Cebu Pacific and Recording in the Philippines Options

[Steve369]

Hello Friends.

I recently I decided to travel from Seoul to Cebu for vacationing and recording my compositions with some of the local musicians. Both Korean Airlines and Asian were charging REDICULOUS rates for the trip. Meaning I found other deals with them where I could fly twice as far for lower than half the price. Another thing is I had enough free miles with United Airlines to get a free seat on Asian, but Asian blocked all the seats so that I could not use a free seat even though the flight itself was mostly empty. So I decided to dump the big guys all together and so did a lot of other Koreans from what I could see on Cebu Pacific flights.

Nevertheless traveling there was nearly a disaster (literally). We all showed up, boarded the flight and headed to the runway. As the engines started up and roared...there were a few of us that heard strange noises and then the plane went silent or stalled. As it turned out the main hydraulic system on the aircraft had a complete failure. We had to be towed back into the gate and after maintenance did an assessment and we sat for an hour we were told to debark the plane while they worked to fix the problem. We then sat in the terminal for another 2 hours and during that time the Koreans got angrier and started shouting like one of those house political meetings between the politicians in Seoul. The airport brought in security and we were all eventually bussed to a hotel for the night and told that we would be bussed back to the airport at 6:30pm the next day. Well that was changed to 7:30pm. After we arrived at the airport, the maintenance team found something else wrong with the plane; the left engine was having problems. So we waited until 2:30am to board the plane. Before that there were more shouting and near riots in the terminal area.

The funny thing is that the guy, who was doing the most shouting, steering up the crowd against the poor Cebu Pacific staff, cheated me out of my cab fare earlier in the day. Given we were stuck in the hotel I decided to travel back to my apartment to get some important things for my recording project that I had forgot in my apartment. I asked the desk clerk where I could get the subway, bus or a taxi and she told me that the only available transportation was a taxi and that I'd have to pay 20,000 won!! My mouth hung open knowing that we could see the airport only across the field and that it was no more than a 15 minute drive. Yet given my need for my recording equipment I told her to go ahead and call the taxi. After the taxi arrived, I went to get in the car and the man who I mentioned above that did the most shouting at the Cebu Pacific ticket agents hopped in the car. I thought to myself 'gee I will now only have to pay half.' Well on the way I asked the driver the price of the fair and he said "20,000" won...and the guy who hopped in the car looked at him like he was crazy and said something in Korean, then the driver said something back to him. When we arrived at the airport, the man who did all the yelling at the airport quickly ran out of the car with his briefcase and left me with the driver to pay 20,000 won. I should have quickly called the police and took pictures of the driver and filed a complaint, but my main mission was to get my recording equipment thinking that there may be an announcement that we were leaving earlier than expected.

Anyway we eventually took off at 3 am and this time the aircraft sounded a lot better including the engines. This kind of made me question the airline's ability to keep the plane's schedule of maintenance up to date. Its one thing to have one thing break, but two major problems on the same trip is questionable. Nevertheless on our way back we had a newer aircraft and came back with no problems and we are all still alive plus I saved myself $2000 had I booked with Korean Airlines or Asiana.

Nevertheless I did lost most of the two days I booked in our first hotel in Cebu and the hotel only allowed us to extend our stay a few hours and offered us a free ride to our ferry.

Now given you had to read my long note of complaining I thought I'd share with you one of the songs I recorded with the Loboc Children's Choir. This choir is located on one of the most remote Islands in the Philippines. It took me 1 1/2 hours on a speed boat and a nearly 2 hour drive to get to them. The group was really fun to work with. You can listen by clicking below:

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...amp;rpeat=false