Every Boracay tours package here was read line by line, the private boat, the helicopter, the ATV, the jet ski and both airport transfers, against what the same day costs bought locally.
Updated August 2026
Quick answer
A Boracay tours package means three different things depending on who is selling it. Manila agencies use it for room-plus-transfer bundles from about ₱2,772; Expedia uses it for flight-plus-hotel; the platforms use it for a day of activities. This page compares the third kind, six bookable listings, from the $20 one-way transfer that already covers the island's ₱500 entry fees to a $100.10 private island-hopping boat with the Crystal Cove and Magic Island gate fees included. Everything is priced per listing, not per brochure.
Key takeaways
All six are listed on Viator and operated by four different Boracay companies. Prices, ratings and review counts below were read from the listings on 11 August 2026 and change without notice; booking, payment, changes and refunds are handled by the platform and the operator, never by us.
Four hours on a boat that carries only your group, two snorkel stops, Puka or Ilig-Iligan, and a sit-down lunch at Tambisaan with the Magic Island…
Ten minutes in the air over White Beach, the Bulabog side and the reef line, the shortest and most expensive thing in this comparison, bought for…
A 30-minute twin-sharing jet ski rental with a short briefing, hotel pickup and drop-off included. Read the cancellation line before booking: this listing is non-refundable.
Thirty minutes on an electric ATV around a private forest track inland, helmet and snacks included. Meeting point is Station 1, not a hotel pickup.
Both airport runs in one booking: van, jetty port, bangka crossing and the island leg, with terminal, environmental and boat fees already paid. Meet at ticket…
One leg only, arrival or departure. Same door-to-door chain as the round trip at less than half the price, useful when you are leaving Boracay by…
The two columns that decide most bookings are the last two: what is already paid for, and whether you can walk away. Five of these six cancel free up to 24 hours out. The jet ski does not.
| Package | Price | Length | Book | Already paid for | Cancellation | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private island hopping + lunch | $100.10 per group | 4 hours | Details | Boat, lunch, snorkel gear, Magic Island ₱250, Crystal Cove ₱300, Station 1–3 pickup | Free to 24 hours | 4.7 (16) | → |
| Private helicopter flight | $175 | 10 minutes airborne | Details | Flight, hotel pickup and drop-off | See listing | 4.5 (4) | → |
| Jet ski, twin sharing | $95 | 30 minutes | Details | Ski rental, briefing, hotel pickup | Non-refundable | 5.0 (1) | → |
| Electric ATV, private track | $32 | 30 minutes | Details | ATV, helmet, snacks, park entry | Free to 24 hours | 4.9 (18) | → |
| Caticlan transfer, round trip | $45 | 45–60 min each way | Details | Van, bangka, terminal, environmental and boat fees, both directions | Free to 24 hours | 4.8 (129) | → |
| Caticlan transfer, one way | $20 | 45–60 minutes | Details | Van, bangka, terminal, environmental and boat fees, one direction | Free to 24 hours | 4.7 (88) | → |
Two operators appear twice: Philippines Divers runs the helicopter and the jet ski, My Boracay Guide runs both transfers. Booking two listings from the same operator means the same office and the same drivers, not a second opinion.
Dates for the private island-hopping boat, the most complete package of the six. Pick a date to carry it through to the operator's checkout, where the final price is confirmed.
You'll confirm the exact date and time on the secure booking page.
Searching the phrase returns airline bundles, hotel promos and boat trips on the same screen. They are not competing offers, they are different products, and only one of them is what most people actually need to book in advance.
This is what Expedia and Travelocity mean. You buy a Manila or Cebu flight and a room in one transaction, the price moves with airline seat inventory, and no activity is attached. Their landing pages currently open at $240 and $156 respectively for the destination, which is a starting fare for a room-plus-flight combination, not a fixed price for a trip.
We do not sell these and cannot price-match them. What matters for planning is that they almost never include the airport transfer chain on the far side, and they never include the ₱500 in statutory fees. Read the inclusions list on any of them and you will find the words airport transfer only when it says so explicitly.
Philippine agencies sell the same phrase as a room-and-transfer promo. Travelonline.ph, which ranks on this term, opens at ₱2,772 (about $45) for three days and two nights at Island Inn Boracay, non-beachfront, with transfer, insurance and freebies but no airfare. Add a Kalibo flight from Manila to the same tier and the shelf price runs from about ₱8,217 (roughly $134).
