When you’re in El Nido, they have pre selected tours for almost all the travel companies. The way they are set up is because geographically they make the most sense. One tour takes you to all the North West Islands, South East Islands, etc. From the tours we found, you were unable to customize due to this reason.
Tour A is one of four island hopping tours you can take in El Nido and is one of the most popular tour packages. You will get to visit amazing lagoons, beautiful sand beaches as well as prime snorkeling locations.
When you look up tours in El Nido, you’ll find that the company doesn’t really matter because they all go through the same 4 itineraries: Tour A, Tour B, Tour C, and Tour D.
We managed to do 2 of the 4 tours and booked our tour with Tarawis.
Contents
Tour A
We decided to do Tour A for one of our days in El Nido because we wanted to visit the beautiful lagoons and go snorkeling! This tour cost 7,500 PHP for 3 people and there are also extra charges for the environmental fee (200 PHP per person) and a fee to use the lagoon (200 PHP per person).
The tour includes snorkel equipment (mask, snorkel), life vests, towels, and lunch. However, this was before COVID-19 so make sure to check with your tour company if these items are still provided.
Since we stayed at a hotel that was near the port, our tour guide just walked to our lobby and we all walked over together to where the boat was docked. The pick up time is between 8AM – 8:30AM.
Keep in mind that it might be a while before you actually head out because there can be a queue for boats to get closer to the dock. We saw a lot of people having to walk out to the boat. They were holding their things up on their head so the items wouldn’t get wet. There are a lot of shops nearby so you can go shopping while you wait. I actually bought a small dry bag here.
There are 5 destinations part of this package. Here is the itinerary when we did it in January 2020.
Secret Lagoon
This was our first destination and it was about a 15 to 20 minute boat ride to the shore. There were people there when we arrived but it wasn’t too crowded – maybe because we went first thing in the morning.
The Secret Lagoon features amazing limestone rocks, white sand beach and a secret lagoon that you can only get to by entering through a cave!
Adbeens Reef
This is one of the snorkeling locations that we visited. We did ask the tour guide if we could go to the snorkeling locations last so that we could be dry for the other spots but I guess they have a specific path they need to go on.
Snorkeling was nice here since the water was calmer. But there wasn’t too much to see under the water except this giant rock. Brea and our friend used it as a prop for photos haha.
Shimizu Island
This was the second snorkeling location. The tour guide docked the boat here and prepared our lunch while we explored the ocean.
I didn’t go into the water though because I was already pretty tired and the waters looked rough!
Brea and our friend did go into the water and they also said it was a good idea I didn’t go with them since I’m not a strong swimmer at all. I just stayed back and took pictures of the scenery!
This was also a snorkeling location that we stopped at since we had some time.
Big Lagoon
We visited the Big Lagoon after we had our lunch. We were all feeling sluggish and bloated … Come to find – to experience the Big Lagoon we had to kayak ourselves.
We kayak-ed around for about an hour or so and took some nice pictures in and out of the kayak.
It was not an easy task, honestly. It was a very big lagoon to kayak around. Make sure to stay in sync with your partners to not waste energy. What pushed us through is singing Frozen II songs 😍 and How Far I’ll Go from Moana.
Seven Commando
This was our final stop. We didn’t spend too much time here but we did enjoy some really good halo-halo!
The El Nido – Tour A package is definitely a must-do if its your first time in El Nido especially if you enjoy both land and water activities!
