SEAIR has been providing the longest-running uninterrupted service to Busuanga, and now provides the fastest flights with its Dornier 328 aircraft.

So how do you join? All you have to do is tell us why you want to go to Busuanga via SEAIR, by Friday, 20 June 2008, at 8:00 p.m. You can use your personal blog, Multiply, Friendster, or any other social networking site, or any website for that matter for as long as your entry has a link to the SEAIR website. The entry which best captures the attention of our judges will get the 6 gift certificates!

To let us know you joined this contest, post the link of your entry as a comment in SEAIR starts 35-minute flights to Northern Palawan Like the previous raffle, make sure you place your full name in the name field since you will need a valid ID to claim the tickets if you win. The winner will be notified by e-mail so make sure you double check your e-mail address before submitting your comment. Tickets will be valid from now until 15 October 2008. Good luck!

Photos and graphic borrowed from Ivan Henares

SEAIR has a special promo you might want to check out. For a discounted price, you can get a round-trip air fare to Baler, Aurora (Manila-Baler-Manila) for four days and three nights that already includes daily breakfasts, round-trip airport transfers, and half-day surfing lessons.

You can download the Baler Package Rate Sheet here, or go visit the SEAIR website for more details.

If you prefer a quiet and romantic honeymoon at the beach, you might want to consider Microtel Inns & Suites at Diniwid Beach. It’s located at the other side of Boat Station 3, just about a few minute’s walking distance from Boat Station 1. And yes, it’s quite secluded. I know this for a fact—not only was I able to sleep soundly every night we were there, but I was also able to get some work done on my laptop.

Room with a view
What’s more romantic than having a room with a view? This is actually what sets apart Microtel Boracay from all the other Mircrotels in the world. Although Microtel lives up to its tagline, “the same hotel everywhere you go” (or something like that), the one in Boracay is their first ever resort hotel—and have rooms with a beautiful view of the beach and the hotel’s pool.

The room we stayed in didn’t come with a view, but I was privileged to explore and photograph a beachfront suite thanks to Anne (Microtel representative) and the head of housekeeping (whose name I totally can’t remember, sorry!).

The room design itself looks like any other room in the hotel (it looked exactly like ours), but what sets it apart is the beautiful beachfront view you will get when you go out into the balcony. From there, you can also see Microtel’s pool and dining area.

I think they have around six beachfront rooms (four on the second floor, and two on the ground floor).

Chiropractic beds
These are Microtel’s pride and joy: their chiropractic beds. According to Dean, the hotel manager, they had to ship those beds all the way to Boracay from the US. This is a requirement, he said, when opening a Microtel franchise. You can’t get any other bed other than those they use in all the other Microtel franchises around the world.

If there’s one thing I can’t complain about, it’s their beds. It’s not too stiff, but not to soft either—you won’t feel like you’re sinking when you lie on their bed. The old bed Marc and I have here at home seems like a torture chamber compared to the beds in Microtel—it’s just that comfortable.

Most of the rooms in the hotel have double beds, but each is big enough for two so you can always share if you want a more romantic setting. However, if you really want to get a room that has only one bed, you can consider getting a suite. But the thing is, it might not have a beachfront view. Microtel Boracay only has two suites with a beachfront view, you’d have to be fast if you want to reserve one of them before someone else does.

Shuttle
Let’s say you and your husband want a taste of the Boracay night life. The Microtel hotel really is on the other side of Boat Station 2 and 3, which are the prime spots for dining, shopping and partying. That’s far. Really, I’m not kidding. Together with a few bloggers, Marc and I braved walking about 3-4 kilometers to Boat Station 2. I thought my legs would fall off by the time we reached the Regency Hotel.

Microtel has a shuttle service you can call to pick you up. I can’t remember exactly, but I think this service is free. I suppose it’s their “remedy” for being far away from the Boracay night life. One thing you should know is that it’s really not that advisable to call the shuttle when you’re in a hurry. They have two shuttles taking visitors within the island, but remember that there are 51 rooms in the hotel and you aren’t their only guest. We had to wait for about 30 minutes for the shuttle to pick us up from Station 2 in the afternoon, but when we asked for the shuttle service in the evening, we only had to wait for about 10-15 minutes. So… If you got to pee, make sure you answer nature’s call first before calling the shuttle You never know what time it would arrive.

Here are a few more pictures I took of Microtel Boracay.

For the Microtel Boracay fact sheet, you can get more info on the second page of this post. Microtel actually provides this on their website, but I just added the info here for your convenience.

