The length of the journey to get to Malapascua depends on your means of transportation. First you need to transfer yourself to the north tip of Cebu Island, a small town called Maya. From the warf/pier in Maya there are local outrigger boat s that will bring you to Malapascua Island. At the warf you can either try to get one of the ‘public ‘ boats, organize a ‘private’ boat or board a boat prearranged by Devocean Divers Malapascua. .
Porters will handle your bags at a 20 Peso charge per bag that they carry. Just ask around for the public boat. The public boats wait until they have sufficient passengers to make a profit before they start to make the crossing to Malapascua Island. The price per person is 80 Peso. Take note that if the tide is low there is a small boat shuttle service that takes you to the big outrigger boats that are anchored in deeper water. The bigger boats cannot come all the way to the pier due to the low tide. The small shuttle service cost 20 Peso per person and per bag.
Should you arrive in Cebu City late in the afternoon best is to stay there over night and head out early in the morning. There are also a few basic places to stay in Maya. Your best bet then would be Skipps Beach resort.
Private transfers arranged by Devocean Divers; we can organize private transfers from anywhere on Cebu Island. Private transfers makes your journey as easy as possible. Devocean Divers can arrange for a car or van with driver can pick you up from a designated location. Of course most guest rewuire to be picked up from the international airport or the ferry terminal in Cebu City. A private transfer is the most comfortable way to travel and also reduces your traveling time , on average travel time from Cebu City would be 3 hours. Maximum number of passengers in a car is 2 and a van is 3-6. If you would like us to arrange your transfer then we also include the outrigger boat to the island in the price.
Taxi transfers; some people like to make arrangements by themselves. You can of course always try to haggle over the price to bring you to Maya Warf. At the warf you can either try to get one of the ‘public boats’ or organize a private boat on the spot. from Mactan International Airport take a taxi, more or less half an hour, depending on the traffic. If you exit the arrival area there is a ramp just across the street going up to the departure area. Walk up and there are city taxis there, make sure you instruct the driver to turn on the meter.
Bus (public) transfers
There are buses departing from the North bus terminal in Cebu City that go all the way to May warf/pier (end station). At the bus terminal be aware of people trying to convince you to travel to other places or use other means of transportation these people are hawkers and earn commissions if they convince you to stay and dive at a particular place.
The Ceres Bus Liner is the recommended company to take. Just ask at the terminal and look for the yellow bus with the sign [Maya-Bagay]. There are also air-condtioned buses with wifi and these are more comfortable than the open air bus and it also makes less stops.
The journey can take up to 4 hours. it is advisable to leave early in the morning because there are more buses going there is less traffic and it’s cooler.
Boat (public) transfers; once you arrive at Maya the bus will stop at the warf/pier area. At the warf be aware of people trying to convince you to stay or dive at certain places these people are hawkers and earn commissions if they convince you to stay and dive at a particular place.
The outrigger boats wait to fill up with sufficient passengers but on average they leave every half hour. Usually in the morning time there is more people going to the island than in the the afternoon. Officially the first boat leaves at 8:30AM and the last at 2:00PM but usually there is always a boat waiting around to get the required number of people to set of.
If there is no more boat best is to accept that it’s going to cost you more. You need to take a ‘special trip’ and the price varies from 1,000 to 2,000. You could scout around or wait till more tourist show up to see if you can split the fair.
The crossing takes 30 to 45 minutes and drops you off at the town. Here again there will be enough people with good advice on where to stay and where to dive. Remember these people are in it for the commission and they will try to convince you to go to the place offering the highest commissions.
