Terms and Conditions

These terms and conditions consist of important informations about El Nido Paradise Booking Office & Adventure Tours that should be read carefully. These terms and conditions define the booking conditions and binds you and our company Tropical Paradise Travel & Tours when you book a tour, transportation or activity with us, whether it is made online, offline or through a third party such as a travel agency. For any questions regarding the following terms and conditions, please feel free to email us to [email protected].

A copy of the present terms and conditions is available on simple request in our booking offices in El Nido, Puerto Princesa or Coron. If not available, our staff should provide you with the necessary Internet connection for you to access them or, if not possible, indicate you the URL (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/terms-and-conditions/) where you can read them.

Please be advised that, even though a copy of the present terms and conditions may be printed in our office, the one that prevails is the updated version that you can find on this page. Please refer to the “Modification” section below for more information about the changes and updates of the present Terms and Conditions.

Booking Conditions

The following sections defines the conditions where a booking is made and the procedure happening from right after your payment until the actual day of your tour, transportation or activity. It refers more specifically to the online booking procedure and details the main steps of it.

Booking Procedure

From the online booking part of our website (which is located at https://www.elnidoparadise.com/booking/) you can find a variety of tours including island hopping tours, island hopping combo tours, inland tours, adventures tours, overnight camping tours, private tours, as well as transportation services such as vans and boats, and vehicle rentals (such as motorbikes, cars and kayaks).

To book a tour or activity, which can organised and offered by us or by third parties such as van companies, boat companies, vehicle renters, dive centers and other tour organisers, click on the category of activity you wish to access. These categories  can also be accessed from the top navigation menu, by overing the “Booking” tab, or from the sidebar menu on the right side of the page.

On the individual booking page for a tour or service, you’ll get to indicate the booking options of your choice (for example, the number of participants, the date of the activity, etc.), before clicking on the “Book” button taking you to the “Cart” page. On the cart page, you’ll be able to remove items/bookings, or to add others by clicking on the link “Continue shopping”.

Once you’ve reviewed your bookings, you’ll have to proceed to the “Checkout” page, by clicking on the “Proceed to checkout” button. On the “Checkout” page, you’ll be able to fill in your billing details and customers information, review you order, access to the present Terms and Conditions, and proceed to PayPal by clicking on the “Proceed to PayPal” button.

Booking Payment

Our website is using the secured online payment systems operated by the companies PayPal and Stripe. The following paragraphs give more informations about how they operate and how they may appear on your bank statement.

About payments with PayPal: You don’t need a PayPal account to use it for your payment. You can use it with any major Credit Card. For that matter, please proceed to your booking and, on the checkout page, choose “Proceed with PayPal”. On the following PayPal hosted page, click on the button offering you to pay without a PayPal account. Please note that we don’t collect any payment information and that your payment is directly and securely processed by PayPal. The transaction will appear on your bank statements under the name of “PAYPAL*TROPICAL PARADISE TRAVEL AND TOURS”.

About payments with Stripe: You can pay using Stripe with all major credit card or debit card. Simply indicate your payment information while choosing this payment gateway. Please note that we don’t collect any payment information and that your payment is directly and securely processed by Stripe.

Note that only tours, transportation or activities for which a payment (full or partial) has been issued are considered booked. This partial or full payment can be made through our website, through a custom PayPal link or by a mean directly specified with one of our representing members.

Any payment made outside of our website (by Western Union, Palawan Pawnshop or a bank wire) must first be confirmed by email. In that regard, you will have to write to [email protected] with the details of your booking and planned payment. Once reviewed, we’ll confirm the possibility for you to make the payment. This extra layer of security both helps us to track effectively your booking and prevent any misrepresentation of our company.

All bookings must be paid in full before departure of the booked service. If a guest is not able to settle their remaining balance at that time, they will not be accepted to join the said service and their non-participation will be considered a cancellation by guest. Exceptionally and at the company’s discretion, a representative of the company may hold their passport as a security deposit to allow the guest to participate to the tour nonetheless. The said document will be returned after settlement of the full payment.

Booking Confirmation

When booking online, you will also receive an automated email containing the details of your booking as well as your unique order number. For that matter, it is important that you provide us with a valid email address that you access regularly. For certain bookings such as van transfers, you will have to print this automated email in order to remit it to the van driver when he will come to pick you up. In case you wouldn’t be able to access a printer, you can alternatively print it to the PDF format and save it into your smartphone.