Their tours are a separate line item, sold after you book the room. So the word package in that context means where you sleep and how you get from the airport, and the day on the water is still an unbooked decision. That is the decision this page is about.
Klook, Viator and the island operators use package for a bundled day: boat, guide, gear, lunch, sometimes the gate fees at the stops. This is the only version that has to be compared line by line, because two listings with the same title can differ by ₱600 of entrance fees and by whether you can cancel. The six listings on this page are all of that third kind, with the transfers included because the transfer is the one activity-shaped thing everybody needs and most first-time visitors underestimate.
If you want the room-and-flight side, book it wherever it is cheapest and come back here for the days.
This is the answer to the question people type most often about the island. Built from the fees you cannot avoid, the transfers on this page, and the local rates for the same activities, at ₱61.18 to the dollar on 11 August 2026.
Two people arriving at Caticlan and staying three days cannot spend less than this: ₱1,000 in environmental and terminal fees on the way in for the pair, ₱300 more in terminal fees on the way out, and the boat fares each way. Call it ₱1,500, about $25 for two, and it buys nothing you will remember. On top of that sits the airport chain. The $20 one-way transfer already absorbs the statutory fees, so its real service cost is about $11.80 per person once you subtract the ₱500 it pays on your behalf.
Doing it yourself, tricycle to the jetty at ₱75 to ₱150, the queue at the fee windows, the public boat, another tricycle on the island, lands near ₱400 plus the ₱500 in fees, so roughly $15 a head. The gap between DIY and booked is under $6 per person in daylight. After 19:00 there is no gap at all, because the public boats stop and a chartered pump boat runs ₱2,000 to ₱2,500.
Manila agency shelf prices put a non-beachfront two-star room with breakfast near ₱1,386 a night inside a three-day promo, and a three-star beachfront near ₱1,670. Independent bookings sit in the same band outside December and Holy Week. Beach-path restaurants in Station 2 run ₱350 to ₱700 a main; the market stalls behind D'Mall run half that.
A realistic all-in for two people, three days and two nights, excluding flights: ₱3,000 for the room, ₱1,500 in fees and transfers, ₱4,000 for food, and then whatever the days on the water cost. Around ₱8,500, about $139, before a single boat leaves the beach.
Activities are where the range opens. The ATV at $32 and the jet ski at $95 buy the same thirty minutes, and the ATV is the better-reviewed of the two by a distance. The private boat at $100.10 is priced for the group, so its per-head number depends entirely on how many of you there are. The helicopter at $175 is the outlier: ten minutes of flying time, bought for the photographs.
A couple who take one boat day and one land activity spends roughly $130 on activities across three days. A family of four on the private boat plus the ATV spends about $228 for the group. Neither number is affected by which flight-and-hotel bundle you bought.
Built from the fees, the transfers on this page and current shelf rates for rooms and food. Flights are excluded because they swing more than everything else combined.
| Line | 3 days, 2 nights | 4 days, 3 nights | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statutory fees, two people | ₱1,500 ($25) | ₱1,500 ($25) | Environmental once, terminal both ways, boat both ways |
| Airport transfers, two people | ₱2,447 ($40) | ₱2,447 ($40) | Two one-way listings, fees already inside the fare |
| Room | ₱3,000 ($49) | ₱4,500 ($74) | Non-beachfront twin, breakfast, outside December |
| Food and drink | ₱4,000 ($65) | ₱6,000 ($98) | Mixed: beach path and market stalls |
| One boat day | ₱6,124 ($100) | ₱6,124 ($100) | Private boat, whole group, gate fees included |
| One land activity | ₱3,916 ($64) | ₱3,916 ($64) | Two ATV riders at $32 each |
| Total, two people | ₱20,987 ($343) | ₱24,487 ($400) | Excludes flights; per person, halve it |
The fourth day adds a room night and a day of food and nothing else. If a fourth day is on the table, it is cheaper per hour than any activity on this page.
Boracay charges every arriving visitor at Caticlan Jetty Port. It is small money, it is unavoidable, and it is the single most common surprise in the first hour of a trip here.
The environmental fee is ₱300, paid to the Municipality of Malay, charged once for the whole stay. The terminal fee is ₱150, paid to the Province of Aklan, and it is charged again on the way out. The boat fare across the Tablas Strait is ₱50.