Before choosing Boracay as a honeymoon destination (or even the spot where you’d like to have your wedding if you’ve got enough cash lying around), there is something that you should first ask yourself: Are you there to party with crowds or enjoy quiet and romantic moments with your husband? This matters a lot, especially when choosing the hotel you’d be staying in. Either you get one right in the middle of Boat Station 2 (where the night life is), or you get one on the far end of the island where it’s quiet and secluded. The same goes if you want to have a wedding in Boracay: it’s either party or privacy. Fortunately, I have been able to see both for myself.

Last January 11 to 13, Marc and I joined Pinoy travel and photo bloggers on a trip to Boracay sponsored by Microtel Inns & Suites, in partnership with South East Asian Airlines (SEAIR) and Zuzuni Boutique Hotel and Restaurant. They wanted us to try out and review their services.

But the thing is, I would like you to have the most comprehensive review of these three as much as possible. As a former bride-to-be, planning all aspects of my wedding required thorough decision-making. After all, weddings are very special, and so are honeymoons. As such, I’ve separated my reviews into a series of posts for your reading convenience:

Part 1: A romantic Boracay honeymoon with Microtel
Part 2: Honeymoon alternative: Dining and night life with Zuzuni (coming soon)
Part 3: SEAIR: Taking your wedding on the air (coming soon)

As usual, I will try my best to be as objective as possible. Enjoy!

Marc and I spent a four-days-three-nights trip to Hongkong for our honeymoon, a gift courtesy of an uncle who’s a pilot for the Philippine’s flag carrier. I’ve been to Hongkong before with my late grandma, but I don’t see any point of complaining about seeing the place again for free!

Anyway, here are a few ideas to keep in mind in order to get the most out of your trip.

• Bring a camera. Duh. It’s your honeymoon. Wouldn’t you want to have some keepsake?
• Keep spare batteries and extra memory cards at hand. It really sucks when you run out of batteries or card space just when you see something worth taking a photo of. Happened to us more than once already Besides, batteries sold at theme parks or tourist spots are ludicrously expensive. If you don’t want to bring them along from the Philippines, you can always get some from a convenience store. I ran out of batteries when we were in Ocean Park (I totally forgot to bring the spare I bought from a store near our hotel), so I had to buy some at the theme park for more than twice the price.
• Put all toiletries, liquids, or whatever that can be used as a make-shift bomb in your check-in bags. Airport security will require you to do so. It’s a real hassle stuffing those things up in a meticulously prepared luggage.
• Do a little research on the place you’re heading for. Additional knowledge could never go amiss, especially if you’re visiting a different country. There are some things that may be acceptable in our culture, but in some, they’re not. My husband and I should have known better than to ask for cold drinking water from a Hongkong waiter—we usually ended up with warm water or nasty snarls from the waiter. As it turned out, drinking water is precious in Hongkong—you don’t ask for it, you pay for it.
• Be careful of what you say. I have to admit it’s really tempting to utter wisecracks and snide remarks in front of people of a different language. But be careful. You never know if one of them understands Filipino
• Make sure to bring extra money or a backup credit card. Even if you tell yourself you’re only there to enjoy the sights, trust me, you’d eventually end up spending on souvenirs and pasalubong to bring home to family and friends back in the Philippines. You don’t necessarily have to spend all the money, but it’s better than worrying if you could get back to your own country when you start running out of cash.
• Keep your passports in a safe place with you at all times. It’s your only way of identifying yourself in a foreign country. Call me paranoid, but we didn’t want to spend our honeymoon in a jail cell in case something bad happens and we couldn’t produce any form of identification. Make sure you keep your passports safe though (Marc and I borrowed my dad’s belt bag so we could bring the passports along without worrying about accidentally leaving it somewhere), or you could end up spending the rest of your trip at the Philippine Embassy.
• Don’t be shy, and ask strangers for help. I know it sounds so tourisy, but you need to be friendlier to the locals and your tourist group (if you’re part of a tour). The Hongkong locals were nice enough to point us in the right directions when we were wandering off in the shopping district on our own, and were game enough to take our picture for us (though most of the time we asked the people with us on the tour to take our photos).
• If in doubt, don’t. It doesn’t hurt to be adventurous (especially in food choices), but if you have a weak stomach, it might do you more harm than good.
• Avoid “doing it” like a pair of hamsters in heat. Unless you’ve really planned out your honeymoon so you could consummate your relationship as often as you breathe, you might want to save your energy for your tour. Set tours strictly follow schedules, and you might miss (and waste money) the tour if you’re too tired to drag yourself out of bed. I know it’s hard to deny the “thrill,” but hey, don’t forget that you’ll have an entire lifetime together to do that

How about you? Got some honeymoon ideas? Go on, share!