Worth to dive all: Puerto Princesa, El Nido, Coron? Picking your brain on itinerary

[MrTW]

Resurrecting this thread with a quick (yet late) update on Sipalay.

While the resort, town, people, area I stayed at was great and I truly enjoyed the surface intervals, the actual diving was disappointing.

Either I was not brought to the 'right' or 'good' spots or there aren't any good spots in that area.

Very little fish coupled with a lot of dead corrals and really nothing out of the extraordinarily would not grant the long and cumbersome drive to Sipalay if primary reason is scuba there. Again, surface time was nice and relaxing though.

I was a little surprised about all the great diving feedback here, which steered me to Sipalay.

Understanding that all preferences are different but from my point of view, I would definitely recommend a bunch of other diving spots in the Philippines over Sipalay from a pure scuba perspective.

 

[Jacob Carstens]

Hi there,

I am preparing for a few weeks to Phils in December and carving out some dive spots I haven't checked out yet.

My thoughts are the following and any feedback on prior experience would be greatly appreciated:

1 day Puerto Princesa = entry into Palawan, from there directly to El Nido via bus next day

4 days El Nido = just a few dives here as mostly relaxing at the beach and island hoping with non-divers

2 day Puerto Princesa = length of stay here is flexible. I can stay a couple days longer if diving is any good. Otherwise via air to Busuanga to avoid going via boat from El Nido to Coron

4 days Coron = full diving here for shipwrecks. Anything else worthwhile seeing other then wrecks?​

After Palawan I am planing to fly to Dumaguete/Dauin and might jump over to Apo Island for a day trip. All of those places i dove before and these are repeats.

Did Moalboal/Malapascua in Cebu (not Mactan yet though) and Siquijor, Bohol area as well as Anilao and Davao and off to Batangas in two weeks time from today.

Any good spots I missed in Phils (except Apo Reef and Palau) and should be considered visiting?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated

I'd love to hear about Malapascua - going there in 2 weeks - diving with Thresher Shark Divers and staying at Blue Coral.

 

[Tippytoes12]

Apo Isand is well worth going to , we dived again it last Christmas and loved it.

Thanks Melaslithos.

Would be great if you could share your experience with the dive safari as it sounds cool.

Regarding my own trip, I took the advise of Centrals and trimmed the itinerary down to:

Coron --> El Nido (via 2Go ferry to PPS) --> Dumaguete.

If time permits, i might try to make it over to Sipalay but i am also ok to spare this spot for the next trip to avoid any commuting stress.

Was thinking about hoping over to Apo Island while in Dumaguete but read that the island is getting really busy now with too many day trippers making it out. When i went some 5 years ago or it was zero busy...

Again, thank you for the great input here.

and is very well

 

[MrTW]

I'd love to hear about Malapascua - going there in 2 weeks - diving with Thresher Shark Divers and staying at Blue Coral.

Malapascua is nice. Relaxed island for diving and just winding down.

Obvious goal there is to see thresher sharks. That is worth it alone in my opinion. I found the overall diving, aside the sharks, to be just ok.

I would definitely recommend going there and might go again myself in the future.

 

[dirtfarmer]

Resurrecting this thread with a quick (yet late) update on Sipalay.

While the resort, town, people, area I stayed at was great and I truly enjoyed the surface intervals, the actual diving was disappointing.

Either I was not brought to the 'right' or 'good' spots or there aren't any good spots in that area.

Very little fish coupled with a lot of dead corrals and really nothing out of the extraordinarily would not grant the long and cumbersome drive to Sipalay if primary reason is scuba there. Again, surface time was nice and relaxing though.

I was a little surprised about all the great diving feedback here, which steered me to Sipalay.

Understanding that all preferences are different but from my point of view, I would definitely recommend a bunch of other diving spots in the Philippines over Sipalay from a pure scuba perspective.

Who did you dive with and what sites did you dive?