Although this was my first visit to the Philippines I can confidently say it won’t be my last. A huge surprise was just how close it is to Hong Kong. (My flight from Shanghai to HK was longer than the HK to Manila section.)
Flights to Boracay, despite being an easy 1 hour or so on a small jet prop plane, finish early afternoon so if you want to get there in one day plan an early morning or pre-lunch arrival into Manila.
I get the feeling that flights into Caticlan, which is the closest airport to the island, are notoriously unreliable – often being cancelled or re-routed to Kalibo which is around 90 minutes by mini bus down the road.
A dead giveaway is the flight crew collecting your return flight details as well as the name of the hotel where you will be staying, just in case there is a change of plans.
The runway in Caticlan is small and on our landing approach I could have sworn the wheels were mere centimeters from skimming the water’s surface as we found solid ground just in time. This means even the smallest irregularity in the weather is likely to impact on your flight.
Many hotels offer pickups which includes boat and transport to your hotel. Outside of this it seems all pretty organized and easy, the locals are a well oiled machine with fixed price motorbikes and boat tickets readily available. (nb. The motorbikes on Boracay are not fixed price – bargain hard but as usual try to be reasonable!!!)