After your booking is manually reviewed and confirmed by a member of our team, we’ll send you a recap email containing the practical informations regarding your booking, such as what to bring for your tour, the time and hour of departure, when and how to come to our booking office in El Nido or in Puerto Princesa, the contact numbers to reach us easily and other important or useful informations we may want to share with you regarding your specific booking.

This email should be sent to you shortly after your booking, generally within a 72 hours time window. If you weren’t receiving this email more than 3 days after your booking, this could indicate a problem with your booking such as a non processed payment, a problem with your email inbox such as a filter applied by your email provider, or a problem with our own email system. In any of these case, the procedure to follow is to contact us directly either by email to [email protected] or, if your booking is planned in less than 72 hours, by phone to the number(s) indicated on our contact page (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/contact/).

Booking Availability

Availability on certain tours (such as El Nido Tour A or the Ultimate Adventure Tour) may be limited. Once the number of participants is reached for a certain date, the booking calendar will be close and you won’t be able to book a seat on that particular tour. This can happen between the moment you made an inquiry and the moment you actually intended to make a booking on our website. If our staff informed you that there were available seats at the time they answer, it doesn’t constitute a promise of availability. Only paid bookings are confirmed bookings (cf. the section hereabove of the present terms and conditions).

The company may have to occasionally cancel a booking for a tour with limited availability. This cancellation will normally happen within the next 24 hours the booking was made. This cancellation may be necessary due to the size of the group included in the booking or for other reasons related to availability. A customer relationship officer will contact you to give you more details and offer you alternative tours. For this reason, we ask you to wait for a period of 24 hours before committing to any plans depending on your booking of the said tour. The company declines any responsibility in potentially incurred expenses (such as hotel nights, flights, etc.) related to these plans.

In order to proceed to certain bookings (such as the Private Explore Linapacan Tour or the Private Ultimate Adventure Tour), you may have to use the “Check Availability” option available through certain booking pages of our website. Once we received your completed inquiry, if there are available spots, we’ll send you an email with a link to pay for your booking and effectively confirm it. The availability on the dates you chose will be reserved for you for a period of 72 hours. If we don’t receive your partial or full payment within this time window, these dates will stop to be reserved for you and may not be available anymore at a later time.

Tour Inclusions

The inclusions available with each activity are defined on the page where you can book this activity. For example, you can find the inclusions of island hopping Tour A on the pages where you can book a Tour A (public Tour A or a private Tour A). These inclusions will be listed in the “Description” area located under the booking options and the calendar. The following sections will cover two specific topics related to tours in El Nido: licensed tour guides and the ETDF.

Licensed Tour Guide

All the island hopping tours we organise in El Nido are including the presence and guidance of a licensed tour guide. This license is issued by the municipality of El Nido and testifies of a professional training and knowledge.

Eco-Tourism Development Fee (ETDF)

Except if indicated otherwise for certain tours (such as private tours, overnight campings and adventure tours), the ETDF is not included with your booking and you might have to either present your existing valid ticket or pay for a new ETDF ticket before embarking on your tour. This matter is generally dealt with when you come to visit our office on the day prior to your tour. To find more information about the ETDF, you can read this page.

Cancellation Policy

The following sections defines the cancellation policy applied in different conditions. When the cancellation is originating from the guest, whatever the circumstances in which this cancellation takes place, a cancellation fee may apply. When the cancellation is originating from us, whether it is due to weather conditions or other circumstances, the guest shall be granted a full refund.

Cancellation by Guest

This section defines the cancellation policy applied when a tour, transportation or activity is cancelled by the guest (i.e. the person who made the booking or to whose name the booking was made).

  • If a guest cancels a booking more than 30 days before the booking date, a fee of 20% of the total booking amount is applied.
  • If a guest cancels a booking less than 30 days before the booking date, a fee of 30% of the total booking amount is applied.
  • If a guest cancels a booking less than 14 days before the booking date, a fee of 40% of the total booking amount is applied.
  • If a guest cancels a booking less than 7 days before the booking date, a fee of 50% of the total booking amount is applied.
  • If a guest cancels a booking less than 48 hours before the booking date, a fee of 100% of the total booking amount is applied.
  • In case of no show-up of the guest, a fee of 100% of the total booking amount is applied.

