Cagayan de Oro City Travel Forum

Hi All,

My friends and I are going to CDO on Mar 14 to 17. I am in the process of putting together an itinerary for our trip. Based on the info I read in VT and in the cdoguide, this is the must-see places I came up with. But I do not have info on length of time for each activity so I'm not sure if these will work. I actually want to maximize enjoyment instead of more places but little time. We really want to do the adventure stuff.

Mar 14 - Arrive in CDO at 1:30pm
2pm - Check-in either in Parkview Lodge or Mass Spec
3pm - 6pm Malasag Eco-village trip
7pm Dinner at Night Market

Mar 15 - White water rafting in the morning
Macahambus and Mapawa Nature Park in the afternoon (doable? will there be enough time? or should we just choose one park?)

Mar 16 - 6am - Camiguin trip, go around, visit White Island

Mar 17 - 11am - Depart Camiguin for CDO
3pm Check-in at airport

Hope our CDO experts can give me pointers and help us improve on our IT.
Thanks in advance for the help.

Cheers,
Liza

Hello

On a work day, getting up before 6am is ok but on vacation getting up before 6am is uncivilised!

I think you will see many fascinating sights on your trip but will have no time to experience or enjoy yourself.

When I went to Camiguin, it was 3 days 2 nights and that was not enough.

So, how do you improve it. Give yourself an extra couple of days or choose what is important to you and cut out the least important.

Just my two centavos worth!


Regards: Jim

Hi Liza,

A day trip to camiguin is not enough, as the trip from cdo to the island takes more or less 3 hours by bus including the ferry trip, last time we went there we stayed 2 nights, left early from cdo and arrived in camiguin at med day. the next whole day we tour the island then the following day early morning before checking out we went to the white island, as it is advisable to visit the white island in the morning than afternoon as the tide is low.
Maybe after the white water rafting in the afternoon you can head off to caminguin that way the following day you can enjoy your tour in the island and visit white island before you check out, but find out first the ferry schedule or if you can't cross the island that afternoon you can stay in some lodging house in balingoan for the night then catch the first ferry trip to caminguin.
There is a lodging house which is just right next to the port, 'Judge Legaspi' family they have rooms for rent, if ever you miss the ferry.
Hope you will enjoy your trip.

Rafting site is in Kabula or Mambuaya area. Macahambus Park is where you do the canopy walk. It is also a historic site. Usually the rafting session ends around 3pm. Mapawa Park closes around 5pm. It might be a rush going there. I suggest you go instead first to Mapawa then to Malasag. Mapawa is just a few kilometers ahead of Malasag. Stay like 2 hours in Mapawa and 1 hour in Malasag. Or go to Mapawa in the first day and on March 15 after the rafting, go to Malasag and view the the bay during sunset (it is not like Manila Bay sunset since the sun sets along the mountain ranges). Usually I do not recommend the LAST flights out of CDO. Considering it is La Nina season, it might still rain in March. Flights in CDO airport is usually canceled due to heavy rains. Take note, airport in CDO is on top of a hill which is constantly affected by fog and poor visibility. There are occasions there are no flights for several days to the disgust of some passengers. You can't blame mother nature. If you really need to take the late afternoon flight, just hope it does not rain! Again visit the http://www.cdoguide.com website for more info about CDO (Cagayan de Oro).

Just going thru your schedule makes one breathless.
Either head straight to Camiguin or stay in CDO.

After reviewing my tentative itinerary and taking into consideration the comments and suggestions from our very helpful VTers, I've decided to just concentrate our trip on CDO. I guess we'll just do Camiguin at another time. So here's my revised IT:

Mar 14 - 2pm Visit Macahambus Eco Park (want to do the skybridge and zipline, will our time suffice?)
Dinner at Night Market

Mar 15 - Water rafting, Pinoy tubing and caving (whatever we can fit within this day)

Mar 16 - Mapawa Nature Park and Malasag Eco Village

Mar 17 - Tour around the parks, visit Carmelite monastery, shopping etc.
3pm - leave for the airport

Anything else I need to add or re-arrange to improve it?

Again, thanks a lot to all our VT friends who took time to advise me :)

Cheers,
Liza

Ouch! You are skipping Camiguin? You will regret it. Also during this time, Camiguin is filled with tourists (Holy Week).

Most tourists I have talked with would first visit Camiguin then Cagayan de Oro.

Day 1 and 2 would be spent in Camiguin

Day 3 and 4 in Cagayan de Oro

If you are going to spend 4 days in Cagayan de Oro, you have to see the other tourist spots outside the city like the town of Opol which is popular for its beach (light gray sand), aviary, ostrich and crocodile farm. Jasaan town which is 45 minutes away from the city is the site of an old Spanish Church and you can visit Agutayan Island, a marine sanctuary. You need a permit from the municipal government to visit Agutayan. It is similar to the white island of Camiguin. Check with the Regional Tourism Office for more information of tourist spots within the province. Some would go to the Province of Bukidnon and see the Del Monte Plantation (Camp Philips) and play golf in the Del Monte golf course in Kawayanon. It is around 45 minutes from Cagayan de Oro. The Del Monte processing plant is found in Cagayan de Oro.

Do not depart from Camiguin at 11am. You will surely miss your flight!!!

Camiguin to Balingoan is an hour trip plus another 2 hours from Balingoan to Agora.., say about 30 mins Agora to airport.

Hi,

I hope you had a great trip with your friends.. now i have the same problem as yours but this time it would only be a 3d-2n trip and we can't go directly to camiguin on a friday (as suggested by most of you) because some of us will attend a convention..

I know it's a bit way too soon, but we are making schedule and activity preparations as early as now.. i hope you could help us..

First thing, we are a group of six. three of us would fly first to CDO for a convention from wed-fri whole day. Then on that friday, the rest of us (including me) would fly to CDO early in the morning with flight ETD:825am ETA:950am. Now, since the three of us are still in the convention, what would you guys suggest for the remaining 3 of us to do that whole day?? (we can't do white water rafting and canopy walk & zipline because we want it to do all together).. maybe a visit to somewhere else, city tour?? park?? caving?? spelunking?? that's it for Day 1.

then we have two options to go to camiguin, either night time on Day 1 or early morning at Day 2. what do you suggest which is better? if night at Day 1, is there public transport at night that goes to camiguin?? in camiguin, of course we want a city tour, how long does it take, will a half day could do that? because we wanted to fly back to CDO afternoon of Day 2 and spend the night at CDO.

Day 3 (sunday), wake up early to do the canopy walk&zipline plus the white water rafting activity. will this finish just before lunch time? our flight to manila is ETD: 1645 ETA:1810..

I hope you guys could help me...

i know this sked will be too compressed, but i would appreciate it if you could help me do the itinerary. Thanks!

last boat trip to camiguin is around 4pm. you can stay overnight at the balingoan pier though. then take the earliest boat the next day.

Sorry, I cannot give you guys pointers because we did not push through with our CDO trip last March. We are doing it on Aug 22-25 instead. But since we want to maximize our adventure trips, we're just concentrating on CDO and will just do Camiguin in a different trip. The plan is to do Pinoy Tubing and Canopy Walk (Claveria) on Aug 23 and then the Mapawa River Trek on Aug 24. We're 6 in the group and those interested to join us on the Aug 23 trip are welcome. I think the cost will go down if there's about 4 more. The Aug 23 adventure is quite costly at this time (about P2500 per pax) because the Canopy Walk is quite far (2 hrs I think).

I'll make sure to add tips about CDO after our trip. Happy travels everyone!