I AM ILOILO - The City Of Hearts: Roadtrip

If you plan to go to Boracay using the Bacolod or Iloilo route, I might say that it's pretty tiring, but it's all worth it.

First of all, prepare to buy 5-7 hours of your time depending on the bus that you want to take.

Bacolod - Iloilo - Boracay: From Bacolod port, take the fast craft; it would take an hour and a half to go to Iloilo. I would suggest that you take the first trip. There are 3 shipping lines that you may want to choose, these are SuperCat, Weesam and Ocean Jet. These 3 fast crafts have promos (most of the time) and for me, I would take Weesam or SuperCat. Go first class if you want Weesam and prepare for about 500php for a round-trip ticket. They usually offer promos for round-trips and same goes with SuperCat. Take the first trip, for Weesam, they depart at 06:30 am and 06:00 am for SuperCat if you want an earlier trip.

When you get to Iloilo and if you want to take a cab/taxi, go outside the port to avoid fixed rates. Usually it would cost you around 150php going to tagbak terminal as it is kind of far from the city. If you want to ride a jeepney, choose Jaro/CPU and ask the driver to drop you at the Jaro Plaza and from their, look for Leganes or Jaro/Tagbak jeepneys and ask them to drop you at the terminal; look for Ceres Liner going to Caticlan.

In the terminal, you have two Ceres buses to choose going to Caticlan. It has 1 stop and a regular route, but don't worry, these are airconditioned buses. I would suggest that you take the 1 stop to Kalibo terminal to take a pee break or buy some snack. Usually, it would take you 3 1/2 hour going to Kalibo and an hour and a half from Kalibo to Caticlan which would take you approximately 5 hours, but for regular route, it would take you 6-7 hours depending on the passengers destination as the bus may stop from time to time. There are stopping points to take some break, but I don't like it personally, since it would kill time.Once you reach Caticlan, the bus will drop you in front of the Boracay Jetty port. It would take approximately 5-10 mins going to Boracay island.

Ceres Liner Rates: as of May 2011

Iloilo to Caticlan - Buses departs every 20-30 mins

1 stop - Php350

Regular route - Php335

There are lots of Hotels in Boracay, but I would like to share the Hotel that we stayed in when we went there.

Real Maris - Between Station 1 and 2, near starbucks, Gerry's grill and D'Mall. Call their Manila sales office as they offer packages. Also, their employees were very helpful and accommodating.

Real Maris Pictures: