Pintuyan Whale Shark Interaction — Attraction in Southern Leyte

Place to see whale sharks in an ethical way. DO NOT go in to Oslob.

The opening time is wrong. They open early in the morning. You should be there at 7:30am to go to see whale sharks at 8:00-8:30am. You can also do the tour in the afternoon but apparently chances are a bit higher in the morning. The ladies in the town hall are really nice and helpful.

I did the tour twice and both times were unsuccessful. They are struggling right now with the sightings due to recent typhoon and big floods. It is just nature 🤷‍♀️so do not take sightings for granted. The chances of finding them now are quite low but hopefully it is going to change (choose sunny days for higher chances). The tour is still very affordable comparing to other places (3100 pesos for 1 person; 3400 for two people; 3700 for 3 “small” people on one boat). If you are solo traveller they will try to put you together with other people (not always possible) to reduce the cost (the boats are for max. 2-3 people). You need to add cost of tuk tuk (~50 pesos each way; if there are 3-5 people in tuk tuk they will ask you to pay 20-30 pesos each), fins rental (50 pesos) and mask + snorkel rental (not sure but probably 100-150 pesos). The boat ride is nice (small traditional boat) and at the end they give you a possibility to snorkel from the beach. Not all guides are knowledgeable about whale sharks (my first guide was lacking basic knowledge). We are paying for guide so it would be good to provide better service. I felt that some people (not all) were not honest about recent sightings and were very hesitant to answer my questions. I felt that all crew was doing their best to find sharks for us. If you go on the tour second time, you get 300 pesos discount (environmental fee that was paid the first time). It would be nice to get also discount on equipment rental, because I did not use fins even once.

Apart from whale shark interactions, the town hall is offering squid fishing tour with barbecue at the end (180 pesos/ pax), Mt. Caningag Resort tour with nice view (260 pesos/ pax) and Tautag Falls tour (I am not sure about the price ~500 pesos). I did fishing and mountain tour. Both were very nice.

The easiest way to get to Pintuyan from Cebu is by taking Roble shipping ferry to Hilongos). when you get on board, sign up for bus transfer directly from Hilongos to Pintuyan. It is very cheap (~320 pesos) and...

Came here to avoid the crowd and the high price of padre Burgos, thinking Pintuyan was better. So yes, it’s smaller and less touristy, but I felt like they are using the only people who are coming here.

They told us that whale shark had been seen the day before by two tourists (on the boat tour) So we booked the tour ! Spoiler alert : we did not see any whale shark. I saw one of the tourist after our boat tour and she told me that they did not see whale shark either !! I will let you do your own conclusion.

Second disappointment : you pay 1700 pesos per person for the tour. But then you need to pay the tuktuk to go to the boat. (20-30 pesos) And then you need to pay for the snorkelling gear. (150 pesos) ! The information center told us that snorkelling time was free, and I thought we were going to snorkel in deep water, see the corals. But no, they drop you at the beach, with dirty water and dead corals. Nothing to see there. And the snorkel gear was broken.

Advice : Take a van early in the morning, go to Liloan and then book a tour there. The whale shark are more likely to be seen, since this is their area to hang out. Pintuyan is better (apparently) in may-June to see them.

Anyway, I’m not mad because I didn’t see the whale shark, its nature and I prefer that to them being fed, for tourist to come. I’m mad and disappointed because of the lies and the fact that they are “using” tourist to book and pay. Knowing that if they told me the truth being “this is not really the spot to see them, and we didn’t see them for a few days” I think I would have book anyway, because who knows? They might...

I have mixed feelings. We saw whale sharks(quite easy to see them with the spotters), but we were too many people.

I have to say, it’s not Pintuyan’a fault since we were only 3 small boats with 2 people in each but Padre Burgos big boats with more than 10 people per boat.

We came here from far away, traveling a lot of hours just to see the whale shark responsibly. What we did wasn’t responsable at all. There were about 30 people chasing the poor shark, people crashing with boats, people hitting each other in order to see the shark…

When we finished the activity, we went straight to the city hall to let them know that wasn’t correct for anyone but especially for the sharks.

Although I feel like it’s Padre Burgos’s big boata fault I don’t understand why Pintuyan city hall let them bring too many people.

Hope our complains are for good and something...