My Cebu Guide

A Visitor’s Guide to Cebu City, Philippines

Mabuhay! Welcome to Cebu City, Philippines! Besides being a popular destination in the country, Cebu is also known as the Queen City of the South Philippines which is located in the Central Visayas, in Region 7.  Cebu City is the second largest city in the country. Home to centuries old churches and historical markers like the Magellans’ Cross that dated back in the 15^th century, best diving sites in Asia like the one in Malapascua Island where a lot of Thresher Sharks can be seen, an array of mountains, caves, forests and beautiful beaches like in Badian Island, and concurrently, it is a highly urbanized city with malls, business centers and international hotels that are all within an hour’s travel to each other.

The weather is generally hot and humid and temperature stays at 25-32 degrees Celsius (78-90 degrees Fahrenheit) all year round. The temperature goes up to 28-38 degrees Celsius during the summer that starts from April and ends in June. Amihan Season (High Season) where the wind, usually hot and humid goes northeasterly to easterly with little to no rainfall starts from September to May. Habagat Season (Low Season) where the cool wind goes south-westerly with moderate to heavy rainfall starts from May to September. Amihan or Habagat can start a month later sometimes, so it would be October to June for Amihan and vice versa for Habagat.

Cebu Island has an international airport located in Mactan Island, Lapu-Lapu City which is 20 minutes from Cebu City proper. It is less congested than Ninoy Aquino International Aiport in Manila. Numerous direct flights to and from Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and scheduled flights to Japan, Qatar,     Malaysia, Taiwan and China can be booked. Additionally, seasonal chartered flights can be booked to and from countries such as, Russia, China, United States and other nations. Visitors from North America, Europe and the Middle East would need a lay-over on the South East Asian countries listed above to get to Mactan International Airport. The terminal fee for international entry is PhP 700 per passenger and PhP 200 per passenger for domestic.

There are different modes of transportation you can use around the city, but most tourists opt for taxi cabs. Make sure that you ask for a metered rate especially if you do not know your way around the city. If you are confident to have a little adventure, try the colorful jeepneys. There is no tourist information center at every corner so it is advisable to ask your hotel’s front desk on which jeepney routes to take to your destination before embarking outside rather than asking random strangers, although, sometimes it helps to ask. Most Cebuanos can speak and understand English, so that would be a common language that can guarantee to get your message across.

Make sure that you always have smaller denominations of the Philippine peso (PhP), as cabbies always most of the time say they don’t have a change for PhP 500 bill, and unfortunately can force you to just let them to keep the change. The Philippine Peso come in 1 PhP coin, 5 PhP coin, 10 PhP coin, 20 PhP bill, 50 PhP bill, 100 hP bill, 200 PhP bill, 500 PhP bill and the biggest, 1,000 PhP bill. There are tons of ATM machines around the city, but safest to use local banks such as BPI, Metrobank, RCBC, BDO and some foreign banks like HSBC and Citibank. These banks are also the safest and cheaper than in the airport for money change. However, it is important to get your money changed to PhP before getting out of the airport for your transportation fares. If you are a frequent traveler, you would know that additional fees apply for overseas bank transactions and sometimes your bank from your country might need to be pre-alerted that you are travelling to the Philippines so they can release money to you when you use the ATM machines here. Western Unions are available in many locations in Cebu City for money transfer transactions, too. Please don’t forget to bring your passport I.D., as they will not accept other forms of identification except your passport if you are a foreigner.

For shopping, there is SM City Cebu, a four-level shopping haven with a movie theater and over 200 shops and restaurants. And also Ayala Center mall that is a large department store, with two Supermarkets, Movie Theater and a lot more international restaurants. The cab fare from the airport to these malls should only run about PhP 150-200. The city offers so many popular tourist spots around and just about an hour travel away. For example, Taoist Temple and Tops are some places to go visit.

To visit the neighboring islands that have all the beautiful beaches like Bantayan Island, or other nature sight-seeing activities like in Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary and all other exciting places for adventures, you can rent a car or take a cab to the nearest port to where a boat will bring you to which island. Renting a car usually means that you will have a driver to bring you to your destination and back if you prefer, although, the usual rent-a-car concept where you will drive the car yourself is also available.

While in Cebu, it is not customary to include a tip, but it would be nice if you can leave at least 10% tip for good service. However, some restaurants already include service charge on your bill so make sure to read your bill carefully before leaving money behind. As a matter of fact, if there is no clear signage in visible areas or a note on the menu that a service charge is included it would not be rude to ask if that is automatically charged to your bill prior to ordering rather than be forced to pay a service charge if you don’t want to.

The Philippines is a third-world country, but is a very forward country in terms of communication and data and not so lagging behind with the bigger industrialized nations of the developed world. In fact, as far as cellphone use is concerned, this country is definitely in the industry’s front. The Philippines is the texting capital of the world. Texting has boomed here long before it was popular in the US and numerous mobile phone applications are invented here. Grab any SIM card from any of the local 3G or 4G networks like SMART, GLOBE or SUN and just get electronic loads for usage credit. Local phone calls are PhP 7 – PhP 10 per minute and SMS texts are PhP 1- PhP 2 each. There are numerous load stands or you can buy phone cards for load that come in PhP 100 or PhP 300 usually, this is best and cheaper way to connect between families visiting together instead of accumulating expensive international roaming charges. You can ask your hotel desks as they may have electronic loads available for purchasing.

Please note that the metric system is used in most trade and legal transactions and standard electricity is 220 Volts A/C, although 110 Volts A/C is also used especially in major hotels. Also, most large stores, restaurants, hotels and resorts accept major credit cards including American Express, Visas and MasterCard. Traveler’s checks preferably American Express is accepted at hotels and large department stores. Personal checks drawn on foreign banks are generally not accepted.

As with any trip, you should take standard safety precautions. Don’t leave your belongings unattended, avoid flashing wads of cash, and don’t wear or carry jewelry. If you can get a safety deposit box in your hotel, it is advisable to leave your precious personal effects and important documents behind. Cebu is a safe place, but it would not hurt to be aware at all times.

I hope you enjoy your stay and take as many pictures you like to post on your Facebook page. Visit our General Information page for more detailed information and feel free to look at the other blogs about tourist destinations here in Cebu.

Tags: Cebu, Cebu Activities, Cebu Landmarks, Cebu Tourist Spots