Travel
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Galapagos Cruise
Has anyone been on a Galapagos cruise lately? I'm looking for recommendations on which boats or websites you found helpful in planning. Also, how long was your cruise? And I'd love to hear anything else you found helpful in planning. I'm going to be in Quito for a week in August and would love to tack on a cruise as well.
Re: Galapagos Cruise
We went with one of the large boats. We did Celebrity Xpedition. For us it was between Nat Geo and Celebrity. (we'd also looked at the small boat trip offered through our University, but it didn't go to the islands we wanted to visit.) Celebrity had a better product and included more in the price. Ours was a 7 night cruise with time in Quito before and after. For once we let someone else worry about all of the details.
The itineraries are influenced and approved by the national park or each operator, they limit the number of stops/people per island per week. Max 16 people per guide so you end up in smaller groups even with the larger boats (ours topped out at 92 people). Each of the guides is from the park, not the cruise company.
The Lonely Planet book had some info on cruises, not as much as I would have liked. http://www.galapagosislands.com/galapagos-cruise.html has most of the larger operators listed to compare boats.
Cancer sucks.
I did! I really enjoyed Sarajevo but probably wouldn't go out of my way to go unless I was in the region as it's very hard to get to and there's not tons of things to do. I highly recommend a trip to Mostar as well which is nearby. I was a little surprised that Sarajevo was more expensive than I thought it would be.
I stayed here and it was lovely: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294450-d1493351-Reviews-City_Boutique_Hotel-Sarajevo.html
We did a war tunnel tour as well as a walking tour of the city.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294450-d1890647-Reviews-Sarajevo_Funky_Tours-Sarajevo.html
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294450-d1908837-Reviews-Free_Sarajevo_Walking_Tours-Sarajevo.html
We enjoyed this restaurant so much that we went to it twice: http://www.malakuhinja.ba/
It's only open really weird hours so we went for lunch. But it is hands down not to be missed. Very personal experience and what they fed us was to die for, even though it's not traditional Bosnian food.
UD,
There are a few logistics that will guide you in your planning: what type of weather you want, and what type of wildlife you would like to see. For a description of the two seasons, here is a link: http://www.galapagosislands.com/galapagos-resources/galapagos-weather.html
The water is colder is July-Dec. and will require a wet suit (many boats have rentals), but often the water is clearer during this time for snorkeling and diving.
We went in May and had great weather and water visibility was never an issue for us (we snorkeled, we do not dive). Rain was not an issue for us either.
In my opinion, the biggest factor is what wildlife you want to see. Some of the wildlife will be seen on almost any island, whereas others can usually only be spotted on a certain island. I had a great website that described this and now cannot find it. Timing might also depend on what you want to see with the wildlife (mating times vs. hatching times, etc.).
We went on the Isabella II through Metropolitan Touring and loved it. It was way more luxurious than we needed, but the itinerary was what we wanted. Once you figure out what islands you want to visit, then you usually look up what boats go to those islands in an itinerary that you can afford, and then choose between those boats.
The park regulations changed in 2012 to say that boats can only visit a certain once every 14 days (instead of the original every 7 days), so a lot of the itineraries have changed recently. They have added new sites due to this, so I cannot speak to any of those. It usually means that you might have to cut out an island or two that you wanted to see (now instead of going to all the major islands for a 7 day cruise, they usually go to half of the major islands and then a few minor ones, in order to stay within the park regulations and have major islands to see for everyone).
Here is a link to my trip report on tripadvisor:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294310-i6637-k4547279-Trip_report_May_2011_Isabella_II_Columbus_Travel-Galapagos_Islands.html
You already know that we did the Galapagos Legend for seven nights.
It was an extraordinary experience, except for the part where they sat us with all the Japanese people because we're fellow yellows.
But you won't encounter that. LOL.
We went a few years ago with Lindblad expeditions. (http://www.expeditions.com/Destination44.asp?Destination=294)
It was a wonderful trip we started in Guayaquil, which is where everyone from our tour met up, and then we flew to the Galapagos from there. However, we arrived early and took a side trip on our own to Puerto Lopez and Isla de la Plata. Isla de la Plata is known as the Poor Man's Galapagos because it has lots of wildlife, like the Blue footed Boobies and frigate birds, but is much easier and less expensive to get to. There's a cheap bus that runs from Guayquil to Puerto Lopez. I think the ticket was around $5 for the several hour journey. It was worth the side trip because we saw more mating dances between the boobies than we saw in the Galapagos and we also saw a whale with her calf that we didn't see at all in the Galapagos.
The Galapagos trip itself was also amazing. Lots of activities and almost daily snorkeling excursions. Snorkeling with sea lion pups and a penguin is a lifetime highlight experience! The water is very cold, though Lindblad did provide shorties for us to wear. I prefer small boats and that's a hallmark of the Lindblad trips. Lindlblad also provides knowledgeable staff that can teach about the wildlife and history.
We went in January this year and did this cruise.
The reason we choose it was due to it being a small boat (max 16 people), having a land and snorkling component each day and it having a local staff base and ownership. It is called a 7 day trip but really only 5 days in the Galapagos.