Travel to Dumaguete City and Apo Island in Negros Oriental

 This post is a supplement to my blog post about the snorkel paradise that is Apo Island. I’ve decided to keep this post separate to keep my original post lean.

How to go to Dumaguete, Negros Oriental?

If you are coming from Manila, you can fly via Cebu Pacific directly to Dumaguete City.

If you are from Cebu, you can also fly to Dumaguete, trip will just take 30 minutes on the air. 

Alternative Option No 1 for those coming from Cebu is to take a 4 hours fast ferry ride to Dumaguete via Oceanjet. But take note that the route will be Cebu – Tagbilaran – Dumaguete and vice versa. I guess fast craft like Supercat which used to serve the direct route of Cebu to Dumaguete have discontinued their service because of fewer passenger. (This is just my personal assumption lol)

Alternative Option No 2 from Cebu: If you are on tighter travel budget and to make your island travel more affordable, take a bus bound for “Bato” or “Liloan” from the Cebu South Bus Terminal. It’s a 4 to 5  hours bus ride to get to Bato and from Bato take a 45 minutes ferry ride to Tampi, Amlan in Negros Oriental. From Tampi, Dumaguete is just a short 30 to 40 minutes jeepney ride away.

NOTE: Liloan here is a small barrio on the southern part of Cebu, and not the more famous Municipality of Liloan that is in between Consolation and Danao. Please don’t confuse the two because they are at opposite end of the island of Cebu.

Alternative Option No 3 from Cebu: There is a Roro (Roll on Roll off) bus that serves the route Cebu to Dumaguete City and it is from the Ceres Liner. You can take a Ceres Liner Roro bus bound for Dumaguete from the Cebu South Bus Terminal.  This is ideal especially for those first timers to Negros because you don’t have to deal with frequent transfers. The bus will travel to either Bato or Liloan in the southern tip of Cebu. When the bus gets to the pier, it is loaded to the ferry (passengers are transferred to the ferry) and when the ferry arrives in Negros, the passengers gets back on the bus and the bus rolls off to continue to Dumaguete.

Ceres Liner Bus Scheduled Dumaguete to Cebu and vice versa

How to Go to Apo Island from Dumaguete City?

Find the Dumaguete bus terminal, just ask any locals for direction. Ride a bus that is headed to the town of Bayawan, but be sure to tell the conduktor or the driver that you will be getting off in Malatapay market because you are going to the Apo Island. Trust me these drivers are used to having tourists asked them this all the time.

Once you arrived in Malatapay, just ask any locals for directions to the port or pier.  From the market it is just a few meters walk. Don’t expect much about the port, it is really just a small boat station. When you arrived in the mini-port, just go to this small hut/office to find the person in charge that arranges boat rides to Apo Island. You can choose among the small bancas or the bigger pump boats. Big bancas or pumpboats are price at P2,700 whereas smaller bancas can be had for only P1,700.

Boat Fare to Apo Island from Malatapay Boat Station

This boat that you have commissioned in Malatapay will bring you to Apo Island and will bring you back to Malatapay when you are ready to head back. But of course you have to tell the boatman when you plan to go back. The P2,500 boat fee is round trip, and you can pay after you are brought back to Malatapay port. You can choose day trip or stay overnight or for a couple of days in Apo Island.

Travel time from Malatapay port to Apo Island is approximately an hour.

On going back it is advisable to take a morning trip to avoid big waves. Big waves are the norm during afternoon boat rides.

Once you get back to Malatapay, just wait by the roadside for incoming buses bound for Dumaguete.

Alternative Trip you can check out  – Liloan Cebu to Dumaguete City to Siquijor!