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Writer's pictureElodie A.

I have a Bone to Pick with Mactan Airport and Cebu Pacific Airlines | Philippines Trip 2023




Hey, you! 🤓


On our 4th day in the Philippines, the Husband, our daughter, my sister-in-law, my other sister-in-law, all of their kids, and I traveled to Davao, where would we staying at for the next week.


We met up with another sister-in-law and her family when we got to the airport. Unfortunately, their flight had been canceled and so they were bumped to a later flight. In case you're wondering how many sisters-in-law I have - I have 4. And you know what? Beyond being in-laws, I'd like to think that we are friends. I married a wonderful man and got super lucky with his family. ❤️




The airport was a scene of chaos. Individually the kids are wonderful, but as a group, they were a lot to take. And we were clearly outnumbered. 😅 More so because the Husband was in charge of holding his late father's urn so we were one man down. LOL




Anyways, this is the part where the good ol' cranky bitch in me comes out and I've got some complaining to do in regards to Mactan Airport and Cebu Pacific Airlines.


I would love some answers, which I'm obviously not expecting, but I'm hoping I'll feel relieved to get things off my chest.


Question #1 - why the hell are all the delicious local restaurants and eateries located at the domestic airport and not the international?


I'm not saying transfer them all to the international airport, but wouldn't it be nice for OFW's and balikbayans to have one last meal in Jollibee or Lechon or Ngohiong. God knows when the next time will be, right?


The restaurant option at the International Airport is sorely lacking. Before flying back home, we had dinner at one of the Asian restaurants there and the food was NOT good! Jollibee would have honestly been perfect and I'm sure even foreign tourists can appreciate!




Question #2 - Why aren't there enough seats to sit on once you go through security check?


There's an awkward moment after one goes through security control when you don't really know where to go next. If you know your boarding gate then that's fine, you either go left or or right. But it is most likely that you will not know your boarding gate yet so you're just stuck in that zone in the middle.


And that was us. Not having a boarding gate yet, we stayed in the middle where there's the huge screen with the departures. There's enough space but believe it not, there's less than 5 seats for the huge number of passengers. So we ended up sitting on the floor until we wery lucky to get those highly coveted seats.




The next two questions are for Cebu Pacific.


Question #1 - If you ask for requirements to transport an urn, then why not ask for them?


I know this question might seem strange, but for a while we were super stressed about the requirements. We spent money and time making sure we had all the papers they asked for. We had everything all planned out so we were worried something might go wrong. My sister-in-law went to their office to clarify the list of requirements and we went to their office on another day to have them double check our documents. But in the end? They didn't ask for anything!!! Nothing, nada, zilch. I feel like all our stress and effort deserved to be recognized by having those requirements checked. If you're gonna ask people to provide documents, you might as well check them.


Question #2 - Why can't you be more organized?


We finally found out our boarding gate and we were all settled down, when suddenly Cebu Pacific announced that we had to transfer to another boarding gate at the opposite of where we were. That's fine - things let that happen all the time. What bothered me was how badly organized it was. They got us lining up to ride their bus shuttle, making us think that there was only one line, when in fact there were three. So basically, we were squished like sardines in one freaking line when we could have gone to the other 2 lines if we had known! They even let people cut in the line. Pffff. The lack of communication was atonishing.


So there I go with my grievances but hey, I do feel much better now that's it out in the open.


Till tomorrow!


xoxo Elodie

















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