Upon booking, there was a notification that my booking comes with free airport pick up. This is My Boracay Guide's way of gratitude to their customers who chose to book with them. Based from their website, they have various kinds of transport vehicle depending on your budget. Price is also dependent on the number of persons. Since ours is free, the kind of vehicle given to us is their economy transfer. This usually cost Php 400 per person for 2 pax, one way, inclusive of boat fee. However, terminal and environmental fee is not yet included. In their other transport service, all of these are included in their fee.
Once booked, My Boracay Guide will send an email to confirm your booking. The free transport service was not included in their email to me so I confirmed it further to them. Once confirmed, I gave them details of our flight and arrival. We will be coming from Caticlan airport. I believe My Boracay Guide's transport service can either be in Caticlan or Kalibo airport. They were able to acknowledge my email on our flight details. I thought that was it.
Upon arriving in Caticlan airport, there was a My Boracay Guide staff waiting outside. We approached her but unfortunately our names were not included in her list. I showed her the acknowleged email when she was asking a voucher from me. She made a few calls and thankfully I heard that we were indeed part of their transport service.
Aboard the shuttle/van service, we were with other passengers who I believed booked through Southwest tours since that was the name written on the van as well as on the driver's shirt. For proper identification, we were given sticker of My Boracay Guide. This is I guess to separate and identify us from those who booked through Southwest tours.
From the airport, the van took us to Tabon port. This is an alternate port going to Boracay. The travel time is quite far, about 8 minutes. The port is not as orderly as in Jetty port thus the fee were minimal. Environmental and terminal fee is only Php 100 per pax while the boat ride is only 25 per pax. From Tabon port, the boat will lead you to Tambisaan port. Similar to Jetty-Cagban port route, travel time from Tabon to Tambisaan port is less than 10 minutes away.
Upon arriving at Tabon port, we had to find the My Boracay Guide staff to assist us. It seems that we were the only one who used My Boracay Guide's transport service. Well that's a plus since we are the only one who they would take care of. Anyway, it took us a while before the staff from My Boracay Guide assist us. We were asked to pay for the terminal and environmental fee then the staff told us that another staff will be assisting us on our way to the hotel upon alighting at the Tambisaan port.
Tambisaan port is near Crystal Cove as we can see it from afar. There were tricycles also waiting for passengers to take them to their resort. But it seems that most of the tourist there were guided by various transport service. Not the usual DIY traveller.
Since our service was free, we rode the E-trike, the economy transfer service of My Boracay Guide. Travel time is about 20 minutes from the port to Station 1 where our hotel is. That's quite far since i'm used to the very short travel from Cagban port to hotels in Station 1. Another reason why the travel time took a while is because we were riding an e-trike. It's a battery operated tricycle which travels about 20-30 kph at maximum. Quite slow. I heard that the e-trike fee is 180 pesos one way.
We took the same route on our way back to the Caticlan airport on our last day in Boracay. Similar to Cagban port, vans are available should your flight be in Kalibo. As for us, since our airport is in Caticlan, we just paid Php 25 boat ride and Php 30 terminal fee. I noticed that some did not buy tickets for the terminal fee. Also, there were locals and pinoy tourists who simply go straight to the ticket counter without even bothering to fall in line when there is one. Pinoy nga naman. Well, maybe one reason is that the line were not so organized. Even after paying for the boat ticket, there was no organized line in the waiting area of the boat.
This new or alternate route is new to us. The e-trike driver told us that this is the usual route when the water is not calm or when there are waves during Habagat season. Well, there was indeed strong waves as if you were in a surfing beach. This is the reason why we were not able to go to Ariel's Point... Again *sigh*.
Anyway, My Boracay Guide's transport service is quite acceptable. Though it wasn't perfect and organized and there was a little waiting time, I would still recommend it for convenience. But for budget travellers, you can still do DIY as it is not really difficult to reach Boracay.
