Our Two Week Phillippines Winter Holiday Itinerary

My family and I recently chose to spend our Christmas vacation in the Phillippines. The reasons were random and probably wouldn’t be yours: our daughter was traveling the world (in Vietnam right before this time) and my husband had lived in the Phillippines for two non-consecutive years as a child still with family friends and was curious to go back, oh and also in December and January the Phillippines weather is in the high 80s and the rainy season is technically over.

Since I found relatively little on the web about travel to the Phillippines, I’m going to bless you with our full itinerary/experience:

Day 1 & 2 — download esim card/fly to Manila

Downloaded Airalo esim app to have data connection in between hotel wifi. Flew nonstop on Phillippine Airlines from SFO to Manila.

Experience: The airline got us there and back on time and served a lot of food (albeit at weird times). Airalo esim worked great $4.50 for 1 gig which was plenty even with navigation for 7 days. However, esim doesn’t work with older phones and it is apparently a giant administrative pain involving forms and a delay to get a real sim card in the Phillippines so we just paid a fortune for extra Verizon on that one–it was almost worth it to have one real phone number for one time passcodes.

Hindsight: United Airlines covers the same route. Fly them instead and get the frequent flyer miles and a lot more customer service (even though it’s UA). Nothing was clear in advance and kept taking our seat assignments away. PA website was hell. If you can splurge, fly business class–you get to stretch out on an actual mattress.  Also, while Airalo esim app was great, Nomad esim app seemed to work equally well for our daughter and was even cheaper.

Day 2 -4–stay in Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel

Arrived 5:30am Manila. Stayed in Bayleaf Intramuros Hotel inside the old Spanish walled city.

Experience: lovely hotel. Very soft landing for a tourist because you can walk around Intramuros and its also walking distance from Rizal Park on Manila Bay and the major museums (think DC Capitol Mall feels in that part). Strong breakfast buffet included. Gorgeous rooftop deck with sunset view potential with first-world priced (but also first-world taste plus good Filipino choices) food and drinks.

Hindsight: since the hotel room prices are NOT first world, do book extra day so you can check in right away after early arrival; do NOT expect great service from the desk, still wrangling with them over an overcharge. But in general, highly recommend Bayleaf. For better or worse, we were very insulated from “real Manila” in Intramuros.

Day 3–day trip to Quezon City with friends

Took a day trip to Ayala Mall TriNoma in Quezon City to reconnect over lunch at Mesa Restaurant with family friends. We did it on Grab App — the Asian rideshare.

Experience: Grab is cheap and the best way to get around, especially in Metro Manila. Do take any opportunity to connect with real people any time you travel. That will be some of the most important and impactful time you’ll have. This trip was no exception. According to the e-book How to Have Fun in Manila by Jennie Santos, Quezon City is the “hipster” part of Metro Manila (which is made up of multiple cities, including this one). Jennie said, think “Portland, Oregon.” I guess this is because of the huge University of the Phillippines Diliman which dominates the area. We, however, saw no sign of hipsterism, perhaps because we met in the Ayala Mall TriNoma–a disturbingly first-world mall but with lots of businesses you’ll never see in the US so that made it an easy place to navigate less than 24 hours after arriving. Mesa Restaurant, although a chain, was some of the best Filipino food we had and was so affordable. We looked for other Mesas (because we were told they were consistent and reliable, most chains aren’t reportedly) but never had the opportunity to try it again.  We also walked over to one of the Phil-Am (Phillippine-American) housing developments nearby in which my husband’s family had lived. That was also fun and different but totally unique to us.

Hindsight: no second-guessing here. This was a great day trip and the right time in the trip and the right day (Saturday) of the week to travel across the often gridlocked city.

Evening 3 — Walking trip to Chinatown

Experience: Both Jennie in the How to Have Fun in Manila and our travel agent Harsh suggested Chinatown. Manila has the oldest Chinatown in the world and it’s right outside of Intramuros where we were staying. So the 4 of us walked over to it at the end of our day for dinner.

