For Spring Break, we headed to the beach with our friends – the Humes (John, Mary, Kelly & Erin), the Jenkins (Scott, Jennifer, Sean & Sophie) and the Bishops (Dan, Faith, Avery & Riley). This is the Humes last China Holiday before moving back to America this summer. Therefore, we splurged on the Shangri-la in Boracay.
Getting to Boracay, Philippines feels like the movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”. First, we need to take the night flight on Cebu Airlines, the no frills cheap airline. The flight departs Shanghai at 12:30am. In addition, we are limited to 10 kilos (22lbs) per person. I carefully weighted all the bags before leaving – exactly at 40 kilos for the family. It doesn’t take much to get to 10 kilos. I even stripped the snorkel gear of the fins – too much weight!
We arrived in Manila at 4:00am to collect our bags for custom checks. After transferring our “checked-in” bags, we had to check ourselves in…because we had to be weighed! Every person is weighed along with the carry-on bags. I am thinking the scale is going to be higher on the return trip! After we were all weighted and stamped approved, we were allowed to proceed through customs. We grabbed a bite to eat since we had time to waste. Our next flight left Manila at 6:40am for a one hour flight to Caticlan. Eleri slept hard on the flight from Shanghai while the rest of the family made up for the lack of sleep in the one hour to Caticlan.
We arrived in Caticlan airport with a very hard stop which must explain the weight processing for the short runway. We enter the covered area to claim our bags off the table – this airport makes Scottsbluff look fancy. We were greeted by the Shangri-la resort staff which drove us to the boat dock. They took us to an air-condition boat house while we waited for the boat to take us to Boracay Island.
Friday morning, we arrived to the beautiful resort of the Shangri-la. It was only 9:00am, therefore, the staff gave us a “washroom” to change and use until our rooms were ready. We decided to grab breakfast before hitting the beach and pool.
By the time we finished breakfast, our room was ready and we were able to drop our bags in our room. We changed into our suits and slathered everyone with sunscreen. Our white skin has not seen the sun in months!
First on Eleri’s agenda was sand castle building. Jim and Eleri had fun making a castle in the sand.
By 1:00pm, we needed to get our little white skin children out of the sun. We sent them to kids club. The kids club has two areas – the activity zone & the entertainment zone. The activity zone has slides which Eleri loved. The entertainment zone was equipped with air hockey, fussball, ping pong, basketball hoops, tv, computers and a sound room for rock band. It appears all the kids will be happy all week.
Today’s activity at Kid’s Club was “Project Runway” later in the afternoon. Emersyn “designed” for Avery. Kelly and Eleri were dressed by the staff. The girls had a blast with this. The staff moved the tables and chairs, created a red carpet walkway and had music playing for them.
Eleri came in 3rd place. It helps to be cute, little and adorable. The 1st & 2nd place winners were cute, little adorable brothers. She won an hour of free kayaking. Her “medal” was painted with “3rd Place Project Runaway”. We hoped she wouldn’t.
For dinner, the boys went into “town” for dinner and “provisions” at the local store. The ladies and children had room service at Faith’s pool villa. The kids had fun swimming in the private pool while the ladies enjoyed wine and a chat.
Saturday was a day of enjoying the pool, beach and relaxing. In the afternoon, the dads took the kids to Puka Beach to search for puka shells – shells worn by the waves and sand to have a perfect hole. They are then strung together into necklaces, etc. After a ride to the gate of the Shangri-la, it was off in a “tri-cycle” to the beach. The group returned with pockets full of shells. The only problem is that when we entered the airport screening later, all the shells were pulled – regulations that shells can not be taken.
Easter Sunday in Boracay. The one fact about living in China is that some things are just a challenge. Easter candy is one of them. The ladies had decided it would be nice for the Easter Bunny to drop candy in Boracay. Dan had been in America on a business trip before this holiday. Faith sent him to the local target store to “clean-up”. Jennifer’s Mom always sends a ton of candy. Mary and I found candy in Shanghai which means we paid a premium for so-so chocolates. We shared the candy equally among the 8 kids and packed it in our limited 10 kilo of luggage. Our bags might be a few kilos lighter, but our children will be a few kilos heavier. A good trade as people don’t have a weight limit!
