 20 years ago, i first went to boracay 20 years ago so it sounded alright , was in boracay 2 years ago but this time with a wife and kid and enjoyed it as well because it had been developed, some would argue overly but these days i prefer the flashpacking . If you do go to Malapascua its a bit harder to reach but you can get a taxi from cebu taking about 4 hours from what i can gather, hope this helps , and dont forget we want a trip report when you get back

[crocman]

Crocman
you havent said what you want to do when you get to either mactan or malapascua/Alona, if its diving and lazing around the beach all of those places are fine, from boracay fly to cebu, mactan beaches arent bad, but there are better ones and mactans also a bit pricey now, one advantage is its not all that far from downtown, malls etc, For Panglao/alona beach the fast cat ferry takes about an hour to get to tagbilaran on bohol then an easy 30 minute transfer to panglao, ive not been to Malapascua, but its been described to me as how boracay looked 20 years ago, i first went to boracay 20 years ago so it sounded alright , was in boracay 2 years ago but this time with a wife and kid and enjoyed it as well because it had been developed, some would argue overly but these days i prefer the flashpacking . If you do go to Malapascua its a bit harder to reach but you can get a taxi from cebu taking about 4 hours from what i can gather, hope this helps , and dont forget we want a trip report when you get back

Thanks for the advice Beery.I think we can fly to Tagbilaran on a domestic flight from Manilla which would cut down on travel time.We are hearing good things about Panglao and I can do some good dives from there.

It would be a shame however to get so close to Malapascua and be unable to do the thresher shark dive.Oh we'll if not this time maybe next.

As for Boracay we will be there for 8 nights.We love it there and I am looking forward to introducing our Kiwi friends to the place.

As for a trip report that's a deffo but as I said we are long range planners.So you will be getting a report on our trip to Kata first.

Cheers.

[crocman]

Pearl Farm Davao, Davao Philippines, Pearl Farm Beach Resort

http://http://www.pearlfarmresort.com/

samal island

Looks very nice,but how is travel in Mindanao these days.Is it dodgy all over or just in Zamboanga?

Thank you for the link Draco.The Dragon Lady is not as hard as makes out and is a bit nervous about going near Mindanao.
cheers

[wackyjacky]

Palawan & Coron. Most beautiful places in SE Asia I've seen. Just Google image them & have a gander.

[draco888]

Fair enough gotta keep the females happy and no point going if you can't relax. Probably similar level of danger as going to koh larn.

Pearl Farm Davao, Davao Philippines, Pearl Farm Beach Resort

http://http://www.pearlfarmresort.com/

samal island

Looks very nice,but how is travel in Mindanao these days.Is it dodgy all over or just in Zamboanga?

Thank you for the link Draco.The Dragon Lady is not as hard as makes out and is a bit nervous about going near Mindanao.
cheers