That is ₱500 on arrival, about $8.20, plus another ₱200 when you leave. Children aged five and under are exempt from the terminal pass when proof is uploaded in advance. Nobody is exempt from the environmental fee except under the same child rule.
The Provincial Government now runs the fees through Boracay iPass at boracayipass.ph. You register the party, pay the terminal and environmental fees online, optionally add the boat fare, and walk through with a single QR code. Manual windows at the jetty still exist and still work; the queue at them is the reason the QR exists.
Registration asks for names, birthdates, nationality, arrival and departure dates, and your accommodation. Which leads to the rule most people find out about at the window.
Entry requires a valid ID or passport and a confirmed booking at a Department of Tourism accredited accommodation. Unaccredited guesthouses are not permitted to host tourists, so a cheap room found on arrival is not a plan here, the fee desk asks for the booking before it asks for the money. Booking through a mainstream platform effectively guarantees compliance, because unaccredited properties cannot list.
If you are booking direct with a small resort, ask for its DOT accreditation number in writing before you pay.
Both transfer listings on this page state that terminal, environmental and boat tickets are included in the fare. That is the honest reason the $20 one-way is not expensive: about ₱500 of it is a government charge you were going to pay standing in a queue. What is not included in either: porter fees of ₱50 to ₱100 per bag, paid in cash at the port, and paid whether or not you asked for help with the bag.
No plane lands on Boracay. Every arrival is a chain of a flight, a road leg, a boat and another road leg, and the package you book decides how many of those links you handle yourself.
Caticlan (MPH), officially Godofredo P. Ramos Airport, sits ten to fifteen minutes' drive from the jetty port. It takes smaller aircraft, costs more, and saves two hours. Kalibo (KLO) is the alternative, roughly ninety minutes to two hours away by van, served by more flights and often noticeably cheaper.
The saving is real; so is arriving at the jetty after the public boats have stopped. If a Kalibo fare is $40 less and lands at 18:00, you are buying a chartered pump boat with the difference.
Land at Caticlan, tricycle or van to the jetty port, pay or scan at the fee windows, board a bangka for the fifteen-minute crossing, then a tricycle or van from Cagban Port to your hotel. Under normal conditions that is 45 minutes to an hour end to end, which is exactly what both transfer listings quote. The round-trip listing is capped at ten travellers and runs 5:00 AM to 6:00 PM, to 6:30 PM on Thursdays.
The one-way is capped at eight and runs 5:00 AM to 8:30 PM. Both are door to door in both directions, and both meet arrivals at ticket booth 16, airport representatives are no longer allowed inside the terminal building.
Self-arranged, the same chain costs about ₱75 to ₱150 for the airport tricycle, ₱500 in fees, and ₱50 to ₱250 on the island depending on whether you take the shared bus or a private tricycle. Around ₱1,000 a head against $20 booked. For one traveller travelling light in daylight, that is a fair saving. Public boats run roughly 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
Outside those hours a charter costs about ₱1,000 by day and ₱2,000 to ₱2,500 at night, and the price is per boat, negotiated at the port, at the end of a travel day. Late arrivals are the reason the round-trip listing exists.
The most useful number on this page is not a price, it is a headcount. The private boat is sold per group and the local group boat is sold per seat, so the better deal flips at a specific party size.
The private premium boat is $100.10 for the whole group, about ₱6,124, for four hours, including hotel pickup within Stations 1 to 3, lunch at Tambisaan Beach, snorkel gear, and both gate fees at Magic Island and Crystal Cove. Local group island hopping sells by the seat: roughly ₱900 basic without lunch, ₱1,700 standard with a Filipino lunch, ₱1,900 premium with a seafood spread, for a five-hour group boat. Local private charters start near ₱6,900 for a solo traveller and fall to about ₱2,400 per person for a group of four or five.
For two people, the group boat wins: two premium seats are ₱3,800, and even after adding roughly ₱550 each in gate fees at Crystal Cove and Magic Island the pair lands near ₱4,900 against ₱6,124. For four, the private boat wins outright: ₱6,124 divided four ways is ₱1,531 a head, gate fees included, below the price of a single standard group seat before its entrance fees.
