Travelers, BEWARE!

I put up this site as a reminder that I have so many things to be thankful for so I vowed never to blog about anything negative.  But I’m going to make an exception today.

This is a warning to unsuspecting travelers like us of the unscrupulous ways of some fellow travelers.  What’s alarming is that the perpetrators in this incident are travel agency staff who were doing their ocular inspection for their internet-based company.  I mean, how can potential clients trust that company when it is run by people with questionable characters.  We found their website and they call their company, Vacation Island Travel.  It is founded by Ann Cresilda Tagle who happened to be one of the girls who ripped us off.

The incident happened during our recent trip to Pandan Island in Occidental Mindoro.  We researched and did our homework so we pre-arranged for a boat to take us to Apo Reef.  The tourism office made us sign a contract after we paid P6,500.  Impressive diba?  We also asked the tourism officer to send a huge boat because there might be more people who would want to come.  And that’s when the tourism officer asked us if we could accommodate 2 travel agents who wanted to go to Apo Reef also.  Without batting an eyelash, we said, “Okay lang, basta they show up at the jetty at 4am.”

The following morning, we were up at 3am, all excited to go to Apo Reef and by 4am, we were all seated at the bar and waiting for the boat.  True enough, the 2 travel agents were already there waiting for us and they again asked permission if they could go with us…we said that it’s okay as long as we could fit in the boat.  It was already 5am when the boat arrived and the boatman said that there’s something wrong with his boat.  As I understood it, there was no way that it could be fixed so I was really worried that we would not be able to get to Apo Reef.

He tried everything to fix the boat while we were there watching him.  By 6:30am, the boatman gave up and said that he got in touch with another boat to pick us up but curiously he invited the 2 travel agents onboard his boat to have coffee.  And in a few minutes, we saw them leaving the island with the “supposed” broken boat.  

We had no idea that we could be robbed in broad daylight.

Since we were advised that there will be a replacement boat, we just waited by the beach and it arrived 7am.  My jaw dropped when I saw that it was a fishing boat with no proper seats or shade but it was okay since all we wanted was to get to Apo Reef. I thought that we could rush to Apo Reef since it was already late but the captain of the fishing boat said that we needed to gas up in town.  Apparently, he was made to believe that he would get his fuel from the “supposed” broken boat.  And since it was nowhere to be found, we had to go all the way to Sablayan town to get gas and were on our way by 730am.  Though extremely uncomfortable, it was nevertheless an enjoyable trip. 


The fishing boat!



Now, I know how the boatpeople felt.



And when we finally got to Apo Reef, what did we see?  The “supposed” broken boat…with the travel agents snorkeling already.  Can you imagine how furious we were? 


Ate L cursed like crazy upon seeing the boat.

Did these travel agents think that we’d back out and forget about Apo Reef?  Were they really stupid enough to think that we’d never find out?

We wrote to the Sablayan tourism office to report this incident, I hope that they do something about it.  It’s just wrong that we were the ones who paid for the boat and yet these travel agents were the ones who travelled in comfort.  So who’s to blame for this upsetting incident?  Is it the boatman?  Because if he thought that there’s too many of us and that we would not fit in his boat, he could have just told us so that we could have arranged for another as early as possible.  We lost precious time because of what he did.  It’s not easy to get to Sablayan, we spent money and made sure to schedule all our activities but we were so disgusted with the kind of treatment that we received.  Or is it the travel agents who knew right from the very start that it was OUR boat and that they were just “chance passengers”?

I had to let a few weeks pass before I wrote about the incident because I was really angry.  At ayoko ng nega sa buhay!  Pero come to think of it, I am writing this because I am thankful that no unfortunate incident happened to us while on board that fishing boat.  We travelled a total of 6.5 hours under the scorching heat but thank goodness that it was already the worst part.  And I am also thankful that we got to see Apo Reef even if it was just for a very short time.  And that’s no thanks to you, Ann Cresilda Tagle.