Samal Island Hopping

One of the more popular activities on and around Samal Island has to be what is known as “island hopping.” Once upon a time most people gathered up the clan and spent the day on the beach at Paradise Island Beach Resort or later on at a place like BlueJaz with its many water activities. These days it seems island hopping is what everyone wants to do.

The term itself is a bit misleading, at least to those of use that grew up on a different version of English. You don’t “hop” to very many islands, in fact in the trips I’ve been on we’ve only stopped at Samal Island and once at Wishing Island. For the most part you “hop” around the gulf, around Talikud Island and/or Samal Island.

The entertainment is still mostly about eating and hanging out with your group. The other activities that might be involved are secondary to that, just as it was with going to the beach at Paradise, for instance. You will get to go swimming, snorkeling, beach roaming, etc. depending upon the package you choose. But most of the time you will be traveling to and from stops, chatting and eating. Sounds like a normal Filipino party, right? Same thing except on a boat.

The trips I’ve experienced were bring your own food. I gather that is the norm. I would suspect that you could get it catered, as long as you were willing to pay for that.

There are many outfits doing these island hopping tours. Most of the resorts also offer this service. Prices vary according to how large a group you have and to what extent the tour involves. I’ve not paid for the ones I’ve gone on but I’m sure you’d like to know how much they cost. I’m afraid I couldn’t even venture a guess. Maybe something like – how much do you want to spend?

For convenience sake I’ll list the last place that provided our service. I’m not necessarily recommending them or not. My suggestion is to ask the relatives to give you a recommendation. Most will have gone on one or know someone who has. Ideally just let them take care of it, especially if you are just here on vacation. There are enough other things to deal with than trying to arrange an island hopping.

This is one time it might serve just as well to be the ATM.

Carabo Dive Center
(082) 222-0122
0928-504-7642