Friday, November 22, 2013
We headed to the airport about 6 a.m. for our 8:45 flight from Phoenix to Seattle. This was our first time both using the TSA precheck line for security. Boy was that a breeze. You can keep your jacket and your shoes on and you don’t have to get out your liquids or your laptop, etc. You pretty much walk up, throw your bags on the conveyer, and walk through the metal detector. No body scanning either. We wondered how it would go with all of our camera gear, but they didn’t even bat and eye. The whole security check took about two minutes. Definitely worth the money for sure.
We headed to the US Airways lounge and got something to eat for breakfast and then headed to our gate. This whole trip we are flying first class/business class. So of course we are first on and off the plane too. The trip from Phoenix to Seattle was uneventful. It was quite a change leaving rainy Phoenix and landing in sunny Seattle. Once in Seattle we then went to the Asiana gate and changed out our boarding passes for Asiana boarding passes for the rest of the trip. Then we went and hung out in the Delta Lounge until it was time for our flight. Asiana uses the Delta Lounge for their business class passengers.
We then boarded the Asiana flight from Seattle to Inchon South Korea. This 12-hour flight was uneventful. The seats on this plane were not the lie flat seats like we had the last time we flew Asiana business class, but they lay almost flat (more of an incline). I think we got some sleep intermixed with eating and watching movies, etc.
After landing in Inchon we made our way to transit security and got through there relatively quickly and then went to the transit hotel to confirm our reservation coming back for Eric and I and Jordan and cancel Jody’s reservation (as she decided not to come on the trip). After we had that all straightened out we made our way to the Asiana Business Class Lounge. As of the end of October they actually moved the location a few gates down from where it used to be.
We hung out in that lounge for a while before make our way to the gate for our last leg of the trip to the Philippines, the Inchon to Cebu flight. This flight was about four and a half hours. It was just Eric and I and another couple and their child in the entire business class section. Needless to say we had plenty of attention from the flight attendants on this flight. However, I think both of us slept most of the flight, so it made their job easy.
We landed in Cebu a little late as there were some pretty strong headwinds. We landed just after midnight. Eric and I were the first people off the plane and thus the first people at the Immigration counter and I think the first people to get their bags. We were out the door in nothing flat. We had requested a car from the Hotel, but never heard back from them so we were giving it a 50/50 chance that they would have someone there to pick us up. Of course there was not, so we decided to walk since the hotel is directly in front of the airport. However, this involved a lot of zigging and zagging and going up ramps and over curbs. It was not very far, but they don't exactly make the pathway pedestrian/luggage friendly.
Nevertheless, we made it to the lobby and got checked into our executive suite. The room was huge. It had a separate living room with sitting area and dining table and a separate kitchen area along with a half bath in addition to the bedroom and huge bathroom. We pretty much crashed into bed and set the alarm to get up around 7 a.m. Our plan was to get up and shower in the morning and then head down to get breakfast before our driver picked us up around 9 a.m. to take us to Moalboal.
We woke up the next morning to the sun shining and beautiful weather. I looked out our fifth floor window and you could not tell there had been a typhoon come through a few weeks ago. We went down and had our breakfast and then our driver came to pick us up right about 9 a.m. We loaded all our bags in the car for the approximately three hour trip to Moalboal. As it always is in the Philippines it was a wild ride of weaving in and out of traffic, crawling along and then going as fast as we could, and of course involved a lot of horn honking. We could find no evidence on the entire journey that there had ever been a typhoon in the area. Everything looked as it should for the Philippines. As our driver told us, most of the damage was North of Cebu City, which is what we had heard.
We arrived in Moalboal just after noon and got all our luggage into our room and headed over to the restaurant to get some lunch. I ordered a chicken sandwich and a Mango shake (of course) and Eric ordered a coke and Belgian fries (of course). Then we made plans to go out for an afternoon dive around 2:30 p.m. Eric got busy after lunch putting together all the camera gear and then we got all our dive stuff together to take down to the dive shop. By that time it was 2:30 p.m. We just went out and dove the house reef.
The house reef was very pretty with lost of fish and lots of hard and soft corals. I have never seen so many pipe seahorses in my life—they were everywhere you looked. We also saw a really big turtle and I got some good video of him swimming right at me. The house reef is nice because it is not very deep. A lot of the dive was between 15 and 35 feet. We stayed out for about an hour.
After we got back we got all our gear rinsed out and made plans for tomorrow. I think we are doing three dives tomorrow, two in the morning and then one after lunch. After we got cleaned up we headed back to the restaurant to get some dinner. They are very accommodating and so far the food has been very good. I had a tomato salad and Eric had some more Belgian fries and then we split some chicken Bolognese.
It is only 7:30p.m. by the time I finished typing this blog and Eric already headed off to bed as he could not keep his eyes open. We are both pretty beat tonight, so I think we will sleep well for sure.
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