For public tours, a guest who is more than 30 minutes late to the meeting place will be considered a no show-up. For private tours, a guest who is more than 2 hours late to the meeting place will be considered a no show-up.

Cancellation by our Agency

This section defines the terms and conditions of a cancellation originating from us. If the tour, transportation or activity you booked has to be cancelled because of conditions such as bad weather, natural calamities, insecure political climate or any external event or condition that makes it not viable for us to operate it, you’ll get the following choice:

  • Reschedule your activity if possible
  • Use the full amount already paid as a travel fund
  • Get a full refund if you paid in cash, with Wise.com or a direct bank transfer from a BDO or BPI account
  • Get a full refund minus a 5% fee over the amount paid online if the payment was done with PayPal or Stripe

The travel fund means that if your activity is cancelled, you will be able to use the amount paid for any other tour, transportation or activity offered by us or by our direct partners. You will be able to use it for a full payment for the services that can be fully paid online on our website, or for the confirmation deposit for services that can only be booked with a confirmation deposit on our website. This travel fund will be issued under the form of a coupon linked to the Guest’s user account on our website. This credit coupon is set to be non-expiring in time and can even be used to book service for other people as well.

The full refund is available for bookings made using a service with no fee, such as cash (the payment will thus have to be collected at one of our offices), Wise.com (the payment will thus have to be collected in cash at one of our offices in El Nido or Puerto Princesa), or a direct local bank transfer made from a BPI or BDO account. If you paid using an account in another bank than BPI or BDO, the sending fee charged to make a wire to that bank will be deducted from the refund. The cash refund should be made on or after the last day of the booked activity.

If you paid for your booking using PayPal or Stripe payment gateways, a 5% fee will be deducted from the full refund in order to cover the non-refundable fees charged by these two platforms. This 5% will only be applied to the amount paid online via PayPal or Stripe. For example, if you paid your remaining balance in cash or by using Wise.com, the full refund for this other payment will be processed accordingly to the conditions described in the paragraph here above.

Note that we are not responsible for any incidental expenses that you may have incurred as a result of your booking or its cancellation, including but not limited to, visas, non-refundable flights or transportation tickets.

Modification, Reschedule or Change of Date

You can modify, reschedule or change the date of a tour, transportation or activity, within the following terms and conditions:

  • A change made before receiving our confirmation email (with practical information) is free of charge.
  • A change required after receiving our confirmation email is subject to a reschedule fee of P500.
  • The reschedule will only be possible if there is availability. For example, it can happen that due to weather circumstances, tours are cancelled for several days in a row and there is a lack of available boat on the day where to tours can resume. In that case, the existing bookings have priority over the rescheduled ones.

For single-day activities (such as day tours):

  • A request for rescheduling a single-day activity can be made by email up to 5 days before the departure time.
  • A request for rescheduling a single-day activity happening less then 5 days before the departure time has to be made exclusively by phone, through the phone numbers given in our confirmation email or the one available on our contact page (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/contact/).
  • A single-day activity cannot be rescheduled less than 48 hours before the departure time, except if the reschedule is validated by a member of our team during your phone call.

For multi-day activities (such as expeditions):

  • A request for rescheduling a multi-day activity can be made by email up to 10 days before the departure date.
  • A request for rescheduling a multi-day activity happening less then 10 days before the departure time has to be made exclusively by phone, through the phone numbers given in our confirmation email or the one available on our contact page (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/contact/).
  • A multi-day activity cannot be rescheduled less than 8 days before the departure date, except if the reschedule is validated by a member of our team.

A request for rescheduling an activity processed through the wrong channel (for example in contradiction with the previous points) leading to a no show-up will be considered a no show-up.

Refund Policy

When you get either a full or a partial refund, the mean of payment used for your booking shall be the one used to proceed to your refund. For instance, if you used PayPal to make your booking, your refund will be made through PayPal and not by any other means.

When asking for a refund for a booking made online, you shall send an email to [email protected] with your booking order number and a brief message explaining the nature of your request. Once confirmed, we’ll proceed to your refund in a diligent manner.

