Sunday, March 6: Quito – Galapagos Islands

At the gate for a 12:04 departure

Once more, breakfast in the hotel and then one last “health check” before loading in the buses at about 10:00 for the 45 minute ride to the airport.  Out luggage had already been taken from the hotel so we only had a relatively simple check-in process, although there still seemed to be some confusion at the ticket counter and we got to the gate area shortly before time to start boarding.  It turned out that this flight was essentially a “charter” flight for Celebrity.  I don’t think there were any non-Celebrity passengers on the aircraft.

As seemed normal in Quito, it was raining lightly so we were all anxious to get out of town to the, hopefully sunny, Galapagos.

   Raining as we taxied to take off in Quito

Before we start our cruise of the Galapagos Islands, it might be useful to take a quick look at a map of the island

Can you find our first Island, Baltra?

Baltra is a small island just north of Santa Cruz in almost the middle of the map.  You can refer to this map and follow our progress during the week, locating the islands as we go.  Or, you can cheat and check the map at the end of the report that has the path of our travels.

As we neared the end of the two hour flight, I could see some of the islands we would get to know much better.

 North Seymore (small). Baltra (medium), and Santa Cruz (large, in the distance) islands

The airport is on Baltra Island, and there is not much else there.  We landed, deplaned, and were directed to the “VIP Lounge”.  I realized that this was just a holding area where we were kept until the buses bringing the departing passengers to the airport were available for us.   There were some snacks and drinks available and the buses soon started loading.  But, since everyone had to be transferred via tender (large “Zodiaks” or “rigid inflatable boats”), our departure from the airport had to be spread out, but we finally got the signal to load into a bus.

The bus took us all of about a mile to a small dock where we waited for our turn to get in a tender.

  Previous tender heads out to our ship

While waiting, we were entertained by a couple of sea lions lounging on some of the dock supports, as well as many birds flying around and swimming.   Our tenders had a unique feature: boarding steps at the bow that could be lowered to allow easier on/off access when making beach landings.  It also made stepping up onto the ship easier.  Finally, our turn came to board a tender for the 10 minute ride to the ship.

  First view of our ship, Flora, from the tender

After quick introductions, we were escorted to “our” cabin.  Luis, the Maitre’d and restaurant manager, took us to the cabin: we had cabin 618.  He opened the door and we were settling in when there was a noise at the door, and it opened again.  Another crew member was showing other passengers to their cabin!  We all quickly realized that Luis had showed us to cabin 616, not 618, and we quickly shifted our few things to the correct cabin. 

There was a short “welcome” presentation in the lounge where the important crew members and the Naturalist staff were introduced.   There were 12 Naturalists on board, well more than the required one per 16 passengers.

   The Naturalists are an important part of the Galapagos experience.

After the welcome, we had time to explore the ship a little before the next scheduled activity.  Our cabin was nice and had interesting features, like a glass wall where the top half can be lowered to create a very open-air feeling.

Susan was taking advantage of the large window.

The ship was very new, having been completed only months before the COVID epidemic started, and only going back into service a couple of months before our cruise.

Looking aft from a forward observation deck

Each evening before dinner there was a nightly briefing about our destination and activities the next day.  In this case, the destination was Santiago and Rabida Islands and there were several possible activities.  We always attended these briefings and signed up for our desired activities immediately after the briefing.  After signing up for activities, it was time for dinner and I think we were ready to relax and enjoy some good food and wine.

  Susan is feeling very relaxed after some wine with dinner.

Some notes about the Flora

Before we get involved in the day-to-day activities, I should probably tell a little about the ship we were on, the Celebrity Flora.  As I mentioned previously, it was really a very new ship and probably had actually been in service less than a year because it had been idled for about 18 months by the COVID pandemic.  The Flora is the largest ship cruising in the Galapagos Islands and is, in fact, the largest ship allowed to sail there.  The passenger capacity is 100 people and that is the maximum capacity allowed in the islands.  Most boats cruising the Galapagos have a 30 to 50 passenger capacity and there are many 16 passenger boats.  Being a larger ship, the Flora certainly offered some luxuries not available on smaller boats.

The Flora at rest off of Isabela Island

Let’s take a quick tour…  The very top deck is deck 8 and there are only a couple of observation areas here.  Next down, deck 7, starts with an enclosed observation area (The Observatory) that we never saw anyone in.  Perhaps it would get used more in poor weather.

Observation lounge, forward, deck 7

Further on deck 7 was the outside grill/snack-bar type restaurant (Ocean Grill) and at the aft there were a number of lounges and seating areas and a hot tub to relax in (The Vista) .  Decks 6 and 5 are passenger cabins (we were on deck 6).  Deck 4 had the main restaurant (Seaside Restaurant) up forward, and the lounge (Discovery Lounge) toward the aft, with a small seating area (Sunset Lounge) and spa at the very aft of the deck.  The important parts of deck 3 were at the aft where the marina was located and where we got ready for excursions (life preservers, wet suits, snorkel gear, etc.).  The tenders would nudge up against the stern of the ship allowing us to easily step into the tender.

 One tender ready for boarding, three others tied off

Although the Flora is the largest ship in the Galapagos, it is still small by cruise ship standards and we could sometimes feel the effects of the waves and wind moving the ship around.   We had wonderful weather and the wave motion certainly never bothered us.  The ship does have stabilizers, but they are not effective unless the ship is moving at a pretty good speed, which it seldom did.  All in all, it was a comfortable and even luxurious way to see the Galapagos.

Eating on Flora

As I mentioned above, Flora had two restaurants, the open-air grill/snack bar called the Ocean Grill and the main Restaurant, Seaside. The Ocean Grill was fine for snacks or occasional lunch, but almost everyone took most meals in the Seaside restaurant.  At breakfast and lunch, it was configured in Buffett style with a “made to order” Omelet station at breakfast.  Although it was buffet style, it was not “serve yourself”. 

 Some of the options at the Breakfast “Buffet”

Crew members were standing by and would dish up any food that you selected onto a plate.   When you had enough, you could take the plate to your table, or the crew member would take it for you.  You could pick up Individual serving items like cups of yogurt or jelly without crew assistance.

At lunch, Seaside was configured very similar, as a buffet with one or two serving stations manned by a chef. 

Some of the lunch options

There were always several local/Ecuadoran dishes as well as foods that less adventurous passengers might find more appealing. 

In the evening, Seaside converted to a full table service restaurant with open seating and no assigned times.  Because of COVID restrictions, different couples/groups were not seated together unless they came in and requested it.  The menu was reasonably complete with 6 to 8 entrée options each evening including several different kinds of food.  We thought the food was very good, although I think the chefs probably toned down the spices and flavors somewhat. 

 Susan is studying the menu with wine in the glass.

Wine was included in the lounge and with meals and was mostly Chilian and Ecuadorian.  It was reasonable quality and fine with the meals, but would probably not win any Wine Spectator awards.

Evening activities

Each evening there was some kind of mostly educational entertainment in the Discovery Lounge, usually in the form of videos.  Titles such as: “Tips for Bird Identification”, “BBC Documentary – Galapagos parts I & II”, “The Tree of Life”, “The Beagle”, and “Galapagos Affair”.  One evening one of the Naturalists did a very good presentation about Charles Darwin and his time on the Beagle.  There was also a musician who would play the piano some evenings and he also greeted guests returning from excursions by playing the Pan Flute.  The days were pretty full though, so very few people stayed up very late.

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