Crowd recommendations Philippines

[Mattentaartje]

My girlfriend and I had our first diving experience in Raja Ampat and we currently have 10 dives under our belt. While on a family vacation in October, we will go for our AOW and are planning a holiday/work trip to the Philippines first and China afterwards (for work).

Due to the convenient flights we chose the Philippines as its also a diving destination.
Since we had such a great experience in Raja Ampat, we're trying to avoid the crowds and since we're trying to have as few flights as possible, our plan was as following:
November:
25th: Manila -> Dumagete
26th: Diving in Apo Island
30th Apo -> Siquijor
December
1st: Diving in Siquijor
5th Siquijor -> Bohol
6th Diving in Bohol
10th: Bohol -> Cebu
11th: Cebu -> Shanghai

But if you have some recommendations to avoid crowds during that time, I'd love to hear it!

Thank you!

 

[Centrals]

Excellent dive and devoid of crowd? Southern Leyte.
Early flight from Manila to Tacloban and then either private or public transfer.
Alona Beach in Bohol guarantee crowd.
Domaguete? Not much because most of the operators are spread over many places.

Manila - Dumaguete (including Apo Island) - Cebu(overnight) - Maasin(one ferry a day at 07:00) and onward to Southern Leyte - afternoon ferry back to Cebu.

Nov is the beginning for whaleshark in Southern Leyte(no feeding and snorkelling only).

What is wrong with the thresher shark in Malapascua?

 

[Mattentaartje]

Excellent dive and devoid of crowd? Southern Leyte.
Early flight from Manila to Tacloban and then either private or public transfer.
Alona Beach in Bohol guarantee crowd.
Domaguete? Not much because most of the operators are spread over many places.

Manila - Dumaguete (including Apo Island) - Cebu(overnight) - Maasin(one ferry a day at 07:00) and onward to Southern Leyte - afternoon ferry back to Cebu.

Nov is the beginning for whaleshark in Southern Leyte(no feeding and snorkelling only).

What is wrong with the thresher shark in Malapascua?

Regarding the thresher sharks: We don't have 30 dives under our belt, and up until yesterday, we weren't sure we'd have our Advanced Open Water yet. We read we need both to qualify for those dives, and since we have 10-13 dives (We have 10 in our SSI app but forgot to log 3 -> Not sure if we can still log them after the fact) and since we initially planned on doing our AOW in our first week, and then do fun dives, we figured it might not be possible to do thresher sharks with our experience.

Manila - Dumaguete (including Apo Island) - Cebu(overnight) - Maasin(one ferry a day at 07:00) and onward to Southern Leyte - afternoon ferry back to Cebu.

Is that as a 2-3 day trip? We'd prefer not to travel too much if it can be avoided. 4 days per destination.

 

[Centrals]

AOW was indeed required to dive Monad Shoal previously but operators has moved to Kimud Shoal which is much much shallower.

You can do the AOW in Malapascua if you desire.

Malapascua + Southern Leyte(Sogod Bay) is my suggestion if you do not want to travel too much.
Star early in the morning. bus from Northern Bus Terminal to Maya and then public boat across. Same route to return to Cebu, overnight, ferry to Maasin following morning and onward to Southern Leyte. The return ferry from Maasin to Cebu is at 15:00.
There are couple of recent trip reports on both places.

Operator:
Malapascua: Evolution
Sogod Bay: Peter's

 

[chaad]

My girlfriend and I had our first diving experience in Raja Ampat

Lol it's all downhill from there. Not really... but you sure did set the bar high.

Re: Bohol, I can't say enough wonderful things about Magic Ocean dive resort both as a place to stay and as a dive operator. Didn't see another dive boat in my week there. Amazing corals.

 

[ScubaBackpacker]

Regarding the thresher sharks: We don't have 30 dives under our belt, and up until yesterday, we weren't sure we'd have our Advanced Open Water yet. We read we need both to qualify for those dives, and since we have 10-13 dives (We have 10 in our SSI app but forgot to log 3 -> Not sure if we can still log them after the fact) and since we initially planned on doing our AOW in our first week, and then do fun dives, we figured it might not be possible to do thresher sharks with our experience.


Is that as a 2-3 day trip? We'd prefer not to travel too much if it can be avoided. 4 days per destination.

Just came from 6 dives with the threshers at Malapascua. The more dives you have before you get there the better. The better your buoyancy , and the greater your comfort with your gear, the closer in the sharks will come. Your impact on the shoal will also be less.

 

[ScubaBackpacker]

My girlfriend and I had our first diving experience in Raja Ampat and we currently have 10 dives under our belt. While on a family vacation in October, we will go for our AOW and are planning a holiday/work trip to the Philippines first and China afterwards (for work).

Due to the convenient flights we chose the Philippines as its also a diving destination.
Since we had such a great experience in Raja Ampat, we're trying to avoid the crowds and since we're trying to have as few flights as possible, our plan was as following:
November:
25th: Manila -> Dumagete
26th: Diving in Apo Island
30th Apo -> Siquijor
December
1st: Diving in Siquijor
5th Siquijor -> Bohol
6th Diving in Bohol
10th: Bohol -> Cebu
11th: Cebu -> Shanghai

But if you have some recommendations to avoid crowds during that time, I'd love to hear it!

Thank you!

I agree with Centrals that if it is important to you to avoid crowds southern Leyte is the place. But I can’t understand why you would go to Siquijor - seems like every person I meet here either has just come from , or is on the way there.