Hindsight: It’s only a 20-minute walk but it is dicey in parts in the evening–a lot of unlit corners with vehicles zipping around (often they’re Jipneys or Tuk-Tuks–see Jennie’s book–instead of cars).  The part where you cross the river is gorgeous at night, well-lit, people eating. In hindsight, should have just stopped there and eaten and people watched.  Instead, we crossed over to Chinatown and had a meh dinner on what was supposed to be a thriving corridor — Carvajal Street–but turns out that it only thrives during the day so everything was closing up and then we couldn’t get a Grab back and had to walk through sketch again. In fairness, if Jennie gets any point across in her book it is don’t walk at night in Metro Manila but I thought since we were near Intramuros it’d be fine. And we didn’t meet with any mishap. I intended to try it again in daytime when we got back but it didn’t happen.

Day 4 — Manila to Panglao, Bohol on Air Asia

Took Bayleaf arranged transit from our hotel to NAIA (Manila Airport) flew Air Asia from Manila to the province of Bohol.

Experience: Had to wait hours for Air Asia flight to take off. Didn’t get to sit together. None of the terminals at NAIA seem especially comfortable for waiting. Air Asia failed to communicate with us as far as I could see but it might have been because I didn’t have a conventional phone number. Once on the plane, it was fine.

Hindsight: unless you’re arriving at 5:30am from an overnight flight or going for a day trip somewhere, or just in the middle of nowhere save tons of money by taking Grab instead of a hotel-arranged trip.

Days 4-6 — Amorita Resort and Alona Beach in Panglao, Bohol

stayed at the Amorita Resort in Alona Beach, Panglao, province of Bohol.

Experience: unless you just want to save a bunch of money, I doubt there’s a better place to stay in Alona Beach, or most anywhere. Gorgeous beach resort, which, unlike many, is right in town so you get the best of both worlds: infinity pools right on the ocean, privacy, top-level service, and beautiful accommodations, with a great public (Alona) beach right next to the property and a town with some wonderful restaurants and decent shops to walk around in.  We paddle-boarded, kayaked and snorkeled, an hour per person was included in the stay. We also paid a little bit more to parasail right on the beach nextdoor–SO worth it! Plus enjoyed the free Christmas Eve festivities and hanging out by the gorgeous pools or in our delightful rooms (our “Pool Villa” had a private pool–a first!).

In Alona Beach, a short walk from the hotel we had a couple of standout meals as a family:

Jose’s Panglao BBQ — outstanding Filipino food mostly great pork, as usual, but also a lovely rice veggie dish.

Bougainvillea Spanish Restaurant and Wine Bar — yummy tapas while waiting for delicious paella. I had a great salad too.

Chada Resto Bar — this mostly vegan was extremely happy with a quinoa avocado tofu salad here one day–not run of the mill, excellent.

Massage:  fantastic thai massages at Getaway Spa in Alona Beach–maybe best I’ve ever had and probably cost $6 a person for full hour.

oh, Google Maps–this is probably as good a time as any to remind/inform you that Google Maps while still great for navigating is virtually useless as a guide to restaurants and activities unless other people have already used it and rated those restaurants and activities. And in the Phillippines, they mostly haven’t except in high foreign tourist areas like Alona Beach. And even then, 30 reviews might be a lot. Anyway, the reviews were right in the case of these 3 restaurants above.  If you’re curious, the most common white foreign tourists seem to be Australian (not surprisingly, only a 5-hour plane ride).  A fair number of Japanese and then of Americans, wildly likely to be Filipino-American of mixed Euro-Filipino American families.

