The Amazing Race to Boracay

Friday April 30, 2009

6:30am Woke up at our hotel in Puerta Princessa
7:00am Got a text from my cousin Ana saying she can't see our 1:45pm flight to Boracay online. We informed her that we have our etickets and our flight doesn't leave until 1:45pm.
7:45am While eating breakfast we checked our airline's website and found out our scheduled flight wasn't posted, only another flight flying out at 9:30am. That's when we checked our emails and the airline sent us a notice three days before we were supposed to fly out informing us that our flight had been canceled and rescheduled to May 8, 2009 (a week out).
8:00am Ran to the room, got all our bags and booked it out of the hotel and went straight to the airport. Luckily the airport was only a two minute tricycle ride. When we got there "Seair", our airline company we booked through, wasn't open.
8:30am Still waiting in the airport.
8:50am STILL no staff from Seair. We finally find a phone number for their head office in Manila and gave them a call. Speaking to one their staff I find out that not only did our flights get canceled but all Seair flights from Puerta Princessa that day did. The earliest flight out from them was May 8, 2009, the time were supposed to be in Thailand. We yell at them to find us a way to get to Manila but with no avail. Since Seair is the only airline that fly's from Puerta Princessa to Boracay we have to now divert our plans and schedule a flight to Manila and from Manila to Boracay. Since there's more options to Boracay from Manila our main concern was just to get out of Puerta Princessa. Unfortunately there was only three flights from three different airlines that leave that day and they all leave within the hour.
9:00am We scramble to the three other airlines in the small ass airport to try and find another flight out. Unfortunately there's also hundreds of people in line and the flights out that day are leaving in 45 minutes. If we don't catch a flight we could get stuck in Puerta for another week. Jeff and I spread out and race to see who can book a flight first. Unfortunately we find out all the flights are fully booked.
9:10am We were able to put our names on a standby list and they said our odds were good we would get in.
9:15am But they also said if I get the flight we have to pay for the tickets in cash. Unfortunately since there's no atm's or banks in or near the airport we have to book it out of there and take a tricycle back to town and withdraw 15,000 pesos= $312 for the two tickets.
9:40am After two banks and one tricycle ride, we are back to the airport 30 minutes from when we left and go through security check again only to find out that our stand by flight was fully booked/confirmed.
9:45 am 15 minutes before the last flight of the three airlines leave, we scramble to another register and see if they have any openings. I check "Philippine Airlines" and find out they're fully book and confirmed, my last chance is "Cebu Airlines". As I stand in one of two lines to the booking counter, there's also a couple in the adjacent line on standby trying to book the same flight out of Puerta Princessa to Manila. It was a race to which line would go faster. I've never had so much anxiety in my life, again if we miss this flight we would have to forego our trips to Boracay, Thailand, and Vietnam due to time restraints.............
9:58am To my relief we get the booking register first to take the last two standby open seats. After printing our tickets we run to our plane and enter from an open air concourse with 2 minutes to spare before the flight takes off.
10am We get a text from my relatives, Eman and Ana who are already in Boracay, saying that they were able to confirm a Seair Airline flight to Boracay from Manila at 3:20pm for us.
11:30am Arrive in Manila. The connecting flight on Seair airlines is unfortunately in a different airport and have to take a shuttle bus across town to it. Since there's actually four different airports in Manila, we have to find out which one Seair flies out of.
12:00pm Airport information personal tells us that we can take a shuttle van that circulates through the four different airports. We ask this ass hole shuttle driver to take us the the airport Seair Airlines flies from (I should really do a separate post for this ass hole but I bet a I'm already losing a lot of you). Long story short he tried to charge us 170 pesos each when the huge sign directly behind him clearly says, in english, 20 pesos for the shuttle.
12:45pm After being stuck in traffic we finally arrive. But the ass hole driver drops us off at the wrong airport. The security guard at the airport asks where were going and informs us were in the international airport and Seair airlines is in the domestic airport.
12:55pm We hop back into that asshole's shuttle van and tell him specifically what airport to go. Luckily there was a Filipino/ Australian girl helping us out.
1:45 pm Arrive at the right airport and finally get some down time before our 3:20pm flight out
3:30pm Find out that our flight has been delayed by 20 minutes
4:40pm After an hour and half were still waiting for our flight
5:00pm We finally board the airplane only to find out that it's not your usual twin turbine engine plane but a twin propeller plane that only seats about 17 people.
5:30pm Though I was exhausted and tired, sleeping was the last thing I could do when the propeller blades were only about 3ft from my face and only an inch of glass blocking me, while a mile up in the air through turbulance.
6:00pm We land in Caticlan (the city across the water from Boracay) and grab our backpacks from the tarmac and take a shuttle ride to the ferry terminal.
6:15pm We hop into a wooden outrigger boat to take us across the water to Boracay
6:45pm Land in Boracay and take a 15minute tricycle ride across the island to our hotel.
7pm Finally arrive in the hotel after 12.5 hours of traveling.
7:30pm After freshening up we meet with relatives and friends and eat at a restaurant right on the beach. The dinner it self was well worth the trip. All the ingredients were fresh and could be hand picked before they start grilling it up for you. We had prawns, sword fish, bbq pork belly, rice and my favorite, a nice cold Red Horse (it's their beer equivalent to a Fat tire).
10pm After dinner we went to a live concert on the beach MTV was promoting. From here the night get's kinda hazy.
11pm-ish Met some local celebrities
12pm-ish Started taking shots of something a girl offered me
1am-ish Watched an awesome Filipino reggae band, " Tropical Depression"
2am-ish Did the worm
3am-ish Started dancing on the table with a group of girls and took more shots
4am-ish Went to Andoks (Their equivalent to a fast food joint) and ate some chicken
5am-ish Went to bed............

(I have pictures of this whole day and night but can't upload it...check this posting again and hopefully there will be something)