You can cancel or modify your trip with us in accordance to the Cancellation Policy above. But if the cancellation is done from a booking paid either with PayPal or Stripe payment gateways, there will be a -5% fee deducted from the refund due to PayPal and Stripe charges. You will thus get the refunded amount accordingly to our cancellation policy minus this 5% fee used to cover the payment processor non refundable fees. If the cancellation is made by us, this 5% will only be applied to the paid amount and not to the whole booking amount.

Third Party Companies

When booking through us services including, but not limited to, van transfers, boat trips, vehicle rentals, scuba diving sessions, El Nido Paradise only acts as a booking, liasing and collecting agent. When booking activities others than island hopping tours, you should always assume El Nido Paradise only acts as a booking agent in that matter.

It may also happen that, depending on the number of guests who have booked a specific island hopping or adventure tour with us or for any other reason, it is not viable for us to operate it. In that case, we may pass the tour to another licensed tour organiser. The conditions applying to this eventuality are detailed in the following sections.

When booking on our website or with our company a service that is organized by a third party such as a tour organizer, transportation company, rental agency or other tourism-related businesses, we may emit a payment receipt or invoice only for the sum collected that we actually collected, such as the confirmation deposit necessary to confirm your booking. If you wish to get a receipt for the payment made to third party companies, such as the settlement of your remaining balance made to them, you should contact these third parties directly, for example through the contact details given in the recap email we sent you after your booking.

Transparency Policy

Our staff should be able to inform you of the exact name of the company organising your tour or activity, either before or after your tour or activity. For tours, this information will generally be given to you on the day before your booking date, when you come to our booking office. If for any reason the name of the third party company couldn’t be provided at that time, you could get this information on a simple request made by email ([email protected]) or by asking our competent staff.

The non communication of this information before the happening of your tour, transportation or activity shouldn’t be regarded as any sort of breach in our limitation of liability since the acceptance of the present terms and conditions includes the acceptance of having your activity potentially or effectively transferred to third parties.

Tour Transfer

We aim to organise a maximum of tours ourselves but, in some conditions and especially for public tours, it is sometimes not viable for us to operate a particular tour. In that regard, we may cancel your tour or transfer it to another tour organiser that we have selected for the quality of their service and the positive feedbacks we received from our guests. However, these tour organisers operate independently from us and are not part or employees of our company. Therefore, we do not assume liabilities on their behalf, and only act in that matter as a booking, liaising and collecting agent.

In accordance to our policy transparency, you shall be able to ask for the name of the company organising your tour at any moment. If not us, this name should be provided to you on the day before your tour or in the morning of your booking date, before the departure of your tour. It can happen that our staff fails to inform you of that change of tour organiser or of the name of the third party company. If that information is not communicated, you shall ask to our competent staff to confirm the name of the company organising your tour before joining it.

You can decide not to go on the tour with a third party tour organiser, up until the moment when the tour starts. In that event, you can get a refund of your booking or use the amount of your booking for another activity. If you effectively join or accept to go on the tour or activity they organise and operate, your booking with us is effectively cancelled and transferred to the other tour organiser and it means you’re accepting our disclaimer of liabilities.

Limitation of Liability

El Nido Paradise and Tropical Paradise Travel & Tours cannot be held responsible, or in any way liable, for such things as property losses or damages, personal losses, accidents, medical expenses, repatriation expenses, helicopter rescue, air ambulance, injuries or death for any reason, whether through activities organised by us or booked through us, or caused to you by third parties connected or not connected to us. We’re not liable for any additional expenses (including but not limited to, visas, accommodation expenses, non-refundable flights or transportation tickets) incurred by a guest whatever may be the reason or circumstances of these expenses.

Third Parties

We contract with a network of partners including, but not limited to, van companies, boat companies, tour guides, tour organisers, dive centers, hotels, inns and resorts, to assist in the running of our activities. We are not liable nor responsible for the acts and omissions of these thirds parties. To the fullest extent of the law:

  • any liability for any loss, death, injury or damage which you may suffer (directly or indirectly) in connection with or arising out of your participation in a trip, or any breach of the terms and conditions found here, is excluded;
  • you release us and our officers and employees from any liability and expressly waive any claims you may have against us arising out of or in connection with your participation in a trip;
  • any claim by you is excluded to the extent that it is for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profits or economic loss, however it arises, or for indirect, special, punitive or exemplary damages.