Hindsight: If you stay at Amorita, maybe skip eating anything but breakfast. Maybe if we had liked steak or tried the tapas (which did seem highly rated) we would have liked the food better at Amorita. The included breakfast buffet was very good but the lunch items took forever to be prepared and were not particularly worth waiting for, especially at resort prices.  We made the right call by skipping the fancy Christmas eve meal (which they tried to make it sound like we had to do but we didn’t) — all the restaurants in town seemed to be open and there were lots of other affordable and better options. Unfortunately, I picked this time to second-guess a modest number of Google reviews of an Indian restaurant called Bollywood. After a marvelous cauliflower appetizer, the rest of the meal rolled far downhill.  See Google above.

Note on weather: Although the rainy season was technically over, there was plenty of rain on the whole trip. The Apple weather apps seemed to be virtually useless in country for predicting anything. What we quickly banked on was this:

a)  it was always warm enough to do pretty much anything you wanted.  The air and water were warm

and b) the rain pretty reliably confined itself to the afternoon and occasionally bled into the evening.

Day 6 — Ferry and Car to Moalboal, Province of Cebu

Experience: this was a long day of travel, but a lot of coastline to see and it all went well. A short drive from Amorita to the, gulp, 6:30am ferry. 2 hour of pretty diesel-inhaling ferry (including a bunch of waiting to ferry to and from the ferry)– but pretty if you stuck your head out the window. About 3 hour drive along the coast from ferry beach (not a terminal, very low key) to Wild Orchid Hotel.

Good time in the car for family game of Third of a Ghost (note to family (who is not reading this) — yes, “pig” is a variation and, yes, “super ghost” is a variation, so there!

Hindsight: wear/bring a bandana/mask for all those boat/ferry trips (and, while we’re at it for any trips on the little Tuk-Tuks)–SO much exhaust.

Days 6-8 — Stay at Wild Orchid Resort in Moalboal–Canyoneering & Snorkeling

Experience: I really loved Wild Orchid Resort — it was really more my speed than some of the other accommodations. Nice clean rooms but not fancy. Right on the beach but pretty low impact. The manager was friendly and helpful but not obsequious. No breakfast included but a solid kitchen with a solid affordable menu, everything we had was quite yummy, eaten outside in a nice small slightly protected from coastal elements dining room. Good a booking day trips and communicating.

Hindsight: there’s a kinda bumpy dirt road from the main road to the resort which is a bit much for a non 4wd vehicle and downright ludicrous for a Tuk Tuk carrying 4 passengers. But I found out on the last day that if you walk it, it’s lovely with flowers etc and just feels like a nice path, not a bad road. I wish I had known that sooner because its less than 10 minutes to the main road and then the main road is a nice walking place too with locals and rural delights.

We had 2 lovely day trips while there:

Daytrip 1: Canyoneering Kawasan Falls

Experience:  — this is a must but it is a very full and active day. About an hour in a Tuk-Tuk to get to our guides. Then more time with guides on scooters to the canyon. Then more time strapping on helmets, lifevests, and water shoes and being oriented. 

 

Then ziplining or walking to the start. Then walking, jumping, diving, and dipping for 2-4 hours along a gorgeous gorge with multiple waterfalls. Going backward over the waterfalls was terrifying but great. Our guides seemed especially smart, able, and creative about getting us downriver. At one point we were offered a choice of swimming under some rocks and through a little tunnel to bypass a big long backlog of people–we thoroughly enjoyed the “Seeya, Suckers!” option.

Hindsight: Bill and I skipped the ziplining at the beginning because we’d had enough ziplining in our lives and were eager to walk.  In retrospect, since we had to wait for the kids to wait in line to zipline to us, I wish we had ziplined. Also, there turned out to be quite enough walking and exercise and we didn’t really need extra.

At first, I thought it was overkill that we had 4 guides for 4 hardy people (2 in their 20s) but, um, that’s pretty much what it required to keep us safe and, ahem, take lots of great photos and videos. Bill and I might have been the oldest people in a huge throng we passed through along the canyon.  Since I have some knee trouble going downhill, they were very attentive to me as we walked down long slippery rock steps, even though those often had railings. Towards the very end I slipped and fell skinning my leg painfully — fortunately, I didn’t twist or sprain anything and we only had about another 30 minutes of activity ahead of us. But I’m very glad they helped me after that. One of us had blisters from walking in Keenes. One of us had to get our regular sneakers wet but that seemed to be fine.

