Travel

Fly to Bohol I had the hotel to arrange airport transfer for me. It was 500 PHP and the hotel returned the rest of my deposit at the check out. Our flight was 8:20am, we needed to check out and leave at 6:20am, too early for the hotel breakfast. The hotel prepared an egg sandwich and a bottle of water for each of us.  At the airport security, we were told that water cannot go in, so we drank the water there. At the AirSwift check in counter, our luggages weighted 10.4 and 10.6 kg each. I bought the value fare this time and only had free10kg check-in luggage per person, but they did not charge us. There was a card sign showing which flight they were boarding at the gate. We just waited for our flight. The AirSwift flight was delayed by 40 minutes. On this flight, we got water and a bag of chips, better than the AirSwift flight from Manila to El Nido which had water only.  We arrived Bohol at 10:40 am. I had arranged a private driver, Arniel, for the day in Bohol. At the exit of...

The meeting time for the tour was 8:45-9am, so we got up to have breakfast at 7:30, a bit later than the previous two days. The hotel offered breakfast buffet this morning. I booked this tour from KKday. I like KKday over Klook for several reasons.  Yesterday at the Klook check in, the person ahead of me was informed on the check-in spot that there was no Tour B on that day and he could switch to Tour A. This was unacceptably not professional to me. The KKday tour operator contacted me the day before on WhatsApp to confirm the details and made sure that I had environmental permits. Klook tour operator did not.  The KKday check in process was a bit nicer experience. At the KKday check in, there was no line, so it went quickly. There were long lines at the Klook check in place. At the KKday check in, there were chairs set up for us to sit when waiting for the boat crew. At the Klook check in, we had to sit on the ground. The lady at the KKday check in...

We had breakfast again at 7am. I booked this trip from Klook. It was 200 PHP per person cheaper than local rates. There was no free towels, so we packed a bottle of water and two beach towels.  We went to the Klook meeting spot at 8:10. There was a big crowd already. During the check in, I gave the lady the environmental fee receipts that we got the previous day. We were told that we would be on the boat Stingray 2. This happened to be affiliated with the Stingray Travel and Tours that we used yesterday. Then we waited for about 30 minutes before we went to the boat.  There were more than 25 people on the boat in this tour. The lady sat next to me was from Singapore and traveling with a group of her friends. They were all retired ladies. She said that they went to Tour A yesterday, just like us. While we had lunch on the boat yesterday, they had lunch on the beach. She did not like it though because they had to wade water and walk on reef rocks to get to the beach. The waves w...

Before the tour To prepare for the trip, I packed our water bottles, sunblock, cash, and my cell phone in the dry bag. I also packed change of clothes, which later turned out to be useless as there was no place to change. We have another bag for the masks and snorkels. We got up at 6:50am, put on our swimsuit, rush guards, and water shoes. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and waited at the lobby at 8am.  There was an orange tabby cat outside of the hotel, and we went to pet the cat. The cat really liked Claire. The hotel staff also pet the cat and told us that they used to have four cats, the big chow chow dog killed three cats. This cat survived with an eye injury, and only came here when the chow chow was away. The dog was so friendly to Claire yesterday, but apparently it was really hostile to cats. Our tour guide came at  8:40 and we walked to Stingray Travel and Tours. We picked up two towels, and put them in the dry bag. A young German couple came later. The guide t...