Puerta Princessa Palawan

[OnMyWay]

I just booked a cheap flight to Puerta Princessa for our family of 5.  Only 16k RT on CP, from Clark.  First time trip to Palawan for us.

Coron was too expensive right now and I looked into travelling from PP to El Nido.  Does not work well, so just PP this trip.

Any advice on places to stay and things to do?  We have some ideas but it is always good to hear some real experiences.  We are there 7 nights.  I think we will do 3 nights in a nice hotel and 4 nights in AirBNB, or something like that.

Thanks in advance!

[Old55]

Looking forward to your experiences traveling to Puerta Princessa and then up to El Nido. We are looking at this next year.

[Mike J]

On your way to El Nido stop and do the underground river tour.  At El Nido do the island hopping tour.  Best to rent the entire boat so you can stay one stop ahead of the crowds.

[OnMyWay]

34 minutes ago, Old55 said:

Looking forward to your experiences traveling to Puerta Princessa and then up to El Nido. We are looking at this next year.

 

15 minutes ago, Mike J said:

On your way to El Nido stop and do the underground river tour.  At El Nido do the island hopping tour.  Best to rent the entire boat so you can stay one stop ahead of the crowds.

 

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

I just booked a cheap flight to Puerta Princessa for our family of 5.  Only 16k RT on CP, from Clark.  First time trip to Palawan for us.

Coron was too expensive right now and I looked into travelling from PP to El Nido.  Does not work well, so just PP this trip.

Any advice on places to stay and things to do?  We have some ideas but it is always good to hear some real experiences.  We are there 7 nights.  I think we will do 3 nights in a nice hotel and 4 nights in AirBNB, or something like that.

Thanks in advance!

We are only going to PP so just looking around that area.  Driving to El Nido, even if I rented a car, would be 4-5 hours.  With stops, etc., your burn a whole day in each direction.  We would like to see Coron some day, but it is even farther from El Nido.  Best to see Coron on a dedicated trip.  Flights from Clark to Coron on PAL would cost me 50k compared to the 16k I spent.

I might rent a car for part of our stay and explore outside of PP.  The underground river tours usually include a ride to that area and we are probably going to do that.  For our hotel time, we are considering  Astoria for a few nights.  I think the kids will enjoy it.  It is outside the city but they provide  a shuttle.

https://astoriapalawan.com/

[manofthecoldland]

We flew into PP from MNL one year more than a decade ago. It is set up for tourists, it seemed to me. Your hotel will offer a variety of tour packages available. We took in the alligator farm, the prison farm (gift shop where things that the prisoners make are sold in their gift shop.... I bought a small ceramic alligator). Later we took a van up the road enroute to the Underground River tour. Stopped at another gift shop and I bought some back scratchers  Everything inscribed with PP decor. Just like the Baguio momentos.

The road to the underground river was thick mud the last several miles, but we made it. I was astounded at the time, that one of the PI star tourist sites was so backward. Same for the underground River voyage. Waded out to small bangka. Spend 30-60 minutes and landed at beautiful beach. Hiked 15 minutes on jungle trail to the river and cave entrance landing. Monkeys in trees. Given a ratty life vest and helmet. Very nice and sort of primative ride into the cave entrance on a small paddled boat. Many nice cave formations inside with names. They had a large, hand held spotlight attached to a small dry cell batt that the guide shined on the formations. They only take you in so far, unless you take a private tour boat which goes in further.

Need to roll up your long pants and wear slippers.... when taking the boat from landing to Underground River entrance beach.

There were some examples of traditional housing set up along the road to the beach at the start landing. Everything was relatively brief. I think we had a served beach lunch at a simple resort somewhere along the way. Check with tourist package offerings.

They also take you up overlooking the town of PP to a kitchy tourist place with fiberglass statues of cartoon characters or ???. I guess this is hot stuff for the Filipino tourist, who made up most of our tour groups at the time. Also stopped at a Governor's mansion.

It was all underwhelming, but the places had charm in their quaintess. The scenery was spectacular, however. We passed on the island hopping tour. Doesn't interest me.  Saw a tiny Vietnamese temple where relocated Viets lived back in the 60s or 70s. Postcards available and not much else.

Nice clean little city with trash receptacles on the streets.  A 'boardwalk' near the shore , etc. Went to their largest department store to buy our trike driver a baseball cap, since he was a nice guy.

All in all, a nice place to visit. I paid the van tour operator, thinking that was the norm. Later when checking out, the tour costs were on my hotel bill. I inquired, since I had already paid, and wasn't charged by the hotel. Apparently when you book tours at your hotel desk, they do all the billing and collecting... but they never mentioned the set-up.

This was all more than a decade ago. I don't know what's changed since then. I expect that things have gotten..... who knows. It is the PI and things go down strangely there when they try to 'improve' things.

Good luck. I think I'll check the web to see what's there these days.

[OnMyWay]

12 minutes ago, manofthecoldland said:

We flew into PP from MNL one year more than a decade ago.

Thank you for the detailed response!  One thing that has changed in the past 10 years is that you have dozens of visitors posting videos and pictures on the internet now.  I will post a trip report to let you all know how it is now.

Sounds like you were there in rainy season?  We will also be there at the start of the rainy season, so we need some good luck!  I hope the Accuweather forecast is reasonably Accu!  Some rain is ok as long as it is not all day!

Do they allow visitors to bring flashlights into the caves?

[manofthecoldland]

Not sure  about flashlights. Don't see why not.... but then again, they have their own mysterious rules and regs, oftentimes. I think the stern paddler might have had one. The guide in the front who lectured, had the big spotlight.

We were there during pre-Christmas season, maybe November when I used to arrive in those years. There was a giant, maybe 30+ foot Christmas tree (not a real tree of course), construct down by their new portside boardwalk, and many school bands were standing around for some sort of practice session. I love their school parade costumes. We sat at a kiosk table, and watched for an hour and then had our rented trikeman (for the day) take us to other places.

 

[HappyJack]

Write this down.....Near the airport on Rizal street is a restaurant called Artisans.  For sure it is the best restaurant on the island of Palawan. 

https://www.facebook.com/artisansresto

If you are a seafood fan (I'm not) try

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kalui-Restaurant-Puerto-Princesa-Palawan/151594812037571

This is an interesting restaurant.  Go at night. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Badjao-Seafront-Restaurant-Palawan/286282195129305

 

Bottom line...DO NOT miss out on dining at Artisans.

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, HappyJack said:

Write this down.....Near the airport on Rizal street is a restaurant called Artisans.  For sure it is the best restaurant on the island of Palawan. 

https://www.facebook.com/artisansresto

If you are a seafood fan (I'm not) try

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kalui-Restaurant-Puerto-Princesa-Palawan/151594812037571

This is an interesting restaurant.  Go at night. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Badjao-Seafront-Restaurant-Palawan/286282195129305

 

Bottom line...DO NOT miss out on dining at Artisans.

I saw Kalui (take your shoes off?) and Badjao on Vlogs today.  They all look great!

[HappyJack]

8 minutes ago, OnMyWay said:

I saw Kalui (take your shoes off?) and Badjao on Vlogs today.  They all look great!

Artisans FOR THE WIN!!!   The restaurant would make a killing on SBMA.