El Nido Private Tour A: Poseidon's Exclusive Boat on the Lagoon Route

The fleet leaves together; you do not have to

Shared Tour A boats are dispatched from El Nido town beach between 9:00 and 9:30 am, after Coast Guard clearance, and they arrive at the Big Lagoon in a bunch. The lagoon has a daily entry cap, and once the day's slots are used a boat is rerouted to a different spot. A private boat sails on the same clearance but is not tied to the fleet's order of stops.

The listing prints the sequence as Seven Commandos Beach, Big Lagoon, Shimizu Island, Secret Lagoon, Payong-Payong Beach, and it marks the itinerary as a reference that may change. Reviewers describe the crew using that freedom: one February 2026 party wrote that their visits were well timed to avoid the crowds from the group tours. The day-by-day pattern of the fleet, hour by hour, is laid out on the El Nido itinerary page; the useful summary is that a private crew can put you in the Big Lagoon before the shared boats or after they have moved on to lunch.

Ask for the early or late lagoon slot when the crew confirms your pickup, and say which matters more to you: empty water or a full night's sleep.

Eight hours, five stops, and nobody else's schedule

The listing allots 45 minutes each to Seven Commandos Beach, the Big Lagoon, the Secret Lagoon and Payong-Payong Beach, and an hour at Shimizu Island for the buffet lunch and snorkelling. On a shared boat those timings are fixed by the guide for twenty or more passengers. On this boat they are the starting point.

Reviewers of this listing say they did not feel rushed, and the listing itself sells the day as running at your own pace. In practice that means you can trade a beach for a longer lagoon, skip the Secret Lagoon swim if someone in the party would rather stay dry, or stretch lunch when the turtles are out at Shimizu. The published duration is 8 hours including the 5-minute tuk-tuk leg, so the boat time is comparable with the cheapest joiner Tour A, which also runs eight hours and also adds Payong-Payong as a fifth stop.

The difference is who decides how those eight hours are spent. Boats are wooden outriggers; there is no dock at either end, so you wade out to board and wade back in on return.

What private does not change

The rules of the bay apply to every hull. The Big Lagoon is entered by kayak only, so the ₱200 (about $3.20) users fee and the kayak rental are due at the mouth of the lagoon whatever boat brought you. The eco-tourism fee is charged per person, not per boat.

Lunch is prepared onshore and carried aboard, since cooking on boats has been banned since 2023 (the detail sits with the itinerary page), and this listing describes the meal as a buffet of Filipino dishes, with bottled water included. Coast Guard clearance decides whether anyone sails, private or shared, and Tour A's sheltered lagoons are usually the last route to be closed. Plastic bottles are on the listing's not-allowed list, so a refillable bottle is worth packing.

Mask and snorkel are not included and can be rented, and the listing says the same of fins and aqua shoes. A private boat also does not change the value equation: reviewers rate this tour 4.4 for the guide and 4.0 for value for money, which reads as a fair verdict on paying $124 a head for a route that shared boats run for $25. The break-even point at which a whole boat becomes cheaper than a row of shared tickets is worked out on the private versus shared page.

A tuk-tuk within 1 km of Corong-Corong Beach

Included: a free tuk-tuk pickup from any address within 1 km of Corong-Corong Beach, the long bay south of El Nido town where most of the mid-range resorts sit. The listing times the transfer at 5 minutes and asks you to confirm the pickup address at checkout; the pickup area is drawn on the listing's map. Hotel drop-off is listed as not included, so the day ends at the boat's landing and you find your own tricycle back, a short ride from Corong-Corong to town.

If you are staying in El Nido town itself, on Calle Hama or Rizal Street, you are outside the circle; either walk down to Corong-Corong for the morning or book one of the town-beach departures such as the Alexzus Tour A, which meets at Mabuhay Sports Bar. Bring cash: the listing's own packing list ends with the word, and the list before it is a sun hat, swimwear, a change of clothes, a towel, a camera and beachwear.

What you pay on the day

The listing separates its inclusions from its exclusions cleanly, and the exclusions are where the day's cash goes. Here is the full set, with the peso figures from the municipality and the listings, and what each one means for your wallet at the boat.

The eco fee, and the rules the crew enforces

The Eco-Tourism Development Fee is ₱400 (about $6.40) per non-resident adult, paid once and valid for 10 days across every tour and site in El Nido, per the municipality's ETDF page on elnidoparadise.com. It is collected in cash at the operator's office or by the guide before boarding, and a receipt from an earlier tour is accepted, so pay it on your first boat and carry the slip. The reduced categories for children, students and seniors are tabled on the El Nido tour cost page, and the child fee and the who-cannot-go list live on the with-kids page.

This listing (product 571515) prints its own rules: not suitable for wheelchair users, and the not-allowed list reads Intoxication, smoking in the vehicle, plastic bottles and littering. Intoxication is a stated ground for refusal, which matters on a private boat where the beer from the floating vendors is tempting; keep it to the last stop. No minimum age is printed.

Life vests are included and worn on the water. Free cancellation applies up to 24 hours before the start for a full refund, and the reserve-now-pay-later option lets you hold a date before your flight lands in Puerto Princesa.

Book this listing for the clock, not the stops. The five beaches and lagoons are the same ones every Tour A boat visits, and the cash extras are the same ₱400 eco fee, ₱200 lagoon fee and kayak that every Tour A passenger pays. What $124 a head buys is a crew that answers to your party alone, a lagoon slot chosen around the fleet, and a tuk-tuk at a Corong-Corong door.

If that clock is worth less to you than the money, the shared Tour A listings on the homepage run the identical route from $22, and the private versus shared page works out the group size at which the sums turn.