Moalboal Daytrip 2: Snorkeling with Sardines and Turtles (but not whale sharks)

Experience: The next day we had a little 1-hour adventure where the boat came right up to Wild Orchid to get us — such a plus! And then a short jaunt down the coast to jump right into a huge “family” of sardines (that’s what they’re called, I now know). So fun to be amongst that many shimmering fish doing all their simultaneous turning and churning — how much of it was to get away from the giant mammals in fins, I’ll never know.

There were rumors of whale sharks but I think would have been a longer boat ride and none of us were up for it.  There were, however, sea turtles, or at least one sea turtle to play around.

Our arrangement was a private boat btw for the snorkeling so we could turn back whenever we wanted.  We had arranged to stop at the white sand beach on the way back.

Hindsight: knowing what we know about the weather had we gotten started a little earlier we could have sunbathed on the beach, as it was it started raining at the end of our snorkeling and we hightailed it back. My daughter and I asked to be dropped off at a random (not white sand) beach and had a little adventure making our way back to the hotel.

Moalboal Hindsight: The only downside to Wild Orchid is its distance from town. I prefer someplace to walk around. However, I looked up its parent Blue Orchid Resort and it seemed very similar. Both beautiful, friendly, low to the ground but far from town. We never really went to the more touristy part of town, just stopped on the way to the falls for 7/11 ATM (the only ATMs that worked for us anywhere were in 7/11s btw) so we don’t even know if it would have been better to be near town.

Day 8 — Transit to Manila and then to Sonya’s Secret Garden

Experience: oh wow, talk about a long day. Super early 3-hour car ride to Cebu Airport. 2 hours to wait for flight. 1.5 hour flight to Manila (also on Air Asia, this time on time and Cebu Airport is way nicer than Manila Airport). Then 3 hour drive to Sonya’s Secret Garden.

Hindsight: it became a 4 hour drive because I had a cold and decided to stop at a pharmacy to find Afrin. That worked but there was a loooong line. Always pack Afrin lol.

Days 8 & 9 — Sonya’s Secret Garden and Taal Lake

Experience: Sonya’s Secret Garden was called to my attention by my friend Naomi Warden, a former make-up artist who did a wedding there a few years back. It really is special. Our private cottage aptly named after the flower (and my husband) “Sweet William” had 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, was truly delightful. Two meals a day were included in the room. Great staff. Massages, other spa treatments, an acupunturist and herbalist onsite, homemade/jarred sauces and salves.  Beautiful landscaping, flowers.  You can tell it would be a perfect place for a wedding.  They DO everything wedding.

Hindsight: Sonya’s website promises that its a place to do nothing, which invited me but startled a couple of family members. It promises fairly correctly. The main thing to do at Sonya’s is be at Sonya’s and unlike other hotels in the Phillippines that I encountered, they’re not particularly accommodating about getting you out or away from Sonya’s.  And btw, there IS a Sonya. She is a powerful (some of my tribe even though cultlike) force on campus. All the staff is like “Sonya says this, and Sonya recommends that, and Sonya doesn’t like that.” Which made for much amusement with our gang. Also the food is much vaunted but maybe because it was at the end of the trip or maybe because we just had better food elsewhere didn’t particularly impress us.  Don’t get me wrong, the buffet is MASSIVE and has a lot of choices (it’s out all day — you get to eat there twice). Nothing on that buffet was particularly impressive though including perhaps the breads which were much discussed. It was all included though and we were happy for it.  And it was all in a stunning dining room.

