Corrigedor Island, Philippines (Manila)

Corrigedor was very important in WWII as it sits at the entrance to Manila Bay. Excursions to go there are somewhat difficult because of the timing of the ship's being in port and it's distance from the city. We had heard of one cruise where the Capt actually arrived into port early to enable passengers to go. Since we were in Manila for 2 days it wasn't as much of an issue but would be cutting it close. If you go with a ship's excursion no problem since they will always wait for you. On your own is another story. Early in this cruise someone had called asking if we wanted to go on a private tour. I had written down the info and mentioned it to Mel but we never did anything about it. As we got closer to Manila, Mel's desire to go there increased. We had lost the info on the private tour so Mel asked around the ship who was running it. Turned out to be a couple we didn't get along with very well but Mel called to say we were interested. The tour was full but we would be put on their waiting list. Someone on their tour offered to let Mel take her place but the couple running it said no to that as they had a waiting list. So Mel started looking to go on his own. I was less than thrilled about that as the risk of missing the ship was quite real. The ferry coming back from the island arrived in Manila at 4, ship sailed at 5. If something happened with the ferry, he would miss the ship. I wanted him to just go on the ship's tour which was $229, I would stay in Manila. He didn't want to spend the money, he would go on his own. A few days before we arrived in Manila the couple called and said they had had a cancellation, were we still interested! Whew! We were now set. They had a group of 35. I don't think the ship would leave that many people plus we had discovered that we would be using the same ferry as the ship's tour so were pretty safe. The private tour cost us $77 each. Amazing what the ship charges for tours!

We met on the ship at 6:15. The leaders were very organized giving us written itineraries and schedules saying they would not wait for anyone not there at the scheduled time and you would be left behind, no refund. Of course we didn't get off the ship until almost 6:45 so it wasn't really an issue. We got on our bus and took the 20 minute ride to the ferry terminal. HAL had 2 bus loads of people on their tour. We boarded the ship then waited about 45 minutes to leave. We could have slept a lot longer. We were finally on the way at about 8:30. They showed a film about the war during the 1 1/2 hrs it took to get there. I dozed most of the way. Fortunately the seats were almost like airplane seats and quite comfortable. 

Once on the island we all got onto our own bus/trolley. It was open at both sides of every row so getting on and off was fast. There were a total of 6 of these things going to tour the island that day. 

       

We made many stops for pictures. There were ruins of barracks, many memorials and many big guns to look at. We made a lot of stops! 

The most interesting to me was a small island that the US forces had carved to look like a battleship sitting in the harbor! There were a total of 5 islands in the area, Corregador was the largest.

Hard to see the detail but the "ship" island is sitting off in the distance to the left of the gun. 

We stopped for lunch at the small inn on the island. It was buffet and quite good. We were there for about an hour then started off again. We visited an old lighthouse and more memorials, one which had a small museum. Our last stop was the sound and light show in the tunnels. At one time the tunnels on the island had housed a hospital, munitions storage and had even been a hideout for the then president of the Philippines. There were as many as  7000 people in them at any given time.  We entered the main tunnel. There were smaller ones that went off to each side. They started with the lights on then played a recording to start telling of the history of the tunnel. They would have us move forward to the next "event", about 70 of us. They had set up scenes in the side tunnels with bronze people doing what they would have been doing with actual hospital beds, desks, etc. The first 2 were so packed with people that I saw nothing. After that I figured out where to stand so I could see more. In some of the areas they had screens and would show a footage of the actual war. There were about 12 stops, took maybe 30 minutes. It would have been much better if they had just left the lights on and let us look at the scenes as we walked by. But it was what it was, they tried to do something different and interesting. 

The ferry back to Manila left at 2:30, expected to arrive at 4. Many of us dozed off as it had been an early start. Our group very orderly got on the bus and was the first to leave the area. We all cheered to be on our way before the ship's tours. At the pier they would not let our bus thru the gates so while our guide argued about it with the officers, the ship's buses passed us by. We had almost beat them. We had to get out at the gate and walk to the ship from there, about a 5 minute walk. 

There were 2 different bands playing a farewell when we arrived at the ship. Many people were waving goodbye to family members. The pier was more crowded that at any other pier. We were on the ship by our scheduled 4:30 all aboard and had had a long but interesting day. 

I don't know if anyone has been following the world weather but the typhoon we had to avoid thus canceling Yap has hit the Philippines hard. It is the strongest to hit there in recorded history! Looking at the weather map, it passed right between Palau, an island we missed going to in 2011, and Yap, the island we missed this year. It then went straight for the middle of the Philippines which is where Manila is located. Lucky for us that it was several days after our visit. It would have been sad to miss that port also!