El Nido Island Hopping Tour in Bacuit Bay

Start with the route, not the operator

Every shared boat in El Nido runs one of four municipal routes, and the stops are the same whoever sells the ticket. Tour A is the lagoon day: the Big Lagoon by kayak, the Secret Lagoon through a gap in the rock, lunch at Shimizu Island, sand at Seven Commandos. Tour C is the beach day on the outer islands, and it crosses open water to get there.

Tour B is caves and a sandbar with the fewest boats around you. Tour D is the closest to town and holds the Small Lagoon. The route-by-route comparison goes stop by stop; the short version is that first-timers with one day take A, beach people take C, and anyone who has already done A takes D or B.

Shared boat or your own

A shared bangka carries 15 to 25 people on a fixed route with fixed timings, and the shared Tour A listings here cost $22 to $25 for that. A private boat is priced per person on the listings, from $124 on Poseidon's Tour A, and what it buys is control: the order of the stops, an earlier departure ahead of the fleet, and the right to skip a swim your group does not want. Only a private boat may mix routes, which is why the A and C highlights day exists.

The private-or-shared guide runs the break-even; for two people the shared boat wins on money every time, for a family of six it gets close.

Read the inclusions line before the price

Two listings at the same $25 can cost different amounts by four o'clock. Alexzus's Tour A includes a mask and snorkel; Corazon's lists them as rentals. Neither includes the eco-tourism fee, the ₱200 Big Lagoon fee or the kayak, and no shared listing here includes hotel pickup, whatever the day-tour habit elsewhere. The one exception on fees is Cliffside's Tour D at $41, which has the eco fee and the lagoon fee inside the price and leaves only the kayak.

The table above does that arithmetic for each card.

Tour A: the lagoons of Miniloc Island

Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, Shimizu Island and Seven Commandos Beach, with Payong-Payong Beach added as a fifth stop on the Beacfront joiner and the Poseidon private boat. Engines stay outside the Big Lagoon, so the boat moors at the mouth and you paddle in; entry is capped per day and a boat that arrives after the cap goes elsewhere. The Secret Lagoon is a swim or wade to a hole in the cliff and a squeeze through it.

Shimizu is where lunch is served and where the snorkelling is. Seven Commandos has the longest beach of the day and a bar.

Tour B: caves and the sandbar

Snake Island's tidal sandbar, a snorkel stop at Popolkan or Pinagbuyutan Island, Cudugnon Cave, Cathedral Cave and Entalula Beach. Cudugnon is an archaeological site, entered through a hole you crawl through, and Cathedral is entered from the water. One reviewer who had done all four routes ranked B first for the quiet, another preferred it to A, and the Corazon Tour B is the shortest shared day here at six hours.

No lagoon, so no lagoon fee.

Tour C: the outer beaches

Helicopter Island, Hidden Beach, Talisay Beach, Secret Beach and the Matinloc Shrine. Hidden Beach is reached by wading two hundred metres over shallow reef, Secret Beach by swimming through an opening in the rock, and the shrine costs ₱200 to enter. Matinloc sits across the Tapiutan Strait, which is why walk-in offices price C above the others and why the Coast Guard closes it first when the swell is up.

The only Tour C on this page is Poseidon's private boat; the A-versus-C guide explains when to take which.

Tour D: the quiet lagoons close to town

Small Lagoon, Cadlao Lagoon, Pasandigan Cove, Paradise Beach, the Nat Nat snorkel area and Bukal or Serenity Beach. The Small Lagoon moved here from Tour A under a 2018 municipal ordinance, which is the single fact that most guides still get wrong; the route history has the detail. Two lagoons means two kayak legs and two fees on Corazon's $26 boat, and no fees to count on Cliffside's $41 one.

Reviewers count 15 to 17 people on the Corazon boat and describe being alone at the lagoons.

Eco fee, lagoon fee, kayak

The Eco-Tourism Development Fee is ₱400 (about $6.40) per non-resident adult, paid once at the operator's office or to the guide before boarding, and the receipt covers every tour and site for 10 days. Children aged 6 to 13 pay ₱250 and under-sixes go free. The rate was set at ₱400 by a municipal ordinance, per the town's booking-office explainer and the ETDF board's bulletin.

The Big Lagoon and the Small Lagoon each charge a ₱200 users fee at the mouth. Kayaks are priced ₱300 to ₱350 for a two-seater and ₱500 for three seats on the listings here, and since motor boats may not enter either lagoon, the kayak is the ticket in.

Which listings already include what

Every card above prints its own line. Corazon, Alexzus and Beacfront exclude the eco fee and the lagoon fee on their shared Tour A boats and Corazon does the same on Tour D, even where a listing's summary says "entry fees" are in. Alexzus's Tour A listing also prints a five-day validity for the eco fee; the municipality's rule and every other source say ten.

The Alexzus private A and C boat includes one kayak at the Big Lagoon. Cliffside's Tour D includes the eco fee and the lagoon fees and leaves a ₱300 kayak. Bring ₱100 and ₱500 notes; nobody on the beach takes a card, and the ATMs in town run dry on long weekends.

Dry season, monsoon, and the strait

The dry season runs from late November to May with December to April as the peak for weather and for crowds. The southwest monsoon from June to October brings more wind and rain, and Tour C is the route that goes first, because Matinloc and Helicopter Island sit across the open Tapiutan Strait. Tour A and Tour D work inside the lee of Miniloc and Cadlao and are usually the last routes cancelled.

If a day is lost, the platform refunds the listing price; the eco fee receipt stays valid for the next ten days, so pay it once and re-use it.

• Have more than one day? Do Tour C first while the weather holds, then A or D
• June to October: book the morning after you arrive, not the morning you land
• Peak weeks around Christmas and Easter: the Big Lagoon cap bites earliest, so the earlier departure wins
• A private boat can leave at 8:00 am or run the route in reverse; shared boats leave together

In the dry bag

Cash in small notes for the eco fee, the lagoon fee, the kayak and the floating drinks vendors, roughly ₱1,000 for a Tour A or D day and ₱500 for B. Reef shoes, because the Secret Lagoon entrance, the Hidden Beach wade and the cave floors are sharp rock; operators rent them for about ₱100 a pair. A rash guard, which does the sunscreen's job in the water and stays out of the coral. Your own mask if you snorkel often, since the boat sets are rentals on most listings and the fit is a lottery.

A refillable bottle: single-use plastic bottles and plastic bags are banned on the tours, and crews will ask you to decant.

• Passport or ID; one listing asks for it at check-in
• Reef shoes and a rash guard
• ₱1,000 in ₱100 and ₱500 notes for a lagoon route
• A dry bag: bangkas take spray over the bow
• Motion tablets for the Tour C crossing
• The eco fee receipt, in a zip bag, for every tour after the first

What stays on shore

Plastic bottles, plastic bags, alcohol on the shared boats, and anything you would mind getting wet at the wade-out. Smoking is banned on board across the listings. Luggage and large bags are refused on the Corazon boats.

The packing detail for families covers child sizes and seasickness on the open crossing.