The Philippines Ferry Database – we did it!

The Philippines Ferry Database got real today. A long time dream became true. We’ve built a database with almost all ferry connections in the Philippines.

In the Philippines 2016 you can by plane to many islands – but not all islands. You still need to among the seafarers and sail to your destination. Local people know their ferries and their ports of call. But tourists stick in outdated websites, vanished ferry lines and not communicative ferry companies.

Even big travel portals like “Lonely Planet” or “Philippines Travel Guide” offer wrong and/or completely outdated information about ferries in the Philippines. Some years ago, a funny German girl, Nadine, promised to clean up. She failed. We kept dreaming of the database.

December 2010 did completely mix up the Philippines’ ferry business. Former companies like Negros Navigation, Fast Ferries, Super Ferry, Cebu Ferries were absorbed into 2Go. And just to know: 2Go is wholly owned by the Chinese government.

The Philippines Ferry Database

 Screenshot of www.silent-gardens.com

Above picture shows the currently recorded ferry routes. These are 166 active ferry connections! But there is more. We did not only record the routes, but also information about the Philippines Ferry Ports and the Philippines Ferry Companies. They are all together stored in our database.

Don’t stress. The routes can be seen by company. Here is the network of Cokaliong:

The Cokaliong network can easily be selected by the menu:

In the same way you can select any ferry network or several of them by checking the corresponding company.

Need more information?

There is much more information available. If you want to know more about Cokaliong, simply click/touch their name:

Want to see your ferry? Click/tap on the name of the ferry. Here it is …

You do not know where exactly the port is in town? Click on the port’s name:

Wow! There are even other ferry companies in this port. Click on the name and you get the information.

Are you happy? We aren’t yet.

We would have liked to include schedules of the ferries. We would have liked to include links to the booking sites, we would have liked to include sailing frequencies and tariffs. Sorry we can’t yet.

Ferry companies here in the Philippines still think as local as the bus companies do. You cannot book them on-line, but have to go to the port. And even in the port you cannot book a ticket for tomorrow. You have to get up at 2 a.m.  There are exceptions. 2Go, Montenegro and a few more allow you to book on-line. Others like Super Shuttle Ferries still offer vanished routes.

Your help is important

If there is an error in our database or you miss a ferry that you take once a week, please report it. You can do so either by commenting this article or by the feedback form on our Philippines Ferries Pages. 100 million Pinoys will thank you and ten Thousands of potential tourists will come and visit our beautiful country. Help them.

[GARD]