How to Get From Siquijor to Moalboal
Are you wondering how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal?
In this post, I’m going to be showing you how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal using the ferries that depart Siquijor, then changing port to get the next ferry that goes to the southern end of Cebu.
The method that we used today involving the Ceres line buses, the tricycles and the ferries themselves can also be done in the reverse order to get from Moalboal to Siquijor.
I have also made a post that tells you how to get to Siquijor from Oslob, which can be done in reverse to get from Siquijor to Oslob if that’s where you would rather go. They’re very similar trips. Check out what to do in Oslob here.
Having recently done this trip, I can show you the most up-to-date information about how to get to Moalboal from Siquijor.
If you are wanting something different to do in Moalboal when you get there, check out this post about 4 hikes to do near Moalboal.
If you are wondering what to do in Siquijor, check out my 7 favourite activities in Siquijor here.
For those who prefer to watch a video on how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal I’ve made a video that will be embedded below.
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How to get from Siquijor to Moalboal Video
For those who prefer to have a more visual understanding than reading, check out this brief video that explains how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal.
How to get to Moalboal from Siquijor – Brief version
I don’t like posts that blab on about nothing, so below here is the brief rundown for those wanting to know how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal in a nutshell.
After this portion I will start going into more detail but I appreciate some people just want to know the basics.
- Catch a ferry from Siquijor port to Dumaguete port.
- Get a tricycle from Dumaguete to Sibulan port.
- Catch a ferry from Sibulan port to either of the Liloan ports.
- Get a tricycle or bus to Bato bus terminal.
- Get the bus from Bato bus terminal to Cebu via Barili and get off at Moalboal.
- Done.
It’s as simple as that really. For more information about how to get to Moalboal from Siquijor, see below.
The Method of Getting From Siquijor to Moalboal
Some of you will be done at this point as getting from Siquijor to Moalboal is pretty self explanatory with the above steps, but for those who want the finer details I will break down the steps here with costs and rough travel times.
Some legs of the journey involve a few different options so I will cover them here as well.
Step 1 – Ferry from Siquijor to Dumaguete
First step of getting from Siquijor to Moalboal is going down to the ferry ticketing booth near the port of Siquijor. This is likely where you arrived into Siquijor, you would have walked straight past it.
The building is shown below.
Go in here, grab a ticket for the ferry line that you want to take and take a seat, when your number is called you go up to the relevant counter and discuss with them your options / buy a ticket.
Here are a few of the options that you can take when leaving Siquijor.
I recommend going to the port in the days leading up to your journey for the most up to date schedules and seeing what will work for you, the above images are just to give you a rough idea.
I personally took the 06:00 ferry with OceanJet to Dumaguete at a cost of ₱350.
The journey took 39 minutes.
Step 2 – Tricycle from Dumaguete to Sibulan port
The next part of getting to Moalboal from Siquijor invovles a small trip from one port to another via tricycle.
There will be tricycles waiting for you as you get off the ferry and they will take you from Dumaguete port to Sibulan port.
This tricycle will cost you ₱250 and will take anywhere from 16 to 26 minutes depending on what time of day you are attempting to do the journey.
As I had taken the 6 am ferry from Siquijor there was no traffic in Dumaguete and it only took us 16 minutes to change port.
Step 3 – Ferry from Sibulan to Liloan ports
There are two ferries here that run all day in between Sibulan port and Liloan.
They are slightly different but you can catch either and end up in the same place. On Cebu the two ports are Liloan Fastcraft and Liloan Santander, only 480 metres apart.
The most important thing to know is that both of these ferries will be going to the same place. They just have different schedules but the price is basically the same.
Liloan Santander is a cargo ship ferry and leaves every hour and a half. This is your only option if you are hoping to transport a scooter or a car but obviously it also takes passengers.
Liloan fastcraft is a small vessel. It leaves every hour. It is supposedly faster than the large cargo ship but having taken both I can tell you that it’s not that big of a difference really.
So in this section of how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal I’ll just breakdown these two modes of transport a little bit further in case you have a preference or are still confused.
Liloan Santander
The Liloan Santander Port is the one that has a larger ferry. It is for cargo but also takes passengers.
This is my preferred method of getting between Liloan and the port of Sibulan on the island of Negros. This ferry leaves less frequently, every hour and a half as you can see from the schedule below.
This ferry is larger, there is more room to move about because of its size. It is not as rough a ride in rough seas, it is very stable boat and there is a lot of open air and space to move around. It is more comfortable.
