Phillipines, Brunei and Malaysia Private Tour Recccomendations

We will be on the Legend of the Seas in August. I am trying to put together some private tours for our roll call and would appreciate any suggestions for guides and what we should see. The ports are:

- Manila

- Puerto Princesa

- Boracay

- Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

- Muara (Bandar Seri Begawan), Brunei

We had a great day tour when in Muara on Dec 20th 2014 on Sapphire Princess using Intrepid Tours.

It was organised by an Aussie named Allan Riches and he is a very interesting character but very reliable.

If you need more info on the tour I'd be more than happy to help.

His email address is: tours@bruneibay.net

OP, we took private tours in Kota Kinabalu and Manila during our cruise in December 2014. I wrote about the tours on Tripadvisor and Cruise Critic (Azamara Quest review) if you want more information than what I detail below.

Kota Kinabalu - Amazing Borneo offers a variety of day tours. Very professional (new van with A/C; uniformed guide and driver who were knowledgeable and very cordial; very punctual and kept to the schedule). You can browse their site for choices and ask questions via email. We chose the rafflesia flower park/waterfall park/butterfly farm tour and had a fantastic time. It was cool up in the mountains, we enjoyed the lush vegetation, and had a great lunch at a roadside restaurant.

Manila - We took the Binondo Food Wok with Old Manila Walks. That was the scheduled walk for the day, and we enjoyed it a lot. Ivan can also arrange for a private tour with transportation from the pier if you so wish. We originally wanted to visit the Presidential Palace (where Imelda Marcos once kept her shoe collection!), but it was closed for official business during our time in port, so we went on the food walk instead. You can get day tour ideas of what to do in Manila by looking up Old Manila Walks' website.

We were in Manila for two days. The food walk was during our second day in port. On our first day, we toured Intramuros (the walled Spanish old town) and had planned to take Carlos Celdran's afternoon walking tour. Too many people showed up (80+) so we went to Fort Santiago in Intramuros (where Jose Rizal was imprisoned and sentenced to death) by ourselves. A moving experience.

Hope this information helps you, OP. Regarding payment, we had to prepay the Kota Kinabalu tour, but paid after the tour in Manila. Because you're planning a bigger group than ours, your payment arrangements might be different.

Hi Dale we me and my husband will be on Legend too :)

Did you manage to book any excursions please with any tour operators?

As i am getting confused which to.book.

Thanks alot..maybe we meet onboard :)