Live - Celebrity Flora 9/1/24 - Slow Boat to the Galapagos

[Barwick Cruiser]

Thank you so much for this fabulous report, especially for including all the details of your pre and post cruise adventures. The Mindo tour with lunch was included in your X fare? Great pics as well. 🙏 Can’t wait for our turn in ‘26!!

Safe return home! 
Cathy

[catspaw1]

Mindo looks absolutely great. Do you think 2 nights is too much there? We would book the whole trip on our own & get transport while we are there. Birding is best during dawn so that's why we would stay a few nights. 

 

We speak Spanish enough to get by.

 

How did you get the tour?

 

Thanks so much for posting! The chocolate museum looks great!!!

[Rewind]

We were looking for something to do today and yesterday on the way from the airport to the hotel, the guide mentioned they had three tours that they were running today.  Our tour had a minimum of 6 participants and we had exactly 6 sign up.

 

The cost is not included in the X fare, it was an additional excursion ($159 per person).  I do think it was worth it to see more of the area that we didn't see on the tour pre-cruise.

Yesterday we got to the hotel just before 5pm and it didn't seem like it should take that long to go from shop to plane to hotel, but it was a long travel day and definitely too tired to do anything.  Today was a good addition.

 

Two excursions per day on the cruise, one pre cruise tour, one post cruise tour; way more activity than we are used to.  I am officially spent and I'm looking forward to passing out on the plane in about an hour.

 

I'll probably write up a review in a couple days, I had said I would work a half day tomorrow (don't know what I was thinking).

[pathdoc]

My wife was on Flora in June and had a wonderful time.  I wasn't able to go for medical reasons.  She was snorkeling using her GoPro for the when a pick pocket sea lion grabbed the handle and the wrist band was too loose.  Be sure to have it on tight.  She called me, very upset about the lost Camera and all the previous footage she hadn't transferred to her computer.  Miracle of miracles, another young man saw a sea lion swimming with a Go Pro in its mouth.  He was able to snatch it back.  Now we have about 10 minutes of dizzying underwater footage filmed by the sea lion.  I wonder if the crew mentioned this event on your cruise?

[Ciaranaman]

6 minutes ago, pathdoc said:

My wife was on Flora in June and had a wonderful time.  I wasn't able to go for medical reasons.  She was snorkeling using her GoPro for the when a pick pocket sea lion grabbed the handle and the wrist band was too loose.  Be sure to have it on tight.  She called me, very upset about the lost Camera and all the previous footage she hadn't transferred to her computer.  Miracle of miracles, another young man saw a sea lion swimming with a Go Pro in its mouth.  He was able to snatch it back.  Now we have about 10 minutes of dizzying underwater footage filmed by the sea lion.  I wonder if the crew mentioned this event on your cruise?

So glad there was a happy ending and what a great memory to have of that time!  Kudos to the young man that rescued the Go Pro 👏

~Bernadette

[Ciaranaman]

10 hours ago, Rewind said:

We were looking for something to do today and yesterday on the way from the airport to the hotel, the guide mentioned they had three tours that they were running today.  Our tour had a minimum of 6 participants and we had exactly 6 sign up.

 

The cost is not included in the X fare, it was an additional excursion ($159 per person).  I do think it was worth it to see more of the area that we didn't see on the tour pre-cruise.

Yesterday we got to the hotel just before 5pm and it didn't seem like it should take that long to go from shop to plane to hotel, but it was a long travel day and definitely too tired to do anything.  Today was a good addition.

 

Two excursions per day on the cruise, one pre cruise tour, one post cruise tour; way more activity than we are used to.  I am officially spent and I'm looking forward to passing out on the plane in about an hour.

 

I'll probably write up a review in a couple days, I had said I would work a half day tomorrow (don't know what I was thinking).

This time next week, our "resident" hummingbirds will probably be on their way south and that will be it until next May.  While the price of the excursion is somewhat steep, I think I'd fork out the $$ to see more than just one variety.  Ours keep us very amused for the the short time they are here.  Thank you for posting about this excursion - great pics!

~Bernadette

[pathdoc]

He was definitely the hero of the cruise.  She'd never used it before but the cruise staff was very helpful in setting it up for her.  The cold water from the Humboldt current was a bit unexpected, so she forgot to tighten the wrist attachment to the extension handle.  The whole situation made for interesting conversations at dinner.  