Experience: Taal Lake — the whole reason we found Sonya’s was to be near Taal Lake which is this stunning active volcano with a lake around it.  The volcano is both under and over the lake! However, there’s really no accommodations right on the shores of the lake (we knew that). And right now there’s also really no safe way to climb on the volcano or go over to the land part of the volcano and there’s been all kinds of flooding and evacuation.  Nevertheless, there were incredible views from right around the corner from Sonya’s and while I recuperated from an illness, the rest of my family was driven (by a car set up by Sonya’s) over to other views and to the lake itself. They had a nice day trip.

Hindsight: Had we known more about how little was possible to see or do near Taal Lake, we might have just taken our travel agent’s advice and done a combined day trip or two day trips with/to another waterfall from Manila.

Day 10: day trip to Hidden Valley Springs on the way back to Manila

Experience: Our travel agent had arranged for a guide from Manila to pick us up at Sonya’s Secret Garden and a day trip to Pagsanjan Falls (which sounds amazing). But apparently the water level was too high to approach the falls safely, so we allowed ourselves to be rerouted to Hidden Valley Springs. It was a beautiful drive from Sonya’s to Hidden Valley.  We arrived in time for a nice lunch (which, despite the name, did not involve ranch dressing), then changed into bathing suits in their lovely but over-airconditioned changing rooms. The women’s room came with a large inflatable pizza slice! Then we got our choice of at least 6 warm (not hot) spring-filled beautiful pools outdoors with waterfalls. It’s all naturally occurring but there’s hardscaped pools with sand bottoms and landscaped paths around them. You can walk about a 1/2 mile to get to a waterfall with a pool that’s just in a river and all natural. We did that and enjoyed having the posted little man watch us jump around in a deep natural pool for a while. That one was not “warm” the way the warm pools were, except that if it were in California it would be the warmest body of water in the state.

I’d highly recommend this day trip if you’re in the general area. Which, unfortunately, probably means a 2.5 hour drive to and from Manila or somewhere else (although note that you CAN stay in Hidden Valley Springs, it’s a resort. We did not look at the rooms or the prices).

Day 10-11: Stay at The Manila Hotel in Rizal Park

Experience: This hotel, which calls itself the first 5-star hotel in Manila, is pretty impressive. For a regular middle-class American, it’s an opportunity to have a 5-star experience without what we would call a 5-star price (of course that would probably be true of any 5-star hotel in Manila)–for us it was around $100 a night to stay in this special place. It made me realize that I may never have stayed in a 5-star before and it was special–everyone in fancy uniforms, gorgeous lobby all decked out for New Year’s Eve. Plus, as my husband pointed out, the free included brunch alone would have probably cost $75 a person in a US hotel. So I can’t compare this hotel to other 5-star hotels, but I can say that it impressed me. It’s right on Manila Bay. It’s right on Rizal Park. And the staff, despite being stressed to the max with New Year’s Eve was accommodating and helpful to us in covering our 5 or 6 hours between checking out and heading to the airport.

Hindsight: I do wish we had stayed in Makati for one of our Manila hotels just so we were in more of a real part of Manila. I’d probably only stay in either the Bayleaf Intramuros or The Manila Hotel but not both. Our travel agent had good suggestions that I’m sure would have been fine.

Our Travel Agent — Harsh with Asia Someday

Because I was daunted by planning my first trip to Asia, with a dearth of tourist info about the Phillippines, we took a friend’s recommendation and signed on with Asia Someday which specializes in creating experiences for people visiting India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Phillippines. Because we frequently questioned our travel agent Harsh Sonawala’s judgment and because he basically disappeared for a crucial 2-month booking period, at times it seemed like we could have done as well, and more cheaply on our own. Yet, Harsh did steer us to Amorita Resort, Moalboal, Wild Orchid, the canyoneering, Hidden Valley Springs all places that we wouldn’t have found on our own and also arranged lots of easy transfers from place to place. He also took a big cut on his commission to make up for the communication lapse. Plus he was very responsive throughout our trip. It’s much easier in hindsight to think we could have done it on our own but it seemed quite intimidating (yes, even to me) several months ago. On balance, I’m glad I had his knowledge and help and there are things I wish I had listened to more.