Travel Memoir: Boracay E-Book

Roxanne Regalado

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This is a memoir about my vacation in Boracay. Me and my family decided to spend Christmas 2018 in Boracay and this book is all about the experiences that we had there during our vacation. This book includes photos of our experiences in this island paradise called Boracay. 

Leseprobe

Roxanne Regalado

Travel Memoir: Boracay

This book is dedicated to all my friends and family.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Preparing for the trip to Boracay,

My sister, my mom and I were gathered in our dining table when my sister brought out the topic. 

"This Christmas, why don't we go to Boracay.", said my sister. 

"That's a good suggestion, since only you and I were the ones who were able to go to Boracay. Dylan (my nephew) and Summer (my niece) and your younger sister (which is me) hasn't been there yet.", said my mom. 

"Yey, that's awesome!", I said. 

"That's great.", said Dylan. 

"I can't wait and I'm so excited.", said Summer. 

Then this begins the planning of our trip to go to Boracay for the coming Christmas 2018. 

As usual, it was my sister who was tasked to book our hotel accommodations there in Boracay. She researched the affordable yet good places to stay. She carefully read the reviews about several hotels in Boracay. Then at last she decided to try to book a hotel room at Hey Jude for 12/24/18 - 12/27/18. Hey Jude has good reviews and free breakfast every day but the free breakfast is only good for four since the room that we are going to occupy is only good for four persons. In addition, Hey Jude is also close to the beach although it's not really a beach front property. 

So we were all so excited to go to Boracay but we didn't expect too much about it because we know that Boracay is a top destination and it's hard to find and book an accommodation. We were so relieved when my sister was at last finally able to book our accommodation at Hey Jude Hotel in Boracay. The Hey Jude hotel that we booked for is located very near station 2, there's also a Hey Jude hotel near station 3 but it's more expensive there. 

 So after my sister was able to book our accommodation at Hey Jude or even before that, I worked hard and saved money for my pocket money to bring with me to Boracay. Basically I planned to buy some souvenirs like key chains, coin purses and a shirt with the boracay print on them.

 So the next days, I packed up some clothes for the trip. My sister said that were gonna go to Iloilo on the 21st and were gonna sleep at a hotel in the night of the 21st so that we can leave Iloilo early and go to Caticlan by the 22nd. So that it will still be early in the afternoon when we arrive in Boracay on the 22nd. We all thought that it was a bright idea. Also on the way back home from Boracay, we will also sleep at a hotel again in Iloilo and then the next day we will go home. We all thought that it's a wonderful idea. 

My mom's former driver named Vic will bring us using our vehicle to Banago Port in Bacolod and he will also pick us up in Banago Port in Bacolod when we go back home. One of our relatives will be left to man our house while we were away on vacation until the time we will come home. My mother will pay him and we will also give him some goodies from Boracay like a shirt and a keychain.

After buying all our tickets, we all sat and waited at the predeparture area. After quite a while, the ferry arrived and unloaded all it's passengers. The workers on the ferry prepared the ferry for it's next batch of passengers. After a few minutes, the ferry was ready and me and my family went inside the ferry and sat at our designated seats. A few minutes after, when all passengers are all aboard, the ferry left for Iloilo City.

Going to Boracay

 The day has arrived when we are finally leaving our home to go to Iloilo, sleep there at a hotel for a night and then leave early morning the next day for Caticlan and from Caticlan to Boracay.

Me and my family all got busy doing last minute preparations. We had breakfast, checked if all things that we needed to bring are already in our bags and put all our bags inside the car. 

When we're all done with the last minute preparations, we bid goodbye to Ontoy, my relative who will be staying at our house while we're away. I also bid goodbye to my pets and reminded Ontoy not to forget to feed my pets and give them water to drink everyday. 

Then we started on our journey to Boracay. My sister drove our car to Burgos, a neighbouring town where we picked up Vic, the driver who will be driving us to Bacolod Banago Port and who will also pick us up there when we return back home. 

When we reached Burgos, we saw Vic standing at the side of the street waiting for us. My sister stopped the car and we all said hello to Vic. My sister went out of our car and transferred to the back seat and Vic went inside our car, seated in the driver's seat and drove us to Banago Port in Bacolod. They talked to Vic all the way to Banago Port in Bacolod while I talked on the phone to my special someone from Grenada, Caribbean.

After about an hour, we arrived at Banago Port in Bacolod City. We all thanked Vic, got all our bags and went to but tickets for the ferry to go to Iloilo City. 

It was night time already when we arrived at Iloilo. We went straight to Jaro Bellevue Hotel where we booked an accommodation to stay for the night. We brought all our bags to our room and then we went to S & R. S & R is a supermarket where you can buy imported products. All the products that they sell are imported from abroad. We bought some food items like bread, chocolates and potato chips. Then we had dinner there at S & R. We ate fried chicken, rice, pizza, bread with meat, clam chowder and ice cream. We also had iced tea. We left S & R after we're done with dinner and rode a taxi to go back to our hotel. We went up to our hotel room, prepared ourselves to go to bed and slept for the night. 

We woke up at 4 am the next day. We prepared ourselves to go. We left the hotel at around 5 am and rode a taxi to the bus terminal. We boarded the bus to go to Caticlan. We waited for a few minutes for the ferry boat. Then we boarded the ferry boat to go to Boracay.

First day in Boracay

The moment that I first stepped on Boracay Island is a very happy moment for me. I felt so thankful and lucky just to be able to be there and experience what the island has to offer. It feels really exciting to finally be able to know and see in person what it is in this island that makes it one of the top tourist destinations in the whole world. I was however displeased because there's too many tourists. Overtourism is definitely not good. I was worried about the cleanliness of the beach and the ecosystem there. Thankfully, laws are being made like the prohibition of the use of plastic for the sake of the life of the sea creatures that live in Boracay.

We arrived at the port in Boracay and we were greeted by a sales agent who invited us to a free dinner at their new hotel Current by Aztoria. He gave us five meal stubs and told us that they are trying to promote their new hotel. We accepted the invitation and the tickets. He gave us the directions to the hotel and told us that the buffet dinner will be at their restaurant at the end of the first floor lobby. We all smiled at him, thanked him and bid him goodbye. 

We walked while carrying all our bags until we were able to find a tricycle who will take us to D'Mall, which is near Station 3. The tricycle driver dropped us off and we went to Hey Jude Hotel, the hotel which we will be staying for the whole duration of our stay which is December 24 - 27, 2019. When we arrived at the Hey Jude Hotel at around lunch time, we have to stay downstairs and wait for about thirty minutes while our room upstairs was being cleaned by the housekeeping staff. 

Soon we were able to go to our room upstairs in the second floor, with some of the hotel staff helping us carry our bags. The room is nice, spacious, cozy and has two big beds, a table, a chair, a balcony, it has cable tv and it's air conditioned.