The Amuma Spa Suite was really enticing that we didn’t want to leave the room for the scheduled cruise at the Cebu Yacht Club which was going to start at 5:30pm. Since the resort does not allow white taxi cabs (regular taxi) to enter to pick up guests we had to go out and hail a cab near the highway. The travel time from Maribago to the yacht club was 20 minutes because of the light to moderate traffic.
The Islands Banca Cruises booth and boat cannot be missed because of the vibrant orange and yellow hues that were used.
Photo courtesy of Islands Banca Cruises Website.
The boat normally leaves the dock at 5:30 pm, but because we were late, we called up Ms. Anna Lou, the one in-charge of the cruise reservations (because Ms. Gwen, our first contact person was on leave), and informed her that we will be about 10 minutes late because of the unexpected heavy traffic.
Tip # 12: It is better to overestimate rather than underestimate especially when it involves time.
The PROS:
1. Set-up
The actual set-up of the boat really went beyond our imagination. Couches and stools covered in white leather, huge bean bags, round cocktail tables, and a great sound system were only some of the reasons why the cruise was worth every single centavo.
2. The Crew
The people in charge of keeping us and all the other guests on board can definitely be called professionals. Their assistance started from the dock, to boarding the boat, to taking pictures, to attending to all the needs of the guests during the cruise duration, until all the passengers disembark from the boat after the 1 hour 30 minutes travel time.
Although passengers are not allowed to bring food and drinks on board, we think that it is not considered a CON because free snacks are provided and you can buy chips and other beverages at a very reasonable price.
When we returned to the Cebu Yacht Club to disembark, we decided to try out the famous SUTUKIL restaurants, so we asked for the directions from a kind traffic enforcer and he told us to take a multi-cab going to Punta Engano and ask the driver to drop us off at the Mactan Shrine.
Being new to the place, we asked a police officer outside the shrine about the Sutukil restaurant and the man who he was talking to led us directly to his shop. Honestly, during this experience we think that we got ripped off because after choosing from the wide array of sea creatures on display, the man told us that there is a cooking charge for every dish we request. Upon hearing this we were shocked but still proceeded with the orders because we were already very hungry and very tired from the day’s activities.
Tip # 13: When it comes to the local delicacies and food shops, do your research before the trip to avoid getting ripped off.
The incident did not end there, when we asked for the bill they gave us a piece of paper that contained a list of the food that we ordered, upon looking at the total, we were taken aback because the total was way more than what we expected. So we did our own computation, and voila! the total was almost half the amount written on the paper. We clarified it with the woman in-charge and the she looked at us disgustingly. It took her another 10 minutes to revise the total.
Finally, it was time to go back to the resort, good thing HIS friend who met us at the Sutukil restaurant, was kind enough to drive us back to the resort before she went to Cebu City to work (she was on night shift).
The next day was of course our last day in Cebu. We woke up really early to make the most of our stay in Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort because our flight going back to Manila was around 9:00am.
This is the end of our 4 days/ 3 nights journey in Cebu and Bohol. The next blog post will (hopefully) contain all the expenses we incurred during the trip. It’s really delayed but we still hope it helps. 