For a solo traveller neither is efficient, and a ₱900 basic seat is the sane choice. The non-price argument for the private boat is time. A group boat waits for eighteen people at every stop; a private boat waits for your group. Reviewers of the private listing keep coming back to that, and to the fact that the crew handled getting people on and off the boat.
The jet ski listing is $95 for thirty minutes twin sharing. Walk-up rental on Bulabog and White Beach runs roughly ₱600 to ₱1,000 for the same half hour, which is $10 to $16. The listing adds hotel pickup, an English briefing and a booking you can hold from home, and it is non-refundable.
That is the clearest example on this page of a bundled listing costing several times the local price. It is worth saying plainly, because a comparison page that only ever says book it is not comparing anything.
Boracay is seven kilometres long and shaped like a dog bone. Almost everything sold as a Boracay tours package happens in the handful of places below, and knowing which side of the island you are on explains most of the price differences.
The four-kilometre west-facing strip is split into Station 1, 2 and 3. Station 1 has the widest sand, the biggest resorts and Willy's Rock offshore. Station 2 is the middle: D'Mall, the restaurants, the noise, and the shortest walk to everything. Station 3 is quieter and cheaper, with the sand narrowing toward the south. Hotel pickup on the listings here is defined against those stations.
The private boat collects free within Stations 1 to 3 and charges from ₱500 in cash outside them; a cruise-ship pickup is ₱1,000 for one to four people and ₱2,000 for five to eight. If your resort is at Diniwid or Ilig-Iligan, that surcharge applies.
Bulabog Beach faces east across the island's narrow waist. During Amihan, from November to May, the wind comes over it, which makes it the kitesurfing and windsurfing side and leaves White Beach calm. During Habagat the pattern reverses and the boats that would normally leave from White Beach shift across.
That is why an island-hopping departure point can change on the morning of a tour. It is not a downgrade, it is the crew reading the wind.
Puka Shell Beach at the north end, wide and undeveloped, is the standard first stop. Ilig-Iligan is the alternative when the north is choppy. Snorkelling happens at Friday's Rock and Coral Garden, both close in. Crystal Cove is a small private island with cave pools and a ₱300 gate fee; Magic Island is the cliff-jumping platform, ₱150 to ₱250 at the gate. Crocodile Island is a reef stop named for its shape, not its wildlife.
Lunch on the private listing lands at Tambisaan Beach on the south-east corner, which is also the port used when the west side is closed by weather. Inland, Mount Luho is the high point and the standard stop on an e-trike land tour; the ATV track sits in the forest behind it.
Rainfall in millimetres, average daytime high in Celsius. The colour band marks what the sea is doing, not what the sky is doing, and the two do not line up the way package pages imply.
Amihan runs November to May and Habagat June to October. The catch is inside Amihan: warm water and the amihan current push lumot onto the White Beach shoreline from roughly February to May, the exact months the packages call peak. November to January is the window where dry weather and clean water overlap, and it is also when the boats run every day.
Three days and two nights is what the agencies sell and what most people book. It is enough, but only for two activities, and only if you understand where the first day goes.
A Manila morning flight, the transfer chain and a check-in leaves you with an afternoon. That afternoon is for White Beach and a sunset, not for a boat: island-hopping departures are morning-weighted because the wind builds through the day. So a three-day trip has one full day in the middle and a half day at each end.
Book the boat for the middle day and leave the land activity as the flexible one, the ATV track runs on thirty minutes' notice and does not care about the wind.
The fourth day adds a room night and a day of meals, roughly ₱3,500 for two, about $57, and no new fixed costs. Against the ₱1,500 in statutory fees and ₱2,447 in transfers you have already paid regardless, that is the cheapest day of the trip. It is also the insurance policy.
If high wind kills the boat day, a four-day trip has somewhere to move it. A three-day trip has a refund and an afternoon.
Beyond four days, Boracay stops being the destination and becomes a base. Ariel's Point, the cliff-jumping day trip on the Buruanga mainland, runs about ₱2,800 to ₱3,800 with a buffet and open bar and eats an entire day. The Panay mainland adds ATV, zipline and river days.
Whale-shark day trips advertise from the island at around $109. None of that fits in three days without cutting the beach out, which is a strange thing to do on Boracay.
Times assume a Manila–Caticlan morning flight. This is the shape most three-day trips take once the transfer chain is accounted for honestly.
