El Nido Tour A: The Ultimate Island-Hopping Escape

Where the 105 minutes go

The itinerary block on the listing reads: Seven Commandos Beach, 1 hour; Big Lagoon, 105 minutes; Shimizu Island, lunch, 105 minutes; Secret Lagoon, 45 minutes. Add them and you get 5 hours 15 minutes at the stops inside a listed 6 to 7 hour day, which leaves 45 minutes to an hour and three quarters for the four boat legs and the wait on the beach. The Big Lagoon figure is the one that matters.

On the other shared boats here that print a figure, the lagoon is a 45 to 60 minute stop that includes queuing for kayaks at the mouth; here the operator allots almost double, and the review summary, which notes long waits 'for kayaks' among the criticisms, shows where some of that allowance goes. Shimizu's 105 minutes cover both the snorkel and the lunch. The Secret Lagoon gets 45 minutes: a swim to the rock opening, a look inside, a swim back.

The listing calls the itinerary 'for reference only' and subject to change, and the crews do reorder days around the lagoon cap and the tide, but a printed plan is still a plan you can hold the operator to when a stop is cut short. The hour-by-hour day for all four routes shows how these minutes compare with the other boats.

The kit that comes with the boat

The included column lists a licensed tourist boat, a licensed boat captain, a licensed local tour guide, mask and snorkel, life jacket, picnic lunch, and one bottle of purified drinking water, 330 ml, served at lunch. Two of those items separate this boat from its neighbours. Mask and snorkel are a rental of about ₱150 (about $2.40) on listings that do not carry them, and the Corazon Tour A does not promise them.

The single 330 ml bottle is the honest version of 'water included': it is one bottle at lunch, so bring your own refillable and fill it before you leave, because plastic bottles are banned on the boats anyway. An April 2026 reviewer still advises 'take a mask and snorkel', which reads as a preference for your own kit over a shared one rather than a contradiction of the listing. Lunch, per the description, is grilled fish, chicken, vegetables and rice served on the beach at Shimizu; a July 2025 reviewer lists chicken, fish, prawns, pancit, rice, melon and eggplant and says there was plenty despite the crowd.

Two lower-key notes from the same review page: a father who was last off the boat found the chicken gone, and a May 2025 reviewer found no vegetarian option beyond rice and noodles. Eat early, and say so at booking if you do not eat meat or fish.

Shared or private, on one listing

The meeting-point note lists two options: 'Shared El Nido: Island Hopping Tour A' and 'PRIVATE BOAT TOUR A'. The $25 headline is the shared seat. The private option books the whole boat for your party on the same route and, with the same operator, can be reordered on the day; the shared boat runs the printed order.

The listing does not print a private price on the page scraped here, so the figure appears at checkout once you pick the option and the date. Whether a private boat pays for itself depends on how many of you there are, and the break-even arithmetic has already been done. Two things are the same either way: hotel pickup and drop-off are not included on either option, and the fees and kayak stay cash extras.

The listing's 'Know before you go' line is worth quoting whole: 'This tour involves a 7 hours duration with lots of fun activities, so make sure you have enough energy for the whole day fun.' Read that as a 7-hour day with two swims, a paddle and a lot of sun, and plan the evening accordingly.

What the excluded column prints

Product 842572 itemises its cash extras more precisely than any other shared Tour A here, down to the two kayak sizes, and it is worth reading the column verbatim before turning it into a budget. The two fees are municipal charges the operator collects on the municipality's behalf; the kayak is a rental from the concession at the lagoon mouth; the pickup and the extra meals are simply things the $25 does not buy. Every figure below is the listing's own in Q3 2026; the total in the last row is this page's arithmetic for one adult sharing a two-seat kayak, and it lands within a few pesos of the figure on the other shared Tour A boats, because the fees do not change with the operator.

Five days on the listing, ten days at the gate

The environmental fee line says the ₱400 is 'valid for 5 days only'. The municipality's Eco-Tourism Development Fee is valid for 10 days and covers every tour and site in El Nido, which is what the ETDF board's own bulletin and a local operator's page on the fee both state, and what every other listing on this site prints. Treat the 5 days as a typo on the listing rather than a rule.

The practical consequence is small but real: if you arrive on a Monday, do Tour B midweek and this Tour A the following Sunday, your first receipt still covers the second boat. Keep it, photograph it, and show it at the office; the fee is collected before boarding and the crews check receipts. The line about the lagoon fee is accurate: ₱200, one-time access, mandatory for anyone who goes in, not charged if the boat is rerouted.

Neither fee goes to the operator. Both are municipal charges, and the operator only collects them. How the fee categories break down for students, seniors and children, and the arithmetic for a Tour D day with two lagoons, are on the cost page, so they are not repeated here.

The kayak, the wait and the rocks

The kayak line is the first on any shared Tour A listing to print both sizes: ₱350 for a two-seater, ₱500 for a three-seater. Motorised boats may not enter the Big Lagoon, so once you have paid the ₱200 the kayak is the only way in, and reviewers across the Tour A listings describe it as compulsory in practice. Families of three save a little with the bigger boat.

The review summary's other criticism, waits for kayaks, is the queue at the mouth of the lagoon when several boats arrive together, which is what the 105-minute allowance is there to absorb. A July 2025 reviewer adds two things the listing does not: paddle round the lagoon and there is a small cave you can go through, and bring water shoes or sandals with straps for the Secret Lagoon, because the floor is rock and slippers float away. The same reviewer credits the crew with pulling non-swimmers to the Secret Lagoon entrance and helping everyone on and off the boat at every stop.

The listing rules out wheelchair users and names nothing else, so anyone able to wade to the boat and climb through a rock opening is in scope. What that means for children, and which routes suit them, is answered on the kids page.

Pick this Tour A when you want to know before you pay how the day is divided, and when a mask and snorkel in the price matter to you. Its 156 reviews are a smaller sample than the Corazon boat's, the departure can run 45 minutes behind the report time, and the eco-fee line on the listing needs the correction made above. Against that, 105 minutes in the Big Lagoon is more than any other shared boat here commits to in writing.

If you are choosing between the two $25 shared boats, the difference is paperwork: this one tells you the minutes and includes the mask; the other has twelve times the reviews and a written promise about what replaces a full lagoon. The four routes, and every boat that runs them, are laid out on the homepage of this El Nido boat guide.