How do I do a Simala Shrine and Carcar day tour from Cebu?

Yes, easily. They sit on the same southern highway, with Carcar (about 40 km out) closer to Cebu City than Simala (about 55 km). Neither stop takes a full day, so most visitors do both as one relaxed half-day trip, with Carcar as the natural stop on the way back.

No. Entry is free; donations are welcome but entirely optional. The dress code is the part that is not optional: shoulders and knees covered, for men and women, checked by security at the gate, and visitors in sleeveless tops, above-knee shorts or skirts, crop tops or see-through fabric are refused entry. Shawls and wrap skirts are rented at the entrance for about P20 if you arrive underdressed.

Its heritage plaza and Spanish-era ancestral houses, and above all its food - Carcar lechon and chicharon are some of the most famous in the province. Many visitors come specifically for the heritage walk and a lechon lunch.

Our fixed-price quote covers the private car or van, the driver, fuel, tolls, parking and hotel or airport pickup and drop-off for the half day, with the driver waiting at both stops. Lunch at Carcar and any donation at Simala are paid directly on the ground. We never invent those prices.

Weekday mornings are calmest at both stops. Weekends and the 13th of each month bring heavier pilgrim traffic on the southern highway into Simala, so a weekday visit is the easiest version of the trip if your schedule allows it.

Send the quote request with your date, pickup point and group size. We reply by email, usually within a few hours, with a clear all-in price for the car and driver. No payment to enquire, no obligation.

It is in the price. Your quote for the day covers the vehicle, the fuel, your driver and the waiting time, so a long lunch, a slow ticket queue or an extra hour in the water does not change what you pay. Nothing is metered and nothing is added afterwards. That is also why we ask up front what you want to stop for and roughly how long you want at each place: we price the day you describe. If the day grows well beyond that, we agree it with you rather than billing it later.

Usually we can, and it is worth asking rather than assuming you have left it too late. There is no minimum notice and no cut-off hour, because what decides it is simply whether a vetted driver is free for the day you want. About one in five of the enquiries we get is for travel inside the next two days, so a request for tomorrow is normal rather than awkward. Send the date and we reply by email with the all-in price, usually within a few hours and always the same day, and a confirmed quote still comes with its free-cancellation window. Every fee on this day is paid locally on the day, so there is nothing to reserve ahead of you. What gets harder with less notice is choice - a particular vehicle size, or an exact pickup hour at the busiest times - rather than whether the day can happen at all.

Yes to both, and one fixed all-in price for the whole day is only our default rather than the only way we will quote you. If a choice is genuinely open we will quote two versions of the day side by side - with an island add-on against without, a longer route against a shorter one, or a larger vehicle against two smaller ones for a group that is on the edge of a van - so you can compare rather than take our word for which is better. We will also show you what sits where: ask and the car-and-driver cost comes back on its own, separate from the fees you pay on the ground, and on a day with several stops we can price the legs individually as well as together. The one line we will not blur is the one between our side and the ground: the vehicle, driver, fuel, tolls, parking and waiting time are ours to price and they sit inside our figure, while entrance, activity, guide and boat fees at the places you stop are set by the operators and the municipalities, are paid locally on the day, and we never mark them up or invent them. Tell us how you want it broken up in the box marked "Anything else?" and that is the shape the quote comes back in.

Yes - tell us where you want to end up when you ask for the quote and we price the day that way. This page is written as a round trip out of Cebu because that is how most people run it, but the car and driver are yours for the day you book, so the day can sit in the middle of a move instead of costing you a separate transfer: picked up at your Cebu hotel in the morning, your bags staying in the vehicle while you are out, and dropped at a different hotel or town that evening. The car waits wherever you stop; Luggage stays in the vehicle; Fuel, tolls and parking included; Entrance fees paid locally, as you go. Put the hotel or town you want to finish at in the "Anything else?" box, and if you are checking out that morning say how many bags, so the right vehicle is sent.

Yes, and it is one of the commonest shapes for these days. The vehicle is yours for the whole day rather than shared, so the luggage goes in once at the start and stays in it: your driver waits with the car at every stop, and you walk to the falls, the boat or the ridge with what you want to carry rather than with your cases. That is what makes an arrival or departure day work at all - you are not looking for a left-luggage counter at the terminal and not paying for a hotel room to hold bags you cannot check into yet. The day also does not have to finish where it started. A common arrival shape is a morning pickup at Mactan, the tour through the day, and a drop-off at your hotel down the coast with the bags arriving with you; the departure version runs the other way and ends at the terminal. What we need from you is the bag count alongside the headcount, because on a day like this the luggage is often what decides the vehicle rather than the number of people - dive kit, a folded pushchair and a surfboard bag all count as luggage. Put the flight, the bags and where you are sleeping that night in the quote request and we size the vehicle and the clock together.