Cebu Island Things to Do

Mactan Island is one of the major tourist haven of Cebu, boasting with a diverse collection of tourist activities and attractions. Mactan offers some of the best diving experience in the Visayas.
The dive sites around Mactan and nearby Nalusuan Is.( home of the Blue spotted stingray) and Hilutungan Is. teeming with big schools of Trevally's, Batfish and Yellow ribbon Sweetlips.

For hardcore and well experience divers, Marigondon Cave suites your crave for extreme diving. A cave in a wall has it's entrance at 30-40 meters, penetration is approx. 40 meters( bring torch). Inside the cave is teeming with, Lion fish, Paddle fin Cardinal, Flashlight fish and soft sandy crater in the bottom( watch your fin strokes).

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Mactan Shrine is a top tourist attraction. Here you can find the monument of Lapu Lapu, the first Filipino hero. In the vicinity, you can find shops selling souvenir items ranging from local crafts to guitars. Nearby is the popular sutukil offering yummy seafood cook to perfection. This place is touristry so expect a high price for the food. You can also walk to nearby Shangrila Mactan Resort & Spa & take a look at Cebu's top resort.

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Mountain View Resort is located in Busay on your way to trancentral highway. It is just a few minutes from Cebu City. If you love nature, this is the place to be. Be warned though that your car must be in good condition for those steep roads. This place requires a demanding physical hike up to the top where the cross is. You can bring food & have picnic inside the resort. Also quite nice during evening to view the city lights. Entrance is P50.

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For the City tour:

Magellan's Cross
Fort San Pedro
Magellan & Lapu Lapu Shrine then eat at Sutukil
Market for Danggit :)
Taoist Temple
Guitar Factory
Ayala Mall

Relax at Plantation Bay Resort & Spa

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Its towering facade blends Muslim, Romanesque, and neo-classical architecture, this church of the Señor Santo Niño de Cebu–which translates literally as “holy child of Cebu.”

Cebu’s oldest Roman Catholic Church, the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, also still retains the original stone texture and natural color it had in 1735.

t is widely believed that the Santo Niño image is the same one given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to Queen Juana of Cebu in 1521, that same year when she, her husband Datu Humabon, and several of their followers where baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. When it was found, it was burnt so bad it was hardly recognizable and its survival was considered as nothing short of a miracle.

The Santo Niño image’s reputation as miraculous is buoyed by reports of basilica helpers that it sometimes goes out of its glass case to take long walks at night. They point to grass stains on the hem of its dress as evidence. The stories are dismissed as superstition but they strengthened beliefs of devotees that the Santo Niño de Cebu, “Cebu’s holy child”, watches over Cebu.

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Magellan's Cross is a Christian cross planted by Portuguese and Spanish explorers as ordered by Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to come to the Philippines in 1521. Also known as Fernao Magalhaes or Fernando Magallanes, he was a Portuguese navigator working for the King of Spain in search of the spice islands (now part of Indonesia, known as Maluku or Moluccas islands). When he and his crews landed on Cebu island, a native chief, Rajah Humabon, met and befriended him. Rajah Humabon, his wife and hundreds of his native warriors agreed to accept Christianity and were consequently baptized.

Magellan planted a cross to signify this important event about the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith in what is now Cebu, in central Philippines. The original cross is reputedly encased in another wooden cross for protection, as people started chipping it away in the belief that it had miraculous healing powers. This prompted the government officials to encase it in tindalo wood and secured it inside a small chapel called "kiosk." Some say, however, that the original cross was actually destroyed. The Magellan cross displayed here is said to be a replica of such cross. It is housed in a small chapel located in front of the present city hall of Cebu, along Magallanes Street (named in honor of Magellan).

Sadly, Magellan met his death under the hands of another Visayan chief, Lapu-Lapu, when he went to the nearby island of Mactan. Mactan is also part of today's Metropolitan Cebu. There, both the statues of Magellan and Lapu-Lapu proudly stand to commemorate the tragic meeting of east and west in this part of the world.

It took another 45 years (1565) before Cebu was visited again by another European. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, under orders from King Philip of Spain, came and made Cebu the first capital of the Spanish colony known as Las Islas Filipinas. erdinand Magellan upon arriving in Cebu in the Philippines on April 21, 1521.

It might seem funny to list going to a market as a fun and rewarding thing to do, but let me tell you Carbon Market is quite a great way to see and enjoy the Philippines especially Cebu. There is such a huge variety of food and about everything else. There are hogs hanging up and so many different kinds of fish and dozens of varieties of rice. Not very many tourist visit this market. To get there just catch a jeepney anwhere around Cebu City that says Carbon Market on the side. A market like this gives you the real feel of the islands. All the food is freshly picked and just caught. There is so much to see at the market. Might be a good idea to have your Filipina wife, family or friend go with you if you plan on buying anything. If not you could get charged a higher amount. Have fun at the market!

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This is one of Cebu's heritage located in the Paria-an district. A beautiful Spanish colonial house originally built in the 1860's. The first Filipino Bishop of Cebu , Juan Gorordo once lived here. The house is now fully restored and furnished in the style of the period. Inside, there are still some original furnitures and wares kept. Today is a museum opened to the public taken care by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. Join a guided tour and you will know more of this place. She said, securities has observed some haunted noises inside this house!
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During our visit, taking photos inside the museum was not allowed.