It's more fun in the Philippines Part 4 (Boracay Trip Day 4)

Day 4 in Boracay was actually just an hour of breakfast time in Boracay as our flight was scheduled at 1pm and we had made arrangement with the hotel to help us with airport transfer (taking van, boat, van to Caticlan) from 10am onwards. The day turned out to be a long long day of traveling... I wont really say its nightmarish, but really unforgettable.

Saying goodbye to Boracay

When we woke up in the morning, it was still drizzling outside. We stared at the beach for the last time,  it was quite deserted as many tourists were deterred from wandering around due to the wet weather. Although the hotel charged us 1000 php (500php/pax which P felt was expensive) for airport transfer, we were glad that one of their staff actually volunteered to go with us and helped us with the luggage. We could have handled our luggage on our own as it was just a small cabin luggage but it was still nice of him, it was a hassle to bring it up and down the boat, even though the boat was a more spacious one this time. Strangely, when we pack our luggage the previous night, it became more compact and it was just down to 8kg when we had it weigh at the airport. We did not have any issue with carrying our stuff on board and I was glad that P talked me out of carrying my usual cabin luggage which was bigger and would not have fitted into the cabin.

Okayyyy.. this is really quite worrying

It was really early when we reached the airport, more than 2h before we would start boarding. I was quite worried looking at the schedule of flights departing from Caticlan, as flights since the morning was delayed or canceled due to the rain. While we were waiting, the first flight from Manila finally arrived at noon, after about 4h of delay from schedule. The airport was full with waiting tourists, they were mostly foreigners. The waiting area was small but cleared quickly when a few more planes arrived from Cebu or Manila. Our scheduled time of boarding at 1.05pm came and passed, we were still waiting patiently as the flight before ours scheduled at noon managed to depart around 2pm, so the delay was eventually shortened to 1h-2h.

Our worst nightmare happened :(

However, what we were dreading really happened. At around 3pm, one of the staff announced that our flight is canceled due to some technical fault and we were rescheduled on another flight at 7pm from Kalibo. This is the first time I was affected by a flight cancellation, although I remembered reading from a forum it happened to someone flying to Caticlan just a week before our trip. We could not do anything except for accepting the new arrangement made by Cebu Pacific, they had a van ready to transport us to Kalibo airport, and it was a 2h ride from Caticlan airport. There was another family in the van with us, a foreign couple with a toddler and an infant. I really admire foreigners as they are much more adventurous compared to Singaporeans or Asian parents, they are more likely to bring their young kids to places like Boracay despite having to juggle with prams and screaming kids during transits Recently, I saw a comment made by one of my Singaporean friends about the complexity of traveling to Boracay, and she was saying she will only bring her kids there when they are much older. Her kids are mostly teenagers, by the way.

Rainy Boracay with the dark clouds, all these seemed so far behind us as we waited for our flight

We reached Kalibo airport by 5pm, re-checked-in at the counter and the waiting game started again. We were supposed to board the plane at 6.30pm, but once again, the time came and passed and flights were also delayed from what I could hear from the announcements. At 7.30pm, we were called to the counter again, and we were told that the plane we were supposed to board was still at Manila! Oh my... They had re-rediverted us to another flight and informed us that the new boarding time was at 8pm. I was quite skeptical by then as we had faced so much delays that day, it would only take us an hour to fly to Manila but we had already waited for more than 8h just to get on a flight. :( I was also feeling tired as Kalibo airport was much more crowded than Caticlan, there were many locals as well as foreigners, so it was quite noisy. Finally, at 8pm, I could not believe it when people started to queue to board the flight, but it really happened!

Boracay at its best. We were really glad to finally leave but we will be back someday, surely.

We felt really happy to be finally on board, it was still far from home but at least we were traveling instead of waiting and waiting. After reaching Manila, we still had to get a cab to bring us to Pasay, where we boarded a bus and traveled for two hours on the road before we got home after midnight. Sigh... It was really a long and tiring day spent on traveling. The beautiful beaches of Boracay seemed to be so far behind us when we finally reached home.

Previously, I had encountered problems when I wanted to change my flight itinerary on Cebu Pacific, but this was really my worst experience. When I got to tripadvisor the next day, I posted about my bad experience. Our plan was to travel to Boracay from Caticlan Airport as it was just next to the island, and we could save 2h of traveling on the road. However, there is tendency for the flight to get canceled due to bad weather conditions and there are many restrictions as the planes are smaller. Thus, I'll probably advise people to get there from Kalibo if they are ever going to Boracay. Other than redirecting us to another flight, they provided a Jolibee Chickenjoy dinner (one piece chicken+rice) which was already cold by the time we collected, but we were hungry so we finished it rather quickly. There was also a free one way domestic flight ticket which is valid for the next 180 days, but I doubt we will even use it.