20 Jun 2024
Let’s start off with the island excursion. It was a phenomenal experience. I had to ensure it stayed a phenomenal experience the whole way.
We arrived at the port for our first water transfer. The captain would not leave port until we got a certain amount of passengers. We could either wait until we had enough people or pay for the seats and we can get going. As you know, you can take your chances with waiting and screw up your transfer at the other location. So, I paid the 2,000 pesos (about $35 USD).
The captain of the first leg says to me, I will see you at 4:30 for the transfer back. We arrived at the dock after the excursion around 4:25 and the boat had already left. Note, this was no fault of mine because the captain of the other boat dropped us off on the other side of the island and we had to literally rush back to the docks.
Left with waiting for another boat to fill up with people, our transfer host (Bembo) was able to get another captain to take us and we only had to pay 600 pesos ($10 USD).
Needless to say, be financially prepared to pay to get things moving along above what you paid for or wait and miss your connections and excursion.
There is a lack of a phone number to call if there is an emergency or issues on the trip. The agency worked through only the message app inside of the Viator app.
It looked like the agency stitched this together and relied on every independent agent to work together. It was not a seamless experience.