Our 11 days in Cebu is one of those trips where we did 99% of our planning months before travel, and thereafter do little else besides wait for the trip to begin. Of the 11 days, 7 days would be on a private tour and we’d already worked out a customised day by day itinerary. The remaining days before and after the private tour would be on our own/Free & Easy. So, we’re keeping our options open at the moment. Who knows: by the time we’ve finished our private tour, we might be so saturated with beaches, sun and water that we might just be contended to vegetate in our hotel and not do anything else!
The flight from Singapore to Cebu International Airport was departing late morning and uneventful. That we’re departing late morning is less common for us – we’d been flying overnight flights for most of our other trips. We’d finished packing the night before, so could take things pretty leisurely on our departure morning and ensuring that everything was in good order and locked down at home before leaving.
We landed into Mactan-Cebu International Airport with a flight time of under 4 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 seat belt instructions. For example: 30 minutes from destination and just before the flight began its descent, the fasten seat belt sign came on. The flight crew immediately went up and down the aisle asking everyone to belt up: and everyone complied.
I’d already submitted our immigration and baggage declarations pre-departure through the Philippines’ 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’t a big island, so in less than an hour after landing, we were at our first hotel – the Radisson Cebu Blu.
Unlike from the pre-Google Maps era from 15 years ago, our traveling to new countries these days usually involve 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 – never mind Cebu itself – I’d already had a good sense of what the airport we were landing in, and the area around the Radisson Blu Cebu.
This hotel is also, apparently, one of the better ones in the main Cebu city area, and sits opposite a decent size 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 7 day private tour.
Continued in the next post!