Taxi & Transportation Around Cebu
Hey DS,
Thanks for the time and effort to keep authoring good info about DVO and CEB. Having run several taxis pre 2005 you might want to try these tricks: when arriving in Cebu you will go downstairs to the baggage claim area, say hello but avoid all those offering rentals cars, vans and outside you will find taxis who must have a entry stamp to enter the arrival area. Most dont have the entry stickers they just bribe the PNP monitoring trafffic entering Mactan International. This adds to the cost especially when going far like Guadalupe, Compostella, Talamban and beyond. Grab your luggage and walk to the only hallway (left) you will see elevator, you will need for heavy luggage. Go upstairs exit the entrance to the street in front of the casino and you will see lots of taxis lined up. They must use the meter and you will get a tourist slip with the license plate number in case you leave something or they "forget" a piece of luggage. SM mall should be no more than 125 php, Ayala 150 pesos, mid town (fuente) 180 php at most. No place in Cebu city should cost you more than 200 pesos! Its a rip off! Remember this is without a tip and dont give one unless they are friendly- ask if you want a female etc, or offer useful info for first timers! Hope this helps!
How To Escape Airport Taxis
What I did when I arrived was to go to the normal taxi pickup place for new arrivals and proceeded to walk 80 yards to the extreme left following the road past the security gate on to the service road and found a wayward taxi that had not entered the compound negotiated 200 pesos to fuente osmena circle. Quite easy and that gets your holiday off in a good start.
Once there I negotiated a rate with the tax driver to go look at different hotels/pension houses or I would just jump in another taxi who would put on his meter for absolute certain.
However, during the day and if you are ok after the flight one can just easily get off at fuente circle and then start looking for a room on foot. As no matter what direction you go, there is tens of hotels, pension houses within a half mile of the circle in almost all directions. I have seen decent AC rooms starting for 500 pesos a night with the average at 1100 pesos for pension houses and 1500 pesos for 2-3 star hotels which have little advantage over most pension houses imop, especially for longer stays.