We thought we’d seen quite a bit of the Philippines in the past 6 weeks. Until we found out that there are actually 7107 islands… of which we’ve now visited 5 (Bohol, Cebu, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Panay, Palawan). That puts things in perspective Even though we have only seen a small portion of this amazing country, I’m very glad we went. The Philippines is a great place to visit with kids and it will remain on our bucket list. There’s so much to see and do!

Map of our trip in the Philippines

Manila: start of our trip

We started our trip in MANILA, where we arrived on Friday November 13th and only stayed for one night. Our first impression wasn’t very favourable, but we later discovered we didn’t stay in the best part of town, so that might have been at least one of the reasons. Then we caught a flight to Tagbilaran on BOHOL.

Alona Beach, first glimpse of the famous Philippine beaches

We stayed in a very nice apartment in Alona Beach, owned by a Dutch guy, for almost a week. We rented a motorbike and discovered a bit more of Bohol, like a very nice waterfall. The beach at Alona wasn’t like any of the picturesque ones you always see of Philippines, but it was nice anyway with really fine sand. The apartment was within easy walking distance of the beach and Jace enjoyed playing in the water. We each did two dives at Balicasag island and one dive each with the owner of the apartment we rented. Unexpectedly food turned out to be quite expensive. Most of the places serve western food and prices for a main course are often 250 pesos (5 euros) or more. There are a lot of things to do on Bohol, but the Chocolate Hills were green instead of brown at the time we were there and we’d already seen Tarsiers up close in Tangkoko NP in North Sulawesi, so we decided to take it easy and in one place for a bit.

Island hopping from Bohol to Cebu

At some point we booked a flight out of Iloilo to go to Puerto Princesa on the 16th of December, so we planned to do some island hopping to get there. We took the ferry from Tagbilaran to CEBU and went on directly to Moalboal. A place that is famous for good diving. There we stayed at Sisters Inn, which funnily enough was again owned by a Dutch guy. We swear we didn’t know upfront! Our first two nights we spend at Sea Turtle House near White Beach, but it was too far away from everything. So we moved to Sisters Inn (read our review of Sisters Inn) in the Panagsama area. The owner and staff were really friendly and we enjoyed our stay there. We rented a motorbike and went to the nearby Kawasan waterfall, which was very busy with local tourists (makes sense on a Sunday) but with beautiful clear turquoise water. I wish we’d known there are many other waterfalls on Cebu as well, I’d have loved to see some more. We also did a few dives there with Cebu Dive Center. The dives were nice, especially the ones at Pescador island, but not spectacular. Diving wise we’re really getting spoiled. The beach at Panagsama wasn’t anything special, but good enough for one of us to entertain Jace while the other one went diving.

Amazing diving at the Dauin Coast on Negros Oriental

From Moalboal we caught a bus all the way down to the Liloan Port where we took a ferry to Dumaguete on NEGROS ORIENTAL. There we blew away a large chunk of our budget by staying 6 nights at Liquid Dumaguete in Dauin. A very nice dive resort and especially the dives on the Dauin coast are among our best so far. Lots of weird critters! You can also read our full review of Liquid Dumaguete. We also went to the famous Apo Island for a few dives, but apart from a lot of turtles on one of the dives and very healthy corals, we didn’t enjoy them half as much as the dives on the coast. We needed to extend our visas, so decided to move to Dumaguete for a few days. In Moalboal they told us it wasn’t such a nice city, but we actually quite enjoyed it.

Noisy, dirty Philippine cities: Bacolod and Iloilo

From Dunaguete we took a loooong bus trip to Bacolod, all the way to the north of the island in the province of NEGROS OCCIDENTAL. We had only three nights there and since renting a motorbike was quite expensive, we didn’t see much more than a bit of the city center and the mall. Apart from Dumaguete none of the Philippine cities we’ve seen so far really impress us, other than by how busy, noisy and dirty they are. From Bacolod we took another ferry to Iloilo on PANAY island. We only had two nights there, so apart from using the hotel swimming pool, walking around a bit and again visiting the mall, we didn’t really see much. We were happy to leave after our two nights there.

Palawan: world’s best island?

From Iloilo we took a flight to Puerto Princesa on the famous PALAWAN island. Palawan was voted no. 1 island in the world by Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers two years in a row. So obviously our expectations were quite high. We stayed at Citadel Bed and Breakfast, which was nice with a good swimming pool, but turned out to be a bit outside of the city center. We stayed there for 4 nights and visited Robinson’s Mall (within easy walking distance) quite a lot (Jace loved the electric carts and all the noise and lights at the game hall!). We would have loved to go to Coron but thought it a bit too ambitious with our little one. So, we’ll just have to go back one day

Wasting our time at the Underground River

We even tried to to a tour to the famous Underground River (you can also arrange your own underground river tour), but unfortunately that wasn’t such a success. Because of typhoon Melor, the sea was incredibly rough and access to the river had been prohibited by the coast guard a few days in a row. The day we booked they said we could go, but after 1,5 hours in a minivan which drove the narrow winding roads with incredible speed (causing our little one to loose his breakfast on the back seat) and 1,5 hours wait the verdict was that we couldn’t go after all. A waste of time. If you’re traveling with small children, make sure you check in advance. We could have saved Jace a nightmare ride!

