Taktak Falls — Attraction in Santa Monica

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. ///TOURIST TRAP/// This place, the falls, the pools, the setup, the fee...all truly pathetic. Drive in and you are stopped and forced to park...even though a very new looking concrete road leads up ahead. Try to start walking and you are stopped and asked for a 250php entry fee per person. You then walk up to the attraction on the previously mentioned road. (I would have liked to hike a mountain trail, so why they ruined it with a new road, a road you can't use, is beyond me.) After passing random permanent souvenir stands selling junk and overpriced drinks, you get to the top. It isn't far. Oh, there is plenty of parking and everyone could have driven up (not many people come here....I wonder why.) But I am sure the road traverses at least 6 different sets of greedy private property owners. One for parking lot. One for the entry gate. A few more for the stands. And finally the guy who owns the falls....who obviously would love to charge an entry fee, but his brethren downstream have already bilked you out of your cash. The falls themselves? Yawn. Not worth it. The pools? Dirty foul water, that other (brave looking) tourists were balking at going in. I've been in some real bad water. Wasn't gonna touch this one wearing YOUR bathing suit. Stayed 90 seconds, enough time to take a few disappointing pictures, and left. Used the bathroom on the way down..... didn't flush. Avoid this place! You have...

After paying to access 100 pesos we could go up by rental car. At the falls I turned around and parked the car a bit down. We got out, we made photographs and just when we were about to leave this woman came to my partner and angry. She wanted us to pay. But could not show any receipt for that. She started to make photographs on her phone. Angry. We had to pay her. My partner became very angry and demanded that she would erase all pictures and I pushed also to remove the deleted folder. When we left we complained to the people where we paid. They said sorry.

The falls have this sign to leave the area clean. But everywhere there were glass bottles left on the walls and even downstream it was littered with plastic coke...

Location on Google maps is way wrong, but if you head in this direction you'll see signs you can't miss.

Low rating because if youve been to any waterfalls in Cebu you won't even bother taking photos of this one. Seriously, I know it sounds bad but this just doesn't compare. If you have time on the island, sure, go for the drive and check it out. But if you're strapped for time, don't bother with these waterfalls.

You can also really only swim under them during high tide apparently. When we were there the water was quite low and the "pool" at the base looked kinda gross.

It's also a very much man made swimming area underneath so that also took away from the...