The [transfer](#tour-6) meets outside the terminal at ticket booth 16, hands you a bottle of water and drives seven minutes to the jetty. Fees are already paid inside the fare; the porters are not.
Fifteen minutes on the bangka, then a van to the hotel. Under an hour door to door if the queue is short. The afternoon belongs to White Beach and working out which station you are on.
Sunset lands between 17:30 and 18:20 depending on the month. Willy's Rock at Station 1 is the photograph everyone takes; the paraw sailboats charge about ₱500 an hour if you want to be in it.
Pickup for the [private island-hopping boat](#tour-1) at your hotel within Stations 1 to 3. Four hours: a beach stop at Puka or Ilig-Iligan, two snorkel sites, lunch at Tambisaan, with the Crystal Cove and Magic Island gate fees already covered.
The boat lands early enough that the afternoon is free. This is the slot to add the [ATV](#tour-4) at Station 1 if the group still has energy, or the [helicopter](#tour-2) if the light is good.
Terminal fee again on the way out, ₱150 a head, and the same crossing backwards. Allow two hours from hotel door to Caticlan check-in, three if you are flying from Kalibo.
The same six listings produce different answers depending on party size, arrival time and how much of the day you want spoken for. This is the short version of the argument made in the sections above.
Book the one-way transfer twice, or the round trip if your dates are certain, $45 for the pair of legs against $40 for two one-ways is not a saving, it is a convenience, and the round trip caps at ten travellers rather than eight. Skip the private boat. Two premium group seats at ₱1,700 to ₱1,900 each plus roughly ₱550 a head in gate fees comes to about ₱4,900, against ₱6,124 for the private listing.
Put the difference into the ATV at $32 a head and you have both a water day and a land day for less than the private boat alone. The exception is a honeymoon or anything where waiting for eighteen strangers at each stop is the thing you are paying to avoid.
The private boat becomes the obvious booking: ₱6,124 for the group is ₱1,531 a head with the Crystal Cove and Magic Island gate fees inside it, which is less than a single standard group seat before its fees. It also solves the problem group boats create with children, where the schedule is set by the slowest adult on board. Infants must sit on laps and the boat is not wheelchair accessible.
Dietary requirements, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, are accommodated if flagged at booking, which is worth doing rather than hoping. For the airport chain, the round trip is the one that takes wheelchairs and strollers and offers infant seats, and its 129 reviews are the deepest record on this page.
Neither boat is efficient. A ₱900 basic group seat without lunch is the sane water day, and the ATV at $32 is the best-reviewed thing here at any price, the two most recent reviews on it are both solo travellers. On the transfer, the maths is closest for you: self-arranged with hand luggage in daylight costs about ₱1,000 against $20 booked.
If you land before 17:00 and travel light, doing it yourself is defensible. If you land later, book it.
A flight into Kalibo landing after 17:00, or into Caticlan after 18:00, puts you at the jetty near the end of public boat hours. That is the scenario the round-trip transfer is built for: it runs until 6:00 PM, to 6:30 PM on Thursdays, and it handles the fee windows for you rather than leaving you in the queue at dusk.
Cruise passengers face a different charge. The private island-hopping listing adds ₱1,000 for a cruise-ship pickup of one to four people and ₱2,000 for five to eight, payable in cash. Factor it in before comparing that listing against a beach-desk quote made to someone staying at Station 2.
Stack the private boat in the morning with the ATV in the afternoon: the boat lands early enough that a 30-minute track session at Station 1 fits before sunset. For four people that is about ₱6,124 plus $128, roughly ₱14,000 for the group, and it fills the one genuinely full day a three-day trip contains. If the budget stretches, the helicopter at $175 is a better second act than the jet ski at $95, ten minutes of flying against thirty minutes of something you can rent on the beach for a sixth of the price, and unlike the jet ski it is not the one listing here you cannot cancel.
The six listings compared above are not the whole market. These are the other packages sold on the same platform and along the beach path, with the prices they carry as of 11 August 2026, so you can judge whether a beach-desk quote is fair before you agree to it.
A shared island-hopping day with buffet lunch and snorkelling runs about $33 for five hours. A plain sunset cruise starts near $16, a sunset party boat with kayaks, paddleboards and snacks around $28, and the DJ version with unlimited food and drinks $70. Parasailing is about $49 for fifteen minutes, a crystal kayak photo session $25 for twenty minutes. Paraw sailing, the outrigger with the coloured sails that everyone photographs at sunset, is not usually a platform product at all.
