Tisoy's First Major Trip

It is time to leave Manila and go home to Cebu. This was Tisoy's first big journey and we were excited to find out how it would go. 

Packed and ready to go home

We decided to take the boat to Cebu for several reasons: One, we had so much luggage we would pay a fortune on excess. Two, we wanted to spare Tisoy from the ear pressure experience (at least for now) and three, I had never taken the boat from Manila to Cebu and wanted it to experience myself. 

We had booked a stateroom at the 2Go Ferry and it turned out, it was the best decision we could have made. The room was big and comfortable (at least as big as, if not bigger than, the condo unit we had stayed at in Manila), we had our own bathroom, and even the food was included. Even though a stateroom is the most expensive accommodation on a boat, it was good value (and still a lot cheaper than taking the plane.)

our spacious room

I even have my personal breastfeeding lounge

A lovely towel arrangement

So we spent 24 relatively uneventful hours on the boat. We enjoyed the movies in our cabin (well, not all movies shown were that enjoyable and I still don't understand how one can show horror movies in the afternoons in public places where lots of small children are around. The evening movie was Forrest Gump though which I hadn't seen in ages and we really enjoyed.

We took Tisoy for a walk along the deck and we listened to the on-board videoke competition, which Tisoy slept through completely. The noisier it is, the deeper is his sleep, so it seems. And we went to the restaurant to eat our meals. The meals were delicious, our only complaint was that it was so cold in the restaurant that one of us had to wait outside with Tisoy while the other was eating. 

A stroll on deck

Tisoy slept soundly not through the night but better than usual, maybe the shaking of the waves put him to sleep.

The only action was caused by some diaper leakages and only 8 hours into our journey we had already gone through all 5 onesies we had prepared for this trip. (Lesson learned: Huggies is not the best match for us.)

We arrived in Cebu, and connected with the arrival is my only major complaint about the trip. In Manila the port is organized, easily accessible by Taxi and safe. 

Arriving in Cebu, we were left to ourselves (luckily there was at least a porter service so that we didn't have to carry all our luggage). We had to walk quite a far distance out of the Terminal and onto the access road, then compete for a taxi with the hundreds of other passengers while huge cargo trucks drove by right in front of our noses. It's anything but safe. In my opinion, the least one can expect from a major passenger port terminal is a taxi line in a safe area without the passengers risking of being run over by a truck.

In the end we arrived home safely.