Traveling Air Philippines style!

Manila -Boracay

Departure: May 16, 2011

Time: 6:00am

Air Philippines 2P 0035 (NAIA Terminal 3)

Boracay-Manila 

Departure: May18, 2011

Time: 3:40pm

Airphilippines 2P 0076 (Caticlan Airport)

Distance: 189 miles

Duration: 1 hour

Just like my Taipei trip with DH last December, my Boracay trip was also booked just a few days before our departure date. 11 days to be exact! 

I have to thank my friend, Gevi, who booked both our plane tickets and hotel stay. She directly booked with Air Philippines through their website and booked our 2 nights stay through Agoda. She is such a pro at booking last minute that I could have sworn she is used to doing it but no, she just did it for me. My schedule for the past few months is quite erratic so I am all for unplanned trip which more frequently than not pushes through. But that's just in my case!

our Air Philippines De Havilland Dash 8 turbo propeller plane

It was stated in the email that we got from Air Philippines that we have to arrive 2 hours before the departure time. My initial reaction was "Really?! even for domestic flight!" When I arrived at the airport at 4am, I now know the reason why people were required to be there two hours earlier before flight schedule. The lines were really long. It sucks! I was there before Gevi did so she didn't have to go to the end of the line. Lucky girl! 

Things to remember before going to the airport for domestic flight only:

1. Be at the airport 2 hours before the scheduled departure time
2. Bring a valid Identification Card (driver's license, passport or any government issued ID)
3. Bring the credit card used in online transaction to be presented upon check in
4. If the passenger is not the credit card owner, a photocopy of the credit card used for online transaction and a copy of valid ID of the credit card owner should be presented. 
5. If boarding from NAIA, bring PhP200 for terminal fee

Failure to do numbers 2, 3 & 4 may result in denied boarding on the plane or maybe advised to purchase new tickets.

Bad Cathay, Bad!

When I booked our tickets through our travel agent, I was a bit apprehensive when I saw our return flight booking which is as follows:

Toronto- Hong Kong 1040-1355

Hong Kong- Manila 1445- 1645

We have less than an hour to connect to our Manila flight. What if our flight in Toronto was delayed... My worst fear has happened and something else happened to top that.

We arrived around 8 am for our 10:40 am flight. We got in the "online check-in" line and was asked by a personnel if we want to be a volunteer. "Volunteer for what?" I ask. I learned that if we give away our plane seat for the day, we will be paid CAD 400 per pax CASH and we get to fly out the very next day. Hmm... not bad, we decided to grab the opportunity. But wait, there's more... we still have to wait for them to fill up the plane and only then will we know if we are the "winner" of the CAD 400 hehe In the meantime, the employee gave us CAD 20 voucher for our breakfast while we while our time in the small cafe near the check in counters.

Connection to Toronto

My visit: September 17, 2008

Manila- Toronto
Part 2
16:20 Manila time-19:00 Toronto time same day

Our flight to Toronto was a long one. It's a total of 16:50 hours of travel. Manila to Hong Kong duration was 2:10 hours and Hong Kong to Toronto non stop is 14:40.

Whew! Just thinking of the long trip back home makes me want to just stay here in the United States... N-O-T hehe Of course, I missed my dog, Precious and so need to be back home to bathe her. Imagine, I'm gone for more than a month, she sure would smell bad when I get back hehe unless my dear SIL have the time to bathe her haha

Anyway, when we booked for our seat online, there were no more aisle seat available, we settled for the window and middle seat. If you have experienced travelling long haul, seating in the middle or the window seat is a lot of trouble specially when you are my type who uses the toilet more than once in the entire duration of the flight. So, we just prayed that the one seating in the aisle would also have to use the toilet so we wouldn't have to disturb him/her. But lo and behold hehe for the entire duration of our flight, not once did he- oh, yes, it's a he, did he go up and pee. Oh NO! haha But we got to do what we got to do alright. In one instance, when I really, really have to pee and he looked sound asleep and I don't want to wake him up, I tried to hopped on his legs. Since he is kind of tall and I'm tiny, I couldn't open my legs wide enough and he thus arose from his sleep hehehe

DH is not on my side when that happened, I was too embarassed to get back that I had to look for him. I found him at wherelse the steward's station where they prepare all the food. He was muncing on someting and waiting for his noodles to be ready. So I stayed with him and have a cup of noodles for myself too.

That's probably one of the weirdest passenger that I have encountered. Good for him right?

After that incident, good thing our plane landed just in time for my next pee lol

Cathay Pacific Experience

September 17, 2008

Manila- Toronto
Part 1

We had an afternoon flight-12:30pm plane to catch and so we left our house around 8:30 am. Don't tell me that I'm all too excited because I'm not. If you tell me that, probably, you are not from Manila, Philippines. Traffic here is crazy. Traffic can stall you from one to two hours during rush hour which is what we plan to avoid in the first place.

So here we are in the airport as early as 10:30 am and checked in already. The guy who checked us in NAIA initially told us that since we had an online check in we should have fallen in line in the Cathay Pacific counter. This is after we waited for more or less thirty minutes in line. But bless, uhm, him because he said he will assist us anyway *it's his job* He is a bit chit chatty and inquired about the sights and things to see in Toronto as many passengers seems to pick Toronto to their liking. We answered that maybe it's the weather. Uh- hmm weather, you talk about it when there seems to be nothing to talk about lol So there, after rebooting his computer and the line starts getting longer, another employee of the same airline told him to quit his chit chat and proceed to check us in.