Where would you choose to dive 4-5 days?

[clownfishsydney]

Having been in this country half of my time from 2013 to 2019 and continuously since late 2019, I have been all over the country, extensively and I live in Cebu, speak Visayan and Spanish and I'm American. I'm careful not to knock anyone's town online because it hurts business.

If you go anywhere, you probably won't regret it, because you won't know what you missed. Whatever you do, you're landing at 1pm and you're probably not diving the first day unless it's a sunset dive. Even then you'd have to hustle. So get where you're going and leave your gear at the diveshop you're going to dive at. Then go eat.

Your choices, as you know are where to go from Manila. I don't suggest the busses and ferries for 8 hours after arriving in the country. I drive here everyday. You're lucky if it's 8 hours.

Get on a very short and cheap flight and go to Coron. Commute for half an hour after landing there. You already have nitrox and AOW, the cost is close enough to the same and you can dive on most parts of most of the spectacular wrecks. Go to Helldivers to dive, stay whereever it's cheap nearby. Eat streetfood. Thank me later.

That's plan A, dude, honestly.

Plan B: get on a very cheap short flight from Manila to Tagbilaran and stay anywhere cheap in Alona Beach within walking distance to either Alona Divers or Valm. Go to Balicasag your first morning and be blown away by absolutely world class stunning beautiful aquatic habitat. The diving there is easy. On your ticketing websites, it is listed as TAG, but you'd be flying right into Panglao, the new international airport.

Stayed at Buceo Anilao in August/September. Fantastic diving and resort, very happy with it. Bug advantage is no ferry to get there, just car from Manila and their boat the short run from beach to the resort. Will maximise your diving compared to other places.

 

[YYCLuke]

Since you're going to Bohol, I'd definitely recommend Philippines Fun Divers. Great shop. Beautiful boat. Ole is a fantastic DM.

You'd be hard pressed to choose a bad operator between Alona and PFD, but often PFD rents out their boat space to Alona divers lol.

 

[olof]

I'm just sitting at the airport in Manilla now (please do a one-night layover here; I had to book a new flight bc of Air Asia's 12-hour delay, even though I had an 11-hour layover planned). Diving was great. Sadly, the first day was canceled due to a typhoon, and I got a bad cold after the second day. Alona Divers was great went to Balicsag for my only diving day, super friendly DMs and moved people to another group if someone ran out of air. Here's a short video. I'll cut something longer later.

 

[NAUI Wowie]

I'm just sitting at the airport in Manilla now (please do a one-night layover here; I had to book a new flight bc of Air Asia's 12-hour delay, even though I had an 11-hour layover planned). Diving was great. Sadly, the first day was canceled due to a typhoon, and I got a bad cold after the second day. Alona Divers was great went to Balicsag for my only diving day, super friendly DMs and moved people to another group if someone ran out of air. Here's a short video. I'll cut something longer later.

In the future if you go back I would say go to Cebu. I stay in cebu and take the ferry across to Bohol and scuba in bohol. and ferry back.... I then can drive down to MoalBoal or go up to Malapascua or just stay near lapu lapu where they have several ocean reserves to check out.

But...Coron is the most fun diving I have ever had bar none. The wreck penetrations and uniqueness were worth it for me. It is just a 45 minute puddle jumper flight from Cebu.