Puerto Galera during COVID: Day 4 Itinerary – RORO to Manila
April 26, 2022
Today only had one agenda, get back to Manila.
Ohman, we were chilling in the morning – morning swim, leisurely breakfast, and finally checked out around 11:30AM then arrived at the port at 12NN. Only one company operated the RORO line. Thankfully since it was a weekend, there were 4 ROROs that day. So we figured it’s alright, we can go around lunch time and still make it.
Boy do we regret it. Really, we should’ve checked out first thing in the morning and went straight to the port. The system here at the port is SO BAD. There’s literally one line only for the RORO – both for passengers and for cars (Which is a really flawed system, because the capacity for each is different). Worse, the line inches along so so slowly because they only ask you for the requisite details once you’re at the counter (one counter only!).
Also, we suspect there were several fixers in the line, who was buying tons of tickets, so that also held up the queue. Sigh – finally, 1.5 hrs into the queue, we were told they had opened up a new queue for senior citizens and PWDs. Thank you Lord! Yet, even though this queue was shorter, it also progressed much slower, because they were manually calculating the discount.
At one point, I thought the people would erupt into a vicious mob when a fixer tried to jump the queue. Emotions were running high, the sun was scorching hot, and really the injustice of this poor system was getting to all of us. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed, and 2.5 hrs after we first queued up, we had finally gotten our tickets. PHP 3,260 for all 5 of us (driver is free) and the car. Don’t ask me for the breakdown, I didn’t stay around to chit chat anymore.
With ticket in hand, we drove in, but were then told that now we had to pay for the arrastre. This was an additional PHP 169, then FINALLY we were allowed to board the RORO. This RORO was supposed to leave at 2:30PM, but well tbh, we were already told that the RORO schedule is never followed. It leaves when the RORO is full. And since the purchasing system is so inefficient, the RORO ended up filling up at around 4PM I believe.
Gosh, I don’t know. It was a spectacular downer to an otherwise peaceful trip. I don’t understand why (1) they don’t have an online purchasing system, or (2) allow us to book ahead of time – ok fine, I get why, because they want to put your car/passenger onto the RORO as soon as you buy the ticket so there’s no waiting involved and ensures the RORO only leaves once it’s full, or (3) why can’t they open more ticket counters?!?! Seriously! 1 ticket counter only??? Dude.
Anyway, first legit out of town trip since COVID happened. Pretty chill all things considered. We probably won’t be back though, unless they fix the whole RORO/port system.
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