This ferry is notoriously late. It hardly ever if ever leaves on schedule as it is loading cars and motorbikes.
This very took me 35 minutes from departure to arrival at the next port for a cost of ₱130.
The page on the left is the ferry costs for this journey.
Liloan Fastcraft
The Liloan fastcraft is a smaller ferry as you can see from the image above.
This ferry is more likely to leave on time. The delays are normally only a handful of minutes as opposed to 10 to 15 minutes with the other ferry.
The prices are basically the same but as you can see from the schedule below there are a few more departures per day.
Having taken both of these ferries, I found this one to be cramped and uncomfortable. It was also very hot in the dry season with not much airflow as opposed to the other ferry which is very large and gives you room to move around.
This ferry is quicker though taking me 26 minutes to make the journey from Sibulan to Liloan.
Which one is better?
I personally would prefer the larger ferry, however I wouldn’t wait around for it if it wasn’t leaving any time soon.
As the journey is roughly half an hour on either vessel, I’ll just take whichever one is leaving soonest however if they were leaving at the same time I would go on the larger ferry.
A lot of the time you arrive just when you arrive and then you take whatever is leaving next. You don’t often plan and arrive perfectly on time for the ferry that you want to take.
The fast ferry was a little bit faster however it was very uncomfortable until it started moving and then you got some airflow but you can’t get up and move around or stand up and it gets very humid.
Step 4 – Liloan to Bato Bus Terminal
The next step of how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal involves a very short journey from the southern tip of Cebu where you were dropped off from the ferry, to a place called Bato.
Bato has a bus terminal that is the joining of two different Ceres liner bus routes. See the schedules listed below from the website.
You have two options to get from the port to the Bato bus terminal:
- Bus.
- Tricycle.
Bus
The bus is cheaper, you will be looking for the Ceres liner buses, they’re bright yellow like the one pictured below.
This bus runs around the ring road that goes around Cebu island.
There are a few different routes as you can see in the image below, but the one that is relevant for getting to Bato bus terminal from Liloan is the CSBT (Cebu Southern Bus Terminal) to Bato via Oslob.
This bus will travel south past Oslob, around the southern tip of Cebu island, at which point you get on at the Liloan ports, then to Bato on the southwest of the island.
I personally didn’t catch it, but it will cost you less than ₱50 for the journey.
There are AC buses and non-AC buses which will drive around with the windows down. These tend to alternate, but that can’t be guaranteed. Each bus will come every 15 minutes.
Tricycle
For those that don’t know, a tricycle is just a motorbike taxi with a sidecar.
There will be tricycles at the port and their drivers will be trying to get your service.
This is what I took to get to Bato bus terminal as there was no bus there at the time I arrived and I wanted to try and get the first bus I could from Bato to Moalboal.
The cost for me was ₱200 and the journey was only about 10 minutes.
Step 5 – Bato bus terminal to Moalboal
If you did catch the bus here you need to get off here and transfer to a new bus. Bato bus termina looks like this:
There will be a schedule posted here, as you can see below. The route that is relevant for us to go from Bato to Moalboal is the Bato vis Barili to Cebu trip.
As you can see this will leave every 15 minutes, however they won’t all be air conditioned buses, they usually alternate between AC and non-AC.
This trip goes up the west side of the island to a town called Barili, at which point it heads east to Cebu city, but you will have already gotten off at Moalboal.
The journey time depends a lot on when you leave Siquijor. Having left Siquijor at 06:00 there was still very little traffic on the road for the bus when I caught it.
We arrived in Moalboal after 1 hour and 42 minutes of driving.
The cost for the air conditioned bus from Bato bus terminal to Moalboal was only ₱140!
Summary
Now you know how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal.
As always the information shown in this post is only relevant at the time that it is posted and that the photos are taken.
If you are unsure about anything I recommend riding down to the ferry port the day before your journey to doublecheck all the times and what options are available to you.
Now you know how to get to Moalboal from Siquijor you can share this post with other travellers so everyone knows how to get from Siquijor to Moalboal.
If this post is confusing let me know, or watch the video, that may make things easier to understand.
It’s pretty simple to get from Siquijor to Moalboal once it is explained but can be confusing to figure out as there is no direct route.
Total cost and duration
Keeping in mind that I chose to leave at 6 am from Siquijor so my total duration will be quicker than those who leave later in the day due to traffic.
Total Cost
₱1,080
Total Duration
4 hours and 50 minutes.
