Originally Posted by
escog
Planning my own trip to the Philippines with my extended family. We decided on Palawan since my father had never been there. We fly in and out of Manila, so we're taking the Air Swift flight directly to El Nido, which is rather expensive. There are still rooms available in the El Nido area as we just booked 6 rooms a few weeks ago for peak season. We didn't look at the bigger resorts since they were out of our price range, and instead focused on accommodations in El Nido and nearby.
One itinerary option we had considered which might be of interest to you is to head for Bohol from Cebu. You can take a ferry from Cebu down to Panglao Island and island hop around. We had looked into an itinerary that included Panglao Island, Siquijor Island, and Dumaguete. The logistics are fairly simple for getting around since you travel by ferry everywhere. Bohol has some nice attractions for kids, like the tarsier sanctuary. And, it's likely cheaper than Palawan.
Another option we seriously considered was Siargao Island. It's off the beaten track and takes a bit to get to, but it's still relatively undeveloped.
https://www.justonewayticket.com/201...r-non-surfers/
I had looked into Siargao. It has similar activities... island hopping and what not. Though the options seemed rather limited. We ended up doing 5 nights in El Nido and then we went to TayTay and went to NoaNoa island. A few FT's went right after us. There is a trip report in here and in the trip report section of that. I rather enjoyed touring around Cebu. It was much much cheaper than El Nido. We did the canyoneering which was amazing. If there are kids in your party I would say it is good for anyone over 12 years who isn't too afraid of heights. You could probably skip the whale sharks unless you want to get up at 5am. The crowds (especially in peak season) are really getting out of hand.