El Nido: a slice of heaven

On the 20th we had another looong ride ahead of us, which we decided to do by minivan. El Nido is only about 270km away from Puerto Princesa, but it takes over 5 hours to get there. The scenery on the way was quite beautiful though. Jace was a bit sick, so he spend most of the trip sleeping or hanging around on our laps. Which was fine by us. After hearing all the stories about beautiful El Nido I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Our accommodation at Just Inn was one of the cheapest we could find online (22 euro, including breakfast). The Philippine owner and his family are very attentive and the place is clean, but Jace was really not enjoying the cold shower. The town is a bit dirty and rundown and although the view from the beach towards all the islands is breathtaking, El Nido beach and nearby Corong Corong beach aren’t very spectacular. And the food is really expensive, much more so then in the other places we’ve visited so far.

Nacpan Beach and Duli Beach: Palawan paradise!

After a motorbike trip to Nacpan beach and Duli beach we started to understand the attraction of El Nido a bit better. There’s a big difference between El Nido province and El Nido town. A private island hopping tour the day before we left made it even more clear that El Nido was a place we might visit again, to go diving and definitely to stay at Duli Beach with Dutch couple Elma and Marnix who recently started Duli Beach Resort.

From El Nido we took a minivan back to Puerto Princesa, where we spend the night before taking a flight to Bangkok via Manila on the 28th. We had a great time in Philippines and are quite sure we’ll be back one day, but New Years Eve we’ll be celebrating in one of our favourite cities, Bangkok! Can’t wait for some nice Thai street food!




Booking.com

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Of course, there are fantastic high-end beach resorts with swimming pools and attached dive centers in Moalboal, Philippines. Sisters Inn doesn’t have any of that. What it does have is a very nice Dutch owner, lovely and very accommodating staff and good sized rooms with hot and cold shower at a very reasonable price. Check latest prices.

Prices at Hotel Sisters Inn Moalboal

The first night we spend in a fan room for 750 pesos, because a/c was not available. The fan room was good and cool enough at night, but because Jace still naps in the afternoon, we moved to an aircon room the next day. For the room with airconditioning and a nice balcony we paid 1000 pesos a night. Actually, we were out diving and the staff moved our stuff for us to our new room. Great service.

Location of Sisters Inn: close but not too close

The hotel isn’t on the sea-front, but only about 8-10 mins walk to the area where the restaurants are (Panagsama). You can also walk to the main road (about 3 minutes) and catch a tricycle to the other side of Panagsama from there for about 20 pesos. It’s not far away from the action, but just far enough to not be bothered by it at night. Moalboal city center is only a short tricycle ride away and will cost you about 50 pesos. You can rent a motorbike at the hotel for only 350 pesos a day. That’s one of the cheapest we’ve seen so far, and they are good and pretty new bikes.

Great flexibility and service

What we really liked about Sisters Inn was that they were very flexible. A mattress on the floor to put Jace’s travel bed on was no problem whatsoever. They didn’t charge us extra for it. Twice we wanted to stay another night, no problem. Leave our stuff in the fridge? No problem. Refill our water bottle from the big tank? No problem and we didn’t even have to pay for it.

Nice communal area to relax

We did feel that at 195 pesos the breakfast was a little bit overpriced, but it was a nice breakfast and we didn’t pay for our drinking water, so that kinda evened it out. A cup of tea was only 20 pesos, so we often went out for dinner and then had a tea back at the hotel. There’s a nice communal area where you can sit and relax and talk to the other guests if you feel like it. The staff loved to play with Jace and usually kept him entertained the whole time we were downstairs with him.

Pretty good wifi for the Philippines

If you’re in the aircon room with the balcony upstairs, like we were, you sometimes have a really weak wifi signal in the room (only on our laptop, not on our phones). More often you don’t have a connection at all. But in the communal area it’s usually pretty good, except when someone is watching an online movie or downloading a big file. Don’t expect high speed internet, but for the area it really isn’t bad.

Booking a room at Sisters Inn Moalboal

We tried to book a room through the Sisters Inn website, but although we received an automated email confirmation that they had received our request and would respond to it, somehow our request never made it through and we ended up having to call them. If you want to be sure of a room, give them a call or book a room at Sisters Inn through Booking.com.

All in all we would definitely recommend Sisters Inn if you’re planning a trip to Moalboal!

The post Review: Hotel Sisters Inn – Moalboal, Cebu Island, Philippines appeared first on FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com.

At 8:30 we left for our first dive at Pescador Island South where we saw some massive turtles and the second dive was a wall dive along the coast, where the colours were amazing. The coral is very much intact here and there are some really cool walls, which makes diving at Moalboal a pleasure.

Diving with a toddler

Wondering how we’re managing our diving with a toddler in tow? We’re taking turns! I did two dives yesterday, while Mau was staying with Jace and Mau did two today. Of course, it’s much nicer to dive together, but at least we get to dive this way. When we’re somewhere a bit longer or have a really good feeling about it (like in Bunaken) we’ll leave Jace with a sitter so we can go with the two of us. But that’s not the case here, so we’re taking turns. The great thing about diving is that there’s always a buddy to dive with

Diving at Moalboal: pictures speak louder than words

Instead of a big story, I’ll just show you some of the pictures I’ve taken here and you can see for yourself what the underwater world of Moalboal looks like. My camera kept fogging up because of the huge temperature fluctuations underwater, so they’re not my best pictures and unfortunately I couldn’t photograph the ghost pipefish (but I did see it!) but they’ll still give you a good first impression.

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