El Nido to Coron by boat: the island-hopping tour, the ferry and the day in between

At 7:40 on Thursday morning, 11 June 2026, I was standing at the El Nido ferry terminal with a ticket for the 8:30 boat to Coron and a hotel room waiting for me on the other side. At 8:05 a staff member walked out with a marker and wrote on the whiteboard by the ticket window: no sailing today, wind. There was no announcement and no apology. Everyone around me took out their phones at the same moment.

I had read the line in guidebooks that you should allow a day between El Nido and Coron in case the sea says no. I had read it and decided it applied to other people. This is the story of the six nights of that trip, in the order they happened, with the money.

I had 10 nights in the Philippines in June 2026: six in Palawan, then four in Siargao, which is a separate story. In Palawan I wanted the two famous boat days, the lagoons around El Nido and the lakes and wrecks around Coron, with the ferry between them as the connecting piece. That ferry is the only way to travel between the two towns on the water. The alternative is a long loop by road and air through Puerto Princesa, which I did not price.

The schedule I booked looked tidy. Monday 8 June, fly into El Nido. Tuesday, the lagoon tour. Wednesday, a free day. Thursday, the morning ferry to Coron. Friday, the island tour out of Coron, which I planned to book on Thursday afternoon. Saturday, the town and a spare day. Sunday 14 June, fly out of Busuanga.

June is the start of the wet season in Palawan, and the sea gets rougher before the rain gets heavy. Our Palawan guide says the calm months run from January to April and that the ferry can be cancelled in rough seas. I read that, and then I booked Coron for three nights at a non-refundable rate that saved ₱300 over the flexible one. That choice comes back later.

The flight from Manila took just over an hour and landed at the small El Nido airport at 11:50. A shared van into town cost ₱500 for the carload and took about 25 minutes, past rice fields and a lot of half-built guesthouses. My room was a fan room for ₱2,400 a night, a ten-minute walk from the beach, with a shower that ran hot for about four minutes. At 3pm a squall came off the bay and the street was ankle deep for half an hour. By 4pm it was sunny again, which became the pattern of the week.

On Tuesday I did the lagoon tour, the one most visitors call Tour A. The boat left the beach at 8:50 with 12 guests and three crew. It cost roughly ₱1,500, plus a ₱200 environmental fee collected once and valid for several days. Both are rounded, so check the operator. Stops, in order: Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, lunch on Shimizu Island, and 7 Commandos Beach.

The Small Lagoon was the best hour of the day and the most crowded. I counted about 30 kayaks inside the opening at 10:15, and the queue to paddle through the gap was ten minutes. The Big Lagoon was quieter and the water was a flatter green. The Secret Lagoon is reached through a gap in the rock that you cross by wading or swimming at low tide, and we got there with the water at my waist. Lunch was grilled fish, pork, rice and mango on a plastic table under a tree, and it was good. The crew grilled everything on a metal drum on the boat and did not rush us.

The rain started at 2:15pm while we were at 7 Commandos Beach. The boat covered us with a tarp for the 40-minute ride back, and I was soaked in the same way as everyone else. We were on the sand at 4:30pm. That meant a full day of about seven and a half hours, and I would not shorten it.

On Wednesday I rented a scooter, which I do every day at home in Da Nang and rarely think twice about. The shop wanted a passport copy and ₱700 for the day, and I put in about ₱200 of fuel. The road north to Nacpan Beach is paved for most of the way, with one 4 km section of broken concrete and gravel where I rode at walking pace. The beach is long, nearly empty at 10am and very good for walking. I swam, ate rice and grilled fish at a beach stall, and started back at 5:15 with the sky turning grey.

The rain caught me about 12 km out of town at 6:20pm. I stood under a roadside shelter with two other riders for 40 minutes, then rode the last stretch in the dark with the headlight on. If you ride in June, carry a thin rain jacket in the seat box and start back by 4:30pm.

The ferry was supposed to be a boring four hours. The operator's schedule said the 8:30 boat took about four hours and arrived in Coron around 12:30. I had paid about ₱2,000 for the seat two days earlier, at an office in town, and the ticket was printed on thermal paper.

At the terminal, about 60 people stood around while the staff checked their phones. A crew member told me the Coast Guard had stopped sailings for small and mid-sized vessels in the area because of a wind warning. The offer was a full refund or a seat on the same boat the next morning. The ticket office said there was one sailing a day that month, so there was no afternoon boat to wait for. I took the next-day seat. About 20 people in the queue after me took the refund and went to find other routes, and I never found out what they did.

I had no cancellation option on the other end. The Coron guesthouse had emailed that morning to say my room was ready, and I wrote back at 8:30 to say I would arrive a day late. The reply came an hour later: the Thursday night was non-refundable, as booked. I paid ₱2,200 for a bed I never saw.

