Philippines: Cebu, Bohol and Siquijor

Arrive in Cebu

Mactan-Cebu International Airport to your hotel in Cebu City

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Cebu City
• Environ 45 min de route

Matin

If you land early, rest after the flight or walk out for a coffee; the heritage sights wait for tomorrow morning, when the air is cooler.

Soir

In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week ahead: the ferries, what to pack for snorkelling, and how the days are paced. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner of Visayan dishes, from grilled fish and kinilaw, the local ceviche, to puso, rice cooked in pouches of woven coconut leaf.

Compris

• Pick-up at Mactan-Cebu International Airport (CEB)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner

Old Cebu on foot, Tops at sunset

Cebu City heritage quarter, then the Busay hills

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Cebu City
• Environ 1.5 h de route

Après-midi

We start at 8:30, before the heat and the midday crowds, at Magellan's Cross, planted by Ferdinand Magellan's expedition in 1521 and now kept in a small open chapel with a painted ceiling. Next door is the Basilica del Santo Niño, home of the Santo Niño de Cebu, the figure of the Christ Child the expedition gave to the island's queen and the oldest Christian relic in the country. A short walk brings us to Fort San Pedro, the small triangular stone fort the Spanish built by the harbour, then into the old Parian quarter for the Yap-San Diego Ancestral House, one of the oldest houses in the city, and Casa Gorordo, a 19th-century home of coral stone below and hardwood above. Lunch is lechon, Cebu's spit-roasted pig with its crackling skin. The afternoon is free to rest.

Soir

Before sunset we drive up into the Busay hills, past the Taoist Temple, to Tops lookout for the view over the city, the port and Mactan as the lights come on.

Compris

• Morning heritage walk with your guide: Magellan's Cross, the Basilica del Santo Niño, Fort San Pedro, the Yap-San Diego Ancestral House and Casa Gorordo Museum, with entries
• Lechon lunch in Cebu City
• The Taoist Temple and Tops lookout at sunset

Down the coast to Moalboal and the sardines

Cebu City to Carcar, then across the island to Moalboal

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Moalboal
• Environ 3 h de route

Après-midi

Lunch is a sit-down meal by the water. After a rest through the hottest hours, a local guide leads us into the sea from the shore with masks, fins and life jackets. A short swim out, where the reef drops away, a shoal of sardines so dense it darkens the water turns and folds just below the surface, and green sea turtles graze in the shallows. The shoal has stayed off this coast for years, but it is wild, so nothing is promised.

Soir

The evening is free: watch the sun go down behind Negros across the Tañon Strait.

Compris

• Coffee stop in Carcar
• Sit-down lunch in Moalboal
• Sardine run snorkel from Panagsama Beach with a local guide, mask, fins and life jacket

Activités en option

• A dive on the sardine shoal with a local dive centre (price shown at booking)

Kawasan Falls before the crowds

Moalboal to Kawasan Falls in Badian and back

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Moalboal
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

We leave at 8 am for the half-hour drive south to Badian and walk in to Kawasan Falls, about 20 minutes on a path beside the river, ahead of the canyoneering groups who reach the falls from late morning. The Kawasan River runs over limestone, which gives its pools their milky blue colour. The first tier is the largest: a wide plunge pool under a curtain of water, where you can swim or sit on a bamboo raft pulled under the spray. Quieter pools and smaller cascades are a short climb upstream.

Après-midi

We swim, rest in the shade and have a sit-down lunch in Badian, then head back to Moalboal by early afternoon. The rest of the day is yours. Snorkel the reef off Panagsama again, take a massage, or hire a boat to Pescador Island, a small rocky islet offshore with a coral wall. For the keen, canyoneering down the river from upstream is an optional half day that ends at the falls, where you join the group for lunch.

Compris

• Kawasan Falls with your guide: entry, the main pool and the upper pools
• Bamboo raft at the main pool
• Sit-down lunch in Badian

Activités en option

• Badian canyoneering with a licensed local outfit, about 4 hours of swimming, scrambling and optional jumps down the river to Kawasan (price shown at booking)
• Boat trip to Pescador Island for snorkelling (price shown at booking)

Ferry to Bohol

Moalboal to the Cebu City pier, fast ferry to Tagbilaran, then Panglao Island

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Panglao
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Après-midi

After a sit-down lunch near the pier, your guide handles the tickets and porters take the bags onto the fast ferry to Tagbilaran, the capital of Bohol, a crossing of about two hours. Our Bohol van meets us at the pier for the half-hour drive over the bridge to Panglao Island, where we stay three nights, and we reach the hotel in the late afternoon. Unpack: there is no more packing until day 8.

Soir

The evening is free. Walk to Alona Beach for the sunset and the seafood grills, where you choose your fish from the ice and it is cooked while you wait, or rest after the road and the sea.