The girls woke up to a bag full of candy. Emersyn first comment was, “this is the most candy we have ever received on Easter”. I told her the Boracay Easter Bunny must have better connections!! The girls and I spent the morning sorting the candy loot. Jim went to the gym to workout while the girls and I had our chocolate Easter breakfast…before the real breakfast.
A clown came to the pool later in the afternoon since it was Easter. The girls had fun with the balloons.
We had arranged a BBQ at Faith and Dan’s villa for Easter dinner. The set-up was more than we expected for a “bbq”. We enjoyed good food with good friends – a great way to celebrate Easter!
The kids enjoyed dinner inside with the tv…life is good as there was cable!
On Monday, the kids were ready to attack the banana boating. We split the kids up by their age group so the older kids could go faster. They all had a blast.
We made plans to go into “town” for dinner. We had to take the tricycle motorcars after the bus dropped us off at D’mall. John climbed in with all the older kids…and then we lost them. They were not at the meeting place for dinner. After about an hour, we finally found them. Whew, that was work!
Tuesday was activity day. It began with an afternoon sail for Sean, Scott, Emmy and Jim. Jim was the only one that knew how to sail, but they all enjoyed the beautiful day on the ocean.
The day was to end with a kayaking tour to Puka Beach. We all put on extra sunscreen and rash guards for our 4pm tour.
It was free for kids and adults. I had signed up the day before and doubled checked the numbers would not be an issue. It was an issue when we arrived! Another group of 8 showed up and there were not enough kayaks. The kids all wanted to kayak. We decided to let them kayak around the bay and skip the tour to Puka Beach. Jennifer, Mary, Jim, John and I took out a sail boat. There wasn’t much wind. Also, we had two and half captains – Jim, John and San Miguel! It took us awhile to get back to shore. By the time we got back, Dan and Scott had taken our children somewhere…
…to the pool. A night swim for the adults and kids!
Tonight was a beautiful sunset.
We left the pool for dinner in the room. Room service is such a treat for the girls. In addition, they have been playing hard every day that a little down time is needed. We enjoyed soup and “the Santa Clause” movie on the Disney channel.
Wednesday was Jim last full day. Jim needed to leave our holiday a day early as he got a call on the way to the airport that he needed to be in India on Saturday for a meeting. He would leave Thursday afternoon to arrive late in Shanghai to repack his bags for a Friday afternoon flight to India.
We spent the afternoon enjoying the pool, the beach and the view. Lunch was at the pool/beach bar daily. Emersyn had a cheeseburger and Eleri had a pizza. Jim and I ate the leftovers since we enjoy the large breakfast.
We took the opportunity to take a few family photos with the beautiful sunset on Jim’s last night in Boracay.
Friday was our last morning to play. The older kids decided to go shopping at Puka beach. Eleri wanted to play in the pool so we spent the morning diving for seeds in the pool. She was becoming a good diver after we collected 86 seeds (and counted them). When the shopping crew came back, they enjoyed the cool pool.
We played too long in the pool resulting in a bit of rush packing up my crew solo. You forget how much time everything takes when there is only one adult. We took the 2:30pm boat to Caticlan for our 4:30pm flight. The Jenkins were flying with us while the Humes & Bishops were on the flight 30 minutes later. Check-in at the airport was slow with no air conditioning. The computers went down and we had to wait 20 minutes for the electricity to reboot…the sweat was dripping.
We arrived in Manila with our bags checked directly to Shanghai. We decided to find some food. The food court was packed and we were never going to find chairs for 7 people. We followed the sign to an Italian restaurant in the back – score!! Quiet, plenty of room and the bonus – a tv showing the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate. We sat down as Kate walked in the church. Her dress was simply and elegant. We enjoyed pizza and some cheap wine while we watched the wedding. Scott wouldn’t let us stay for the kiss on the balcony as it was time to go through customs. We did get to see them walk out of the church – our timing was perfect. It reminded me of where I was when Diana married Prince Charles. My friend, Maureen, had a sleepover as we were still in high school. We stayed up late in the night to watch the Royal Wedding!
It was another fun holiday shared with friends. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends to share these experiences with us.