Boat Travel & Sea Activities Liability Release And Assumption Of Risk

In addition to the limitation of liability stated in the paragraphs above, but without limiting them or replacing them, every guest participating in Boat Travel and Sea Activities organised by the company or its partners is required to sign a Liability Release and Assumption of Risk Agreement. This document can be reviewed and checked here.

This document, signed and filled for each participant (and by their parent or guardian for minors), will have to be remitted before going on your tour. We reserve to right to refuse boarding for any participant that would refuse to sign or agree to some terms of this agreement. In that case, a cancellation fee will apply as per the Cancellation Policy above.

Physical Fitness And Health Requirements

Participating in tours, boat travel and sea activities require the guest to be mentally and physically fit. Especially for tours lasting several days and exploring more remote places, like the Ultimate Adventure Tour, we need to make sure that the guest is in a good health and hasn’t been sick recently. This is to avoid the spreading of the virus and/or bacterias causing conditions such as stomach flu, gastroenteritis and food poisoning, in the confined environment offered by a boat travel.

If a guest has been sick in the previous 48 hours, the company reserves the right to refuse the boarding of the guest, especially on a public tour as it would constitute a health hazard for the rest of the participants and the crew. Per the limitation of liability here above, the company cannot be held liable for such refusal to board based on a self assessed medical condition. It must be noted that the “physically fit” expression present in the Liability Release and Assumption of Risk Agreement mentioned in the previous paragraph includes the absence of any potentially contagious condition.

Complaints

If you have a complaint regarding a tour or activity organised by us, please reach us by writing to our email address [email protected] or by giving us a phone call on the numbers indicated on our contact page (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/contact/). If such a complaint is received, El Nido Paradise will agree to investigate. Depending on our findings, we may act upon the complaint to attempt to rectify the matter.

Insurance

We strongly recommend that if you intend to go on any tour or activity during your trip, you contract an insurance that will cover your intended activities. A good insurance should offer enough protection for full duration of the trip which covers your planned activities, personal injury, death, medical expenses, repatriation expenses, helicopter rescue, air ambulance and adequate cover for baggage and valuables.

Damaged or Lost Company Properties

If during the delivery of the service a guest causes a damage or loss to the company properties (including but not limited to items such as mask, snorkels, tents, mattress, towels, vehicles), the company can ask the guest to cover the cost that he incurred by damaging or losing (either voluntarily or involuntarily) the said properties. This chargeable amount should be reasonable and in accordance to actual cost incurred by the replacement or the repair or the said item(s).

Privacy Policy

While using our services such as online booking, we may collect personal data about you, such as your name, address, email, IP address and phone number. They are collected only for their intended purposes such as communicating with you or with our partners to organise and inform you about your booked tours or activities, collecting your payment, allowing you to post a comment or send us a message from the website, creating your user account on the website and organising your tours or activities.

You have a right to access, modify or delete these informations and can require us to do so on a simple request sent to our postal address 331 Rizal Avenue, Remari Building, Puerto Princesa City, 5300, Palawan, Philippines, or by contacting on our phone number +63 48 433 1963. We will delete your data if we are not otherwise legally obligated to keep them. You can also modify the data registered in your account directly by accessing it on this website.

We have at hear to protect the privacy of the users of our website and the data of our guests. We provide a secured connection to our website by encrypting the online exchanges thanks to the TLS protocol. Note that our website may use cookies in order to support your experience throughout the website and its online booking. These cookies are simple file text downloaded to your browser which are not linked to your personal identity. They are for example used to track the content of your cart throughout the website, or to measures our visitors interactions with the website with a service such as Google Analytics.

The contractors that we work with and that may collect your data are due to respect high standards of security and have their own privacy policy to protect your rights. These subcontractor companies include 1&1 (web host and email provider), Cloudflare (web content distributor and security enhancer), Google (offering email, calendar and other web-based services), PayPal (secured online payment solution) and Stripe (secured online payment solution). You can find their own privacy policies on their respective websites for more information.

Modification

The present Terms and Conditions are subject to change without prior notice and such revision shall be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Terms and Conditions to our website on the present page (https://www.elnidoparadise.com/terms-and-conditions/).