Compris

• Drive from Moalboal to the Cebu City pier with your guide
• Sit-down lunch in Cebu City
• Fast ferry from Cebu City to Tagbilaran, with porterage
• Transfer to your hotel on Panglao

Chocolate Hills, Loboc and the tarsiers

Panglao to the Chocolate Hills in Carmen, then Bilar, Loboc and the tarsier sanctuary in Corella

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Panglao
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Après-midi

Most Bohol countryside tours see the tarsiers first and reach the Chocolate Hills in the afternoon, so we run the loop the other way. We leave at 8 am and drive about an hour and a half inland to Carmen, where more than 1,200 grassy limestone mounds, most of them 30 to 50 m high, roll away to the horizon. In the dry months the grass turns brown, which gave the hills their name. A stairway of a little over 200 steps climbs to the viewing deck. Heading back, the road runs through the Bilar man-made forest, a stretch of tall planted mahogany that shades the highway. Lunch is on the Loboc River, aboard a floating restaurant that drifts about an hour upriver past nipa palms and villages and back. Mid-afternoon we reach the Philippine Tarsier Foundation's sanctuary in Corella, where tarsiers live free in a fenced patch of forest. Rangers point them out on their daytime perches while we keep voices low and cameras without flash. We are back on Panglao by about 5 pm.

Compris

• Chocolate Hills Complex in Carmen and the viewing deck
• The Bilar man-made forest
• Lunch cruise on the Loboc River
• The Philippine Tarsier Foundation sanctuary in Corella with a ranger

Activités en option

• Stand-up paddle boarding on the Loboc River with a local outfit (price shown at booking)

Balicasag reef and a free afternoon

Panglao to Balicasag Island by private boat, then back to Alona Beach

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Panglao
• En bateau

Après-midi

Back on Panglao around 1 pm, we sit down to lunch by Alona Beach. The afternoon is free, and it is meant to be: swim and read on the white sand, take a massage, or hire a tricycle to Hinagdanan Cave, a small cave with a freshwater pool lit through holes in its roof, and the old church at Dauis by the bridge.

Soir

Dinner is your choice, and the seafood grills along Alona are a short walk from the hotel. Divers can swap the snorkel for a dive on the Balicasag wall.

Compris

• Morning on a private boat for the group to the Balicasag Island marine sanctuary
• Sanctuary fees, snorkel gear and life jackets
• Sit-down lunch by Alona Beach

Activités en option

• Scuba dive on the Balicasag wall with a local dive centre (price shown at booking)

Fast ferry to Siquijor and the island loop

Panglao to the Tagbilaran pier, fast ferry to Siquijor, then the coast road to Lazi, Cambugahay Falls and Paliton Beach

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Siquijor
• Environ 3 h de route

Après-midi

We land in Siquijor town, where the coral-stone church of St Francis of Assisi stands a few steps from the pier, and sit down to lunch. Then our local van takes the coast road: the old balete tree in Lazi, its roots over a spring-fed pool where small fish nibble your feet; the church and great wooden convent at Lazi, built by the Augustinian Recollects in the 1800s; and Cambugahay Falls, three tiers of turquoise pools down a forest stairway, for a late-afternoon swim.

Soir

We finish at Paliton Beach for sunset, then share a farewell dinner. If the ferry runs late, we change the order of the loop and keep the swim and the sunset.

Compris

• Fast ferry from Tagbilaran to Siquijor, with porterage
• St Francis of Assisi Church in Siquijor town
• Sit-down lunch in Siquijor
• The island loop by van with your guide: the old balete tree, Lazi church and convent, and Cambugahay Falls
• Sunset at Paliton Beach
• Farewell dinner

Back to Cebu

Siquijor to Cebu City by fast ferry via Tagbilaran, then Mactan-Cebu International Airport

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

A slow morning: swim off the beach before breakfast while the water is flat and the light is low, or take a last coffee looking out to sea. After breakfast we drive to the pier in Siquijor town for the fast ferry back to Cebu City, which calls at Tagbilaran on Bohol on the way: about four to five hours on the water in air-conditioned seats, with your guide handling the tickets and porters the bags.

Après-midi

From the Cebu City pier our van takes you to Mactan-Cebu International Airport (CEB), about 45 minutes to an hour in traffic, arriving in the afternoon. Your guide sees you to the terminal and checks your onward flight before saying goodbye.

Soir

Book your flight home from Cebu to leave after about 8 pm, or stay a night longer in Cebu; we can add a hotel night if you ask. The sailing time is confirmed with your final itinerary, and if a scheduled flight from Dumaguete to Cebu suits your date better, we tell you before you travel. For more beach time, ask us to add a second night on Siquijor or extra nights on Panglao.

Compris

• Fast ferry from Siquijor to Cebu City via Tagbilaran, with porterage
• Transfer from the Cebu City pier to Mactan-Cebu International Airport (CEB)