Cebu International Airport Pre-Departure Area

== This story is a continuation (topic #5) of a travel article I shared earlier ==
Pre-Departure Area. What is that? Where is that?Relax..! That is just the area of the airport before you go inside your assigned boarding gate hehe. And you say, "ah yung duty-free?". The answer is yes - and all other areas in the airport AFTER Immigration and the Final Security Check, but, BEFORE your boarding gate. This is that area of the airport (usually), where we passengers stroll around as if in a mall while waiting for our flight boarding announcement!

"Pre" - meaning "before" departure. This actually automatically tells you that the actual departure area is the boarding gate, where you enter to ride a plane! So what is the topic about "Pre-Departure Area"?

Well, nothing much, because, it's really nothing much! I mean, with many flights from one midnight to the next, this area feels so small with just 4 restaurants. One of them, The Coffeebean and Tealeaf, is not even a real restaurant - it's a coffee shop - although they have "lunch-enough" food. Wala nga lang rice. Buti na lang, this one in the pic below (ayay, I forgot the name) has all Pinoy food - ulam plus rice! If you notice at the left edge of the picture, that is a counter that sells fresh "tubo" (sugarcane) juice!

Okay, small as this pre-departure area may be, the array (and positioning) of duty free goods makes it look "sosyalin" (luxurious, opulent, posh, lavish, whatever)! Very far from the cramped look and feel of the Domestic Pre-Departure (na amoy cooking oil) - which is just on the other side of a wall, actually! Here, when I walk around, it feels like I am at an international airport of some other country. Oh yes, by the way, I have seen smaller (and mas magulo na palengke-looking) pre-departure areas abroad! But it does not mean there is no room for improvement in this Cebu Airport. There are. Example: sikit kaayo!

One amusing thing I find in this international wing of Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) would be the boarding gate lounges, or what airline and airport people refer to as "holding areas". They're not 'homogeneous' as to size, form or positioning. You don't have to be an architect or interior designer to notice that. They look curiously disparate. Examples? Try comparing Gates 11 and 12 (photos below):

This is Gate 12 at the right end of the building: This is the airport's biggest holding area. It has 2 entrances: 1) at the far-left corner of the picture, and 2) where I stood when I took this picture! As you can see, this holding area (or gate) has its own X-Ray Scanner (the cordoned-off area on foreground-right). That is sometimes needed on some (US) flights.

Aside from concrete posts, the wall at left is all glass separating this Gate (12) and Gate 11 (below).

And, this is Gate 11! Ang payat, di ba?! And those are all the seats of the gate! To take this photo of Gate 11, I stood at the farthest end. Behind me was already the food stall selling ensaymada, siopao, popcorn, water, soda and other kakanin. To the right is Gate 12(described above).

By the second brown post (far left) is the hallway (they call it concourse), sa bisaya pa agi-anan, going back out to immigration, the other gates, restaurants and stores. Also the only way to Gates 11 & 12.

Ah, behind that single row of silver seats and the coke vending machine are the toilets for this area, a massage room (me bayad!), and my favorite place in this whole airport, THE Smoking Room hahaha!

Eto si smoking room (entrance view). Once you open the door, you'll think if you really want to enter. It is (usually) full of smoke and smells like smoke, ano pa nga ba! No people this time. A RARE sight!

I think the airport management, probably by advice of DOH, made this place look like so para matakot ka! Then again, if you can't help it, like many J and K friends, this is THE room! At least, there are many "available" wall outlets for charging gadgets! I've seen non-smokers enter just to use the outlets, baya!

Oh here's the reverse: A view from the other end of the smoking room looking at the entrance door.., That's my backpack 'seated' over there! This room is about half the length of the smoking room at the domestic departure area. Width-wise, pareho lang! But this one has seats. Six to be exact hehe. At the domestic side, there is none. But then again, when the band of smokers come (flights to KR or JP), no need to find a vacant seat among those 6! There usually becomes a waiting line, makapasok lang. Da!

Let me say, that is it for now on the Pre-Departure Area of Mactan Cebu International Airport or MCIA. Like anywhere, there are good things here and bad things there! But, let us wait and see, dahil, coming na yung expansion building! I heard it's going to be called Terminal 2, and only for international flights.

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