It is negotiated on the sand at roughly ₱500 an hour including the boatman, and it is the cheapest genuinely memorable hour on this list. Diving is the other thing worth booking rather than improvising: a discover-scuba or fun dive sits between $40 and $50 for two to three hours, and the operators running it are the same ones selling the jet ski.
A three-hour e-trike land tour, the Mount Luho and secret-spot loop, is about $39. A mainland zipline is $40 for thirty minutes; an ATV, zipline and skybike day package on Panay with river stops runs about $39 for five hours, which is a strange piece of pricing next to the $32 you pay for thirty minutes of ATV on the island itself. The bigger mainland days are a different commitment. Nabas Adventure in Aklan is seven to eight hours for about $88. A whale-shark day trip with transfers advertises around $109.
Ariel's Point, the cliff-jumping day on the Buruanga coast, is roughly ₱2,800 to ₱3,800 with a buffet and an open bar, and it takes the whole day including a boat each way. At the top of the range sit the private constructed days: a heritage and hidden-beaches day at $186, a foraging and hidden-beach experience at $366, both priced by group size. They exist, they get few reviews, and they are worth knowing about mainly so a $175 helicopter flight stops looking like the expensive option.
Every third doorway on the Station 2 path sells the same island-hopping seat. The number they open with usually assumes a shared boat, no gate fees and no lunch, so the ₱1,000 quote and the ₱1,900 quote are frequently the same trip with different things left out. Three questions settle it. Is Crystal Cove or Magic Island on the route, and is the gate fee included? Is lunch a boxed meal or a beachside table? And is the boat shared, and with how many.
A desk that answers all three without hedging is quoting the same product the platforms list, usually for less money and with no cancellation window. That is the real trade. Booking ahead buys a fixed price, a written confirmation and 24 hours to change your mind. Walking up buys a lower number and a verbal promise, and in December, when the boats fill, it buys nothing at all.
Every listing on this page is honest about its inclusions. The gaps are consistent across all of them, and they are all payable in cash on the day.
Crystal Cove charges about ₱300 per person and Magic Island ₱150 to ₱250, collected on arrival. Most group island-hopping seats exclude both, which is how a ₱1,700 seat becomes a ₱2,250 morning. The private premium listing is the exception on this page: it states both fees as included.
That is worth roughly ₱550 a head and it is the reason its headline price looks higher than it behaves.
Porter fees run ₱50 to ₱100 per bag at the port. Tricycles on the island are ₱20 a head shared, ₱150 to ₱200 for a private hire. Both transfer listings mention the porter fee explicitly; neither pays it.
Card acceptance on the island is patchy outside the bigger resorts. ATMs exist in D'Mall and run out at weekends. Bring more cash than the fees add up to.
Boat itineraries change with the wind, and no package protects against that. One dated review on the private island-hopping listing, from Althea O in February 2026, records high wind cancelling the boat itinerary entirely; the group was driven around in two e-trikes instead. The reviewer was explicit that it was not the operator's fault.
That is the single most useful review on any of these six listings, and it is on the highest-rated one. Build a spare afternoon into the trip, and check the forecast the night before rather than the week before.
The small figures that decide how smooth the first day is, all current as of 11 August 2026.
Fees, porters, tricycles, gate charges and most small restaurants are cash. ATMs are clustered in D'Mall and run dry over long weekends. Bring more pesos than the ₱500 entry stack suggests.
Electric tricycles run the length of the island: about ₱20 a head shared, ₱150 to ₱200 for a private hire between stations. Walking the White Beach path from Station 1 to Station 3 takes about 40 minutes.
Public boats between Caticlan and Cagban run roughly 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM. After that a chartered pump boat is ₱2,000 to ₱2,500. Both transfer listings run earlier and later than that on the road side.
₱50 to ₱100 per bag at the jetty, cash, and charged whether or not you asked. No package on this page includes it.
Your accommodation must be Department of Tourism accredited or the fee desk will not clear you. Ask for the accreditation number before paying a small resort direct. Why this is checked
November to May the wind is on Bulabog and White Beach is flat. June to October it reverses and boats shift ports. Month by month
Private tour went to 3 islands snorkeling twice and lunch. Our guide and Boat Captain and his helper were great. Did a great job making our ride smooth and enjoyable and helping with snorkeling and getting on and off the boat.
