Most travelers from this part of the world though seem to visit Cebu for under a week, and many sign up for 3D2N tour packages that take them to the first five places in the list. Our travel period was a lengthy 11 days though, which meant we had plenty of time to work with. We didn’t want to try navigating the transportation system on our own in Cebu either, so from the onset we resolved to find a tour operator who could bring us on a customised 7-day tour that would cover all seven places, including Bohol \u2014 a large island near Cebu with its own charm and sites. Our basic itinerary would look like this:<\/p>\n
Day 1: Arrival into Cebu and exploration on our own
\nDays 2 to 8: 7D6N private tour for #1 to #7 above
\nDays 9 to 11: Exploring Cebu on our own and return home<\/p>\n
Our early research quickly showed that there is no shortage of tour operators who offer packages between 1 to 4 days covering the six places, or Bohol, but there were none that we found that had ready-made itineraries for 7 days. So, we reached out\/emailed\/messaged etc. to ten different operators who seemed to accept requests for customised private tours. Of the ten, only four replied and of these, three engaged with my requests for tweaks and sent us finalised quotations for a private 7D6N tour. The specific requests we had included that:<\/p>\n
- \n
- We wanted time of our own to chill on specific islands (specifically, Malapascua, and also Bohol)<\/li>\n
- We wanted to visit the rice terraces in Bohol \u2014 basically for me to do drone videography.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Of the three operators who finally sent along final quotations, the third and last to come in was significantly more expensive \u2014 by more than a thousand USD. So, nope. The first two seemed reliable operators and the quotations were in the same ballpark at about USD2,000. Moreover, one of our neighbors had engaged one of the two for her own family trip to Cebu last December for a 3D2N package. However, that operator wanted a 50% upfront deposit to what looked like a personal bank account. I’m pretty sure this operator was legit, but the risk exposure was a bit much for me to accept. The second operator requested (only) a 20% deposit to confirm the reservation, and the bank transfer was going to what was clearly a business bank account. So, we decided to go with the second operator, and confirmed the reservation in early March.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/blog-cebu-2024-itinerary-planned-01.png\")
<\/a>11 Days in Cebu, June 2024 [click for a larger version].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Time permitting, I might do a commentary of these places in a next post, alongside comments on the accommodations we’ve confirmed. More to come soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the point in time in January to the actual trip was a long five months in between. But with our decision to visit Cebu rather than Bali made and a broad itinerary worked out, we next went about contacting<\/p>\n