She did the follow up excursion to Machu Pichu and had a wonderful time.  Most people slept well at altitude the first night, not so much the next few nights as a little hypoxia set in.  There are some medications that can help as well as taking gingo biloba in advance.  All in all, she had a wonderful time and would do it again.  I was stuck at home reading Darwins "The voyage of the beagle".  It's a great read if you get the chance to read a copy.

[calicakes]

5 minutes ago, pathdoc said:

He was definitely the hero of the cruise.  She'd never used it before but the cruise staff was very helpful in setting it up for her.  The cold water from the Humboldt current was a bit unexpected, so she forgot to tighten the wrist attachment to the extension handle.  The whole situation made for interesting conversations at dinner.  

She did the follow up excursion to Machu Pichu and had a wonderful time.  Most people slept well at altitude the first night, not so much the next few nights as a little hypoxia set in.  There are some medications that can help as well as taking gingo biloba in advance.  All in all, she had a wonderful time and would do it again.  I was stuck at home reading Darwins "The voyage of the beagle".  It's a great read if you get the chance to read a copy.

I'm sorry you couldn't go on that bucket list cruise.  I broke my ankle in Feb, 10 days before our Great Barrier Reef cruise.  It was so, so disappointing to cancel.  Thankfully, we had travel insurance. 

[pathdoc]

Thank you.  We've still got lots of cruising ahead, I just couldn't do that one due to mobility issues from Stiff person syndrome.  The only thing I've got in common with Celine Dion.  I'm a recently retired pathologist and never heard of the condition in my career.  It's manageable though not curable.  The great thing about cruising is checking one into the hotel at sea and going from port to port with the freedom to adjust our daily itinerary based on how I'm doing.  We're on Ascent in mid October out of Civitiveccia ending in Barcelona where we switch to b2b on Crystal Symphony to Venice.  It'll be cooler with some rain, but less crowded and fewer little ones running around tripping me up.

 

[Rewind]

Good morning.  Ready to write up my final review, but first - dive bombing boobies:

 

 

 

[catspaw1]

They were great! Did you take those pictures with the gopro?

[catspaw1]

Looking forward to your final report!

[Ciaranaman]

What a great video!  Way to catch those bombers!  Made my morning, watching that!

~Bernadette

[Rewind]

Summary review of celebrity Flora and Galapagos:

You will have to forgive me if I reiterate previous statements I have made, but I want to put it all together.

 

Planning - I am one of those who does all the individual plans and always books independent excursions, hotels, transfers, airfare, etc.  And yes you can do that for this trip, but I will recommend doing the 10 night package so that everything is included.  We still did independent air travel from our home town to Quito, but the moment we landed in Quito, we no longer had to worry about anything.  If you do want to plan on your own, bring extra cash as there are handfuls of places that won’t take card.

 

Money - We took $400 cash with us and ended up spending just about all of it (art, pins, shirts, chocolate, ornaments, tips, etc).  Take smaller bills, $20s are fine, but even smaller bills are just easier for the merchants.  

 

Travel Ability - You do need to be in “better” shape in general to take this trip.  I won’t say you need to be in “good” shape, but there is a lot of uneven terrain that the walks take you on and even some of the easier walks have difficult landing spots.  They plan for this by giving other excursion options but normally that is a Tender Ride and while you can see some cool things that way, I do think you miss out by not going on the walks.

 

    Counter point - we did only see penguins when we took a quick tender ride on the way back from one of our walks (so it’s not like the tender rides aren’t worth it).

 

Ship design - The Flora really is the perfect ship for the Galapagos.  All the areas have a purpose, the lounge and restaurant can each hold the entire number of passengers at once, there are a couple open deck spaces to sit out in the fresh air, and it is super easy to navigate.  They did make a joke that the ship has been sailing for 5 years now and the exercise equipment is still brand new and unused.  The other thing I found humorous - our room was halfway down the hallway… and three doors from the elevator lobby.  Can’t get that on a standard cruise ship.

