{"id":35441,"date":"2024-06-08T14:04:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T06:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=35441"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:37:01","slug":"cebu-2024-day-01-arrival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2024\/06\/08\/cebu-2024-day-01-arrival\/","title":{"rendered":"Cebu 2024 – Day 01 – Arrival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our 11 days in Cebu is one of those trips where we did 99% of our planning months before travel, and thereafter did little else besides wait for the trip to begin. Of the 11 days, seven days would be on a private tour and we\u2019d already worked out a customised day-by-day itinerary. The remaining days before and after the private tour would be on our own \u2014 Free & Easy. So, we\u2019re keeping our options open at the moment. Who knows: by the time we\u2019ve finished our private tour, we might be so saturated with beaches, sun, and water that we might just be content to vegetate in our hotel and not do anything else!<\/p>\n

The flight from Singapore to Cebu International Airport was departing late morning and was uneventful. That we were departing late morning is less common for us \u2014 we’d been flying overnight flights for most of our other trips. We’d finished packing the night before, so we could take things pretty leisurely on our departure morning and ensure that everything was in good order and locked down at home before leaving.<\/p>\n

We landed at Mactan-Cebu International Airport<\/strong> with a flight time of under four hours at 2:40PM. Perhaps the only matter of note was that since the air turbulence incident on the SQ flight from London to Singapore a few weeks back, passengers on the flight were following seatbelt instructions more carefully. For example: 30 minutes from destination and just before the flight began its descent, the fasten seatbelt sign came on. The flight crew immediately went up and down the aisle asking everyone to belt up \u2014 and everyone complied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Blogging while 30,000 feet up in the air. The complimentary WIFI connection was much better than when on my last flight from Narita back home last Dec.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Real-time tracking of the flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019d already submitted our immigration and baggage declarations pre-departure through the Philippines\u2019 eTravel site several days back. And like our recent trips to Japan, we got QR-code declarations to show that made our clearance procedures really quick. Cebu itself isn\u2019t a big island, so in less than an hour after landing we were at our first hotel \u2014 the Radisson Blu Cebu.<\/p>\n

Unlike in the pre\u2013Google Maps era from 15 years ago, our traveling to new countries these days usually involves generously using Street View to get a visual sense of the surroundings, traffic, infrastructure, road and street conditions, etc. So, while this is our first trip to the Philippines \u2014 never mind Cebu itself \u2014 I’d already had a good sense of what the airport we were landing in and the area around the Radisson Blu Cebu would look like.<\/p>\n

This hotel is also, apparently, one of the better ones in the main Cebu city area, and sits opposite a decent-sized shopping mall with the usual range of F&B and retail outlets. Too bad we’d be just spending a night here before we check out on Day 02 to begin our seven-day private tour.<\/p>\n

Continued in the next post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our 11 days in Cebu is one of those trips where we did 99% of our planning months before travel, and thereafter did little else besides wait for the trip to begin. Of the 11 days, seven days would be<\/p>\n

Read More Cebu 2024 – Day 01 – Arrival<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[681],"class_list":["post-35441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-cebu-2024","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/blog-cebu-flight-map.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38208,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35441\/revisions\/38208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}