Through no fault of the tour operator, very windy weather prevented us from taking the tour as advertised, so substitute stops were planned that basically consisted of riding around the area in 2 etrikes for our group of 6.
Seamless transfer from airport to port, port to boat transfer, destination port to hotel. Our luggage was handled by their staff from start to finish at the hotel. It seemed like we had our own entourage of people taking care of us.
This service made the whole transfer process much easier and more organized. It eliminates the hassle of arranging everything separately.
Good instructions, window 16 small, no name. Staff very helpful made transfer and escort to my hotel very easy.
This was my first solo trip. So might as well try doing atv. Moving forward 1 lap is around 5 to 6mins depending how fast you drive it. The staff was very friendly and make sure you are comfortable on your ride.
Quoted from the Viator listings compared on this page, with their original dates. The critical one is included on purpose.
Excluding flights, two people on three days and two nights land near ₱21,000, about $343, with one boat day and one land activity. That splits roughly into ₱1,500 in statutory fees, ₱2,447 in airport transfers, ₱3,000 for a non-beachfront room, ₱4,000 in food, and ₱10,000 in activities. A fourth day adds about ₱3,500 for the pair and no new fixed costs. The full breakdown is here. Where you sleep changes the total too: station by station.
By review record among the six compared here, the ATV track at 4.9 from 18 reviews and the round-trip airport transfer at 4.8 from 129 reviews are the strongest. The private island-hopping boat at 4.7 from 16 reviews is the one that fills a day and includes the gate fees. The helicopter has only four reviews, so read its terms rather than its rating.
November to January. Amihan has arrived, so White Beach is calm and dry, and the lumot algae that lands on the shoreline from roughly February to May has not started. February to April is drier still but is the algae window; June to October is Habagat, with bright mornings, heavy afternoon rain and the lowest prices of the year. Month by month, with rainfall. The full month-by-month guide.
Three days and two nights fits one boat day and one land activity, because the arrival day is only an afternoon once the transfer chain is done. Four days adds a spare slot for weather at the cost of a room night and meals, roughly ₱3,500 for two. Here is how the days actually fall.
Yes, unless your transfer states it as included. The ₱300 environmental fee, ₱150 terminal fee and ₱50 boat fare are charged at Caticlan Jetty Port to every arriving visitor. Both airport transfers on this page include all three in the fare; a prepaid island-hopping boat does not, because you have already paid them on arrival. Details and the iPass prepay option. How the iPass prepay works, step by step.
At four people, yes. The private boat is ₱6,124 for the group, which is ₱1,531 a head with gate fees included, against ₱1,700 to ₱1,900 for a group seat before its Crystal Cove and Magic Island fees. For two people the group seat is cheaper. The crossover maths.
Five of the six listings here allow free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start: both transfers, the private boat and the ATV. The jet ski is non-refundable. Cancellation is handled by the platform, not by us, and the terms shown at checkout are the ones that apply.
Only the transfer, realistically. Island-hopping seats, ATV slots and jet skis are sold along the beach path and at hotel desks on the day. Booking ahead buys a fixed price, an English-language confirmation and a cancellation window; walking up buys a lower price and no guarantee, which is a fair trade in low season and a poor one in December.
On the beach, usually, and by a wide margin on the jet ski. What you give up is a fixed price, a written confirmation and a cancellation window. In low season that is a fair trade; in December, when the boats fill, walking up can mean not going. What the desks quote and how to read it.
Lumot is the green algae that washes onto the White Beach shoreline, heaviest from roughly February to May. It sits at the waterline rather than in the swimming water, resorts rake it daily, and it does not affect the island-hopping stops at Puka or the snorkel sites. It does affect the photographs. The month-by-month picture.
Caticlan (MPH) is ten to fifteen minutes from the jetty port and costs more. Kalibo (KLO) is ninety minutes to two hours away by van and is often much cheaper. The saving disappears if the flight lands after the public boats stop at about 19:00, because a chartered pump boat then costs ₱2,000 to ₱2,500. The full comparison.
Planning guides
The detail that does not fit on one page: the fees, the arrival chain, the months and the stops themselves, each written from the listings and the official rates rather than from a brochure.
Boracay Tours Package
