[BORACAY 2013] Day 1: Clark, Philippines

DAY 1 (27 Feb 2013): Clark 
- AirAsia flight KL - Clark @ 8.55pm
- One night stay in Affinity Resort Condo

Boracay is known as one of those beautiful islands / "paradise-on-earth" places which you must visit. Description of the island would just end up sounding trite and cheesy. However, this time I must join in the chorus of yaysayers and say that this place is worth it.

Yeah, we're absolutely ready!

Even so, I must say that transit from Kuala Lumpur to Boracay is tough!

Since we opted to go by AirAsia (the cheapest option available at the time), we were going to end up with a lot of transit in between each "checkpoints". Here's what our transit looks like:

• AirAsia flight KL - Clark, Philippines (stopover for one night at Clark)
• AirAsia Philippines flight Clark - Kalibo
• 3-hour bus transfer from Kalibo Airport to Caticlan jetty
• Ferry ride to jetty
• Shuttle transfer from island jetty to hotel

So yes, the above is doable, but it was tiring. We tried to pack as lightly as possible, especially since we would have to tow around our luggages on the bus and ferry. Flights are easier since you can just check in your baggage, but the transfers in between is not.

Another option would be to take the other low cost flights (e.g. Tiger Airways or somesuch) from your country of choice directly to Caticlan airport - this would save you a few hours of bus ride at least (and that's a lot of saving and not to be taken lightly). Well, this would work provided the airline has flights from your chosen country of choice obviously. Malaysia has the option of direct transfer to Caticlan airport, but the price was too pricey compared to what we get via AirAsia. 

To give you an idea of how the transfers works, here's a helpful map from the Fun Philippines website I stumbled on (which looks to be quite useful):

Picture taken from Fun Philippines

So yeah, if you want an easier journey (say, if you're travelling with children as opposed to travelling with all the single ladies), you're better off planning your journey directly to Caticlan. For obvious reasons, there is no direct transfer to the Boracay Island itself.

I would also have to give you this caveat for AirAsia flights (especially for its Philippines flight for some odd reason): there were a LOT of cancelled and scheduled changes to our flight. Luckily for the cancelled flight, we managed to rearrange our hotel stay around it, and we also managed to get a replacement flight from AirAsia FOC (since the cancelled/rescheduled flight was their fault and responsibility), so it wasn't too much of a problem for us. But lesser man would tremble with rage when they've rescheduled your flights for three to four times (which was what happened to us). When our flight schedule was finally finalized, we had to arrange for an extra night stay in Clark. If we had to extend our stay in Boracay I would've been all up for it, but Clark had almost nothing for us. It's an interesting site, but I wouldn't want to extend my stay there any longer than I would have to. Just my 2cents.

Our flight from KL to Clark was at 8.55pm, and once we arrived at the airport, all of us bought a simcard for our phones (iPhones and Blackberries) so that if any of us got separated or wanted to go our separate ways, we'd have ways to contact one another (this proved to be helpful when one of my friends dropped her iPhone on the beach!).

Since it was too late to do anything that night, we just checked into our hotel (Affinity Resort Condo) which was pleasant enough for the four of us, and called it a night. 

Go to Day 2 (Clark, Boracay)

Boracay 2013 Masterpost