If you’re looking for somewhere that’s reasonably close to Manila and has last minute rooms available, even in the Summer, Puerto Galera (PG) might just be for you.
Getting there
This review is specially for Sabang rather than White Beach.
Getting there is pretty simple, make your way to Batangas Port by car, taxi or bus and then ride a 1hr – 1hr 30m ferry over to Puerto Galera. Then depending on your hotel location, you might need to ride a small banca for 10-15 minutes.
Smoking on the ferry![ferry]()
I cannot understand why this is allowed. At the back of the boats is a “smoking area”. The problem is that with the blinds down or curtains closed, the smoke just fills the cabin. Heads up smokers (especially boat staff), no one wants to land on the island with their clothes and bags stinking of smoke, wait the hour and get off the boat to smoke.
Oh and you know that environmental fee you have to pay to get onto the island? How about stopping the boat staff from throwing their cigarette sticks into the sea?
Entrance / Exit Fees
PG is a perfect example of the ‘Feelippines’ experience, with many small charges for entering and exiting the island. The charges are pretty questionable considering the upkeep of the beaches. Even the dock itself is falling apart with warnings from staff not to stand on certain corroded pieces of wood, else you might just fall straight through into the water.
The beaches
Just like everything else on this budget island, the beaches are good but not amazing. They’re not as clean as other locations, they’re not as large and they generally don’t have the same facilities like loungers and cabanas.
Activities
Pretty much everyone who goes to Puerto Galera does the same classic activities as a minimum. A tour of a few beaches, visit the underwater cave, giant clams and some snorkelling. Although some guides will put you off visiting certain beaches because the ‘waves are too big’ or there’s an ‘entrance fee’. For some areas it’s true but sometimes they just don’t want to waste the time and gas taking you there. Even though you already paid. I think most people already expect that when you buy a tour package in the Philippines, you’ll get maybe 75% of what you were promised and expected.
Brown outs / Black outs / Power cuts
The island suffers from power cuts but they’re usually brief and some resorts have generators. If you’re in an aircon room, make sure it’s a window type aircon that will turn back on automatically. We had a modern split type aircon and kept waking up during the night to find the aircon turned off with the last power outage and the room became a hot box.
![starbucks]()
Fake Starbucks
I’ve never seen this anywhere else in the Philippines but yes, in Sabang you will find fake Starbucks. For example two resorts closest to where we stayed, Scandi Divers and Campbell’s Beach Resort. Both have Starbucks menus with Starbucks prices, SB branded stickers, posters, signs, clocks etc. It looks like a semi-legit Starbucks. But then when you see the equipment they’re using and you taste it, you immediately know it’s not Starbucks. When asked, they explain that they use Starbucks coffee beans but that they’re not actually an official Starbucks. I’d recommend not wasting the money. It costs as much as a real Starbucks but doesn’t taste as good and doesn’t have the kick of a real SB coffee.
Aggressive Female Vendors
One of my biggest concerns about PG would be how aggressive some of the vendors are, especially the women. It was upsetting to see foreigners get off the boat with their luggage, fresh from NAIA, only to be abused by aggressive vendors at the dock. Not a great first impression of the Philippines.
The guys selling sunglasses and other items are generally quite calm and leave you alone if you say you’re not interested. But most of the women are awful, especially to non-English speaking tourists like Koreans. The female vendors barely even talk, just grunting, tutting, pushing and hitting (lightly) people as if they OWE her some kind of payment. And then they’ll just stand there and stare at you for minutes at a time, to try pressure you into buying something just so she’ll go away.
Of course I’ve experienced pushy vendors elsewhere in the Philippines but nothing like this and not the weird phenomena of the men being reasonable while the woman act super aggressive.