 

Celebrity Staff Availability - I was going to say ship crew, but this goes beyond just the ship.  From the moment we exited baggage claim in Quito, we had some Celebrity representative with us for the entire trip until we checked in our bags leaving the Quito airport at the end.  Once we landed and exited baggage claim, we found the Celebrity sign directly to the right and were directed to one side to wait for others, then on a bus with another member who described the ride to the hotel, what the check-in procedures would be and what the next day would be like.  Then at the hotel there was the hospitality desk and two desks to check-in.  The Quito tour had groups of about 10-12 with both a guide and security person (plus extra hired special duty officers in the tourist area).  Then another escort from the hotel to the Quito airport to check us into the Baltra flight, an escort through the airport and a guide ON the plane from Quito to Baltra, then handed off to the naturalists outside of immigration at Baltra.  Then it was all in reverse when heading back to Quito, after-cruise tour, and back to the airport to fly home.

Staff Friendliness - Every member of staff we interacted with seemed to be genuinely friendly and happy.  I know that some of that has to be “customer service face” but it never seemed that way to us.  I think a good part of that is that the passengers that are being catered to are on a (very likely) once in a lifetime trip and are generally happy to be there.  Happiness begets happiness and everyone was a pleasure to deal with.

 

Travel Package - This was our first “all inclusive” trip and quite refreshing.  Once we landed in Quito, everything was taken care of for us (minus any souvenirs that we wanted).  Transfers, hotel, meals, excursions - it was a relief not having to think about any of that.  All we had to do was show up at X time and we were escorted to the planned activity.  Yes we did add on an excursion on our last day that was not included - but there was the possibility we might have skipped that and just hung out at the hotel’s pool to rest up before we flew home (one member of our party was a bit under the weather so we were planning that part at the last minute).

 

Negatives - there is only one we can think of.  One of our replacement stops on day 3 was Bowditch Point.  The options for the excursions were a short beach walk and kayak or a short beach walk and snorkel.  As we had done a kayak the day before (and were unstable) we opted for the snorkel option.  

The couple issues - the short beach walk wasn’t a guided tour.  It was just “here’s the beach…  There is a brackish pond over the dune if you want to check it out.  Have fun”.  The other problem was the waves.  The water was super choppy that day, you couldn’t get too near the rocks as you would get slammed into them, and the waves kicked up a lot of sand so you couldn’t see anything even if you did get out.  It would have been much better if it was just advertised as “beach time” and if we were informed of the conditions of weather / waves.  We would still have gone, but we wouldn’t have bothered to take all of our snorkel gear.

 

 

Summation - I’m trying to keep this brief but I’m still in the “I could talk for hours about this” stage of the trip.

 

This was one of the best trips we have ever taken.  It is expensive, but even just half way in we were thinking “maybe we should consider doing the Outer Loop in a few years”.  We did go back and forth in thought experiments if we could have done both at the same time, but we are still working and have a dog and it is hard to be away from both for an extended period of time.  Plus even at our “young” age, we were exhausted after one week.  Once on the ship, it is six straight days of “go go go” and because you don’t want to miss anything, you want to go on every excursion.  We did meet some people who were doing the back to back, and thought that the turnaround day is the only day of downtime for them.

 

At the end, we added the Mindo Cloud Forest excursion and it was definitely worth it, but by the time we got to the airport that night, I could tell I had reached my travel limit and was ready to go home.  Again I wouldn’t have missed any of what I did, but it is a very packed schedule where you will need a vacation from your vacation to rest up.

So yes, go and enjoy the Galapagos islands when you get a chance.  A cruise seems like the perfect way to do it and Celebrity Flora and their staff will exceed your expectations.
 

[Rewind]

3 hours ago, catspaw1 said:

They were great! Did you take those pictures with the gopro?

Everything I've shared so far has been from my cell phone camera (Pixel 7 Pro).  I have briefly gone through the GoPro footage and it needs a good bit of cleanup, but there are a couple turtles and a curious sea lion in the footage.  Those might have to wait for next week (work expects me to work).

 

I did also take my Sony pocket sized camera that has a 30x zoom on it.  I only took it with me on shore once - can't tell if I would have wanted it more often or not.  There might have been one or two places I could have used it, but it's still another thing to carry and I think my cell phone does just fine 98% of the time.