The guesthouse I had left in El Nido had my room for one more night, at ₱2,800 because it was now a short-notice booking, ₱400 over what I paid the other three nights. I spent the rest of Thursday on Corong-Corong beach, where the wind pushed whitecaps across the bay all afternoon, and at 6pm I wrote a note to myself: leave a spare day, and book flexible rooms for the first night after any boat.

Friday morning the board said sailing. The boat left at 8:40, ten minutes late, with about 150 people on it and a lot of luggage stacked in the middle. The first hour past the headland was rough, with a long swell that made the cabin sway, and a crew member walked the aisle handing out plastic bags. After that the sea flattened. Rain came off and on for two hours. We docked in Coron at 1:05pm, 4 hours 25 minutes after leaving El Nido.

Friday was 12 June, which is Independence Day in the Philippines, and the long weekend filled Coron town with domestic visitors. The pier had a line of tricycle drivers and a tout for every guesthouse. I took a tricycle for ₱100 and checked in. I had meant to book Friday's tour that Thursday afternoon, and on the day itself most boats were full. The guesthouse found me a seat on Saturday's boat for roughly ₱1,800.

At 5pm I climbed Mount Tapyas, about 700 steps up a concrete stairway, in 22 minutes. The view of the bay and the airstrip was worth it; the clouds were low and the light was dull. Dinner was grilled squid and rice at the market stalls for ₱250, which beat the restaurant on the main street by about half.

On Saturday the tour left the town dock at 8:00 with 14 guests. We visited Kayangan Lake, Twin Lagoon, the Skeleton Wreck and a beach for lunch. The stairs at Kayangan took about ten minutes and the lake at the bottom was clear and cool, though not quiet; about six other boats had arrived before us. At Twin Lagoon the tide decided the plan. We swam through a gap beneath the rock with the water just over my shoulder and found a warm layer beneath a cold one on the far side. At the Skeleton Wreck the snorkel was shallow enough that I could see the ribs of the hull from the surface.

The weather held until about 3pm, when the wind returned and the 40-minute ride back to town was wet and rough. The guides were calm; the boat took each wave at an angle. I was glad of a dry bag and had no regrets about the early start. The tour cost roughly ₱1,800, and the site fees came to about ₱600 in cash, collected one stop at a time. That is rounded, so check the operator, and carry small notes.

On Sunday morning I took a shared van to the Busuanga airport for ₱350, and the flight left on time. That is the end of the Palawan part of the trip.

I kept receipts, and rounded them to the nearest hundred pesos where a shop gave a loose figure. The totals cover the six nights from my arrival in El Nido to my departure from Coron. They leave out my flights in and out, which depend on where you start.

• Beds in El Nido, four nights: ₱10,000 (₱2,400 three times, ₱2,800 for the extra night)

• Beds in Coron, three booked and two used: ₱6,600

• El Nido lagoon tour with the environmental fee: ₱1,700

• Coron island tour with site fees: ₱2,400

• The ferry, one ticket moved to Friday at no charge: ₱2,000

• The scooter day and fuel: ₱900

• Airport, pier and town transfers: ₱950

• Food and drinks, about ₱1,100 a day: ₱6,600

That makes ₱31,150 for six nights. Beds took just over half of it. The two mistakes cost ₱2,600, which is the ₱2,200 for the night I never used and the ₱400 premium for the extra night in El Nido. That is about 8 percent of the whole, spent on a saving of ₱300.

The weather, for the record: it rained on Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday evening, Friday on the ferry and Saturday afternoon, which is five of six days. Thursday was dry and windy. The air stayed around 30°C to 32°C all week, and the water was warm enough that I never wanted a wetsuit. Rain never cost me more than an hour. The wind on Thursday cost me a day.

The booking order. Book the Coron room with free cancellation, because it costs a little more and covers the day the sea shuts. Book the flight out of Busuanga for at least two days after the ferry you plan to take. If the ferry runs on its first day you gain a spare day in Coron, and if it does not you lose nothing. I left one day between the ferry and my flight, and a second cancelled sailing would have cost me the flight.

The tours. I would do both again, in the morning, on days when the forecast is calm. The El Nido lagoon day is the better of the two for swimming, and the Coron day is the better for variety. On a June boat, the afternoon is when the rain and the wind arrive, so the earlier you are back, the better the day.

The insurance. I travelled with a policy that included trip delay, and I did not claim, because the ₱2,600 loss was below my excess. If you are booking a tighter itinerary with a flight the day after the ferry, our travel insurance guide covers what a cancelled boat does and does not trigger. Signal is weak on the water, so download your tickets and maps before you leave the town, and see our connectivity guide for eSIM options.

If you want Coron's boat day arranged, this is the shape of what I would look for.

If you have a week in Palawan in June, I would split it three nights in El Nido, one spare day, then two or three in Coron, and leave the Siargao flight until the day after. If you have only four days, stay in one town and do its boat tour twice rather than chase the ferry. For the other months, the rest of the route is in our Palawan guide.