Mini trip review-Part Two
Day 7 is a travel day. You fly from Cusco to Lima to Guayaquil. Stay at the Hotel del Parque and the next morning fly to Baltra or San Cristobal to start your cruise. These flights are all commercial regularly scheduled aircraft, we flew on LATAM. If you decide to go on Silversea, use the Cruise Critic site and look for threads on the Silver Galapagos. They are filled with good information. Sometime in 2020, the Silver Galapagos will be replaced by the brand new Silver Origin. I couldn't find a launch date. If you can get on that new ship with the current Tauck pricing for the Silver Galapagos I would grab that opportunity. The Galapagos is tightly controlled by the Ecuadorian government. Who can go to which island, what food can be used on the ship, how many non Ecuadorian crew can work on the ship, etc. Each day we went to either one or two different islands. We had excursions in the morning and afternoon. While this ship is a bit worn, the accommodations were very comfortable, the service excellent, the naturalists awesome. There is a big range in how rigorous an activity level that you want to do. For example they had beach snorkeling which is easy or deep water snorkeling which is more difficult. They had different levels of kayaking and different lengths of hikes. The wildlife is amazing, the history of Darwin and the species development are very interesting. Every evening they had a lecture on a different subject and then a preview of the next days activities before dinner. Since there are capacity limits for certain excursions, you had to sign up for some. At the end of the cruise we flew back to Guayaquil, spent another night at the Hotel del Parque, had our farewell reception and dinner. Overall, this was a great trip. Would we go back, probably not. The Africa bug bit us last year and we are going back next year. This is not quite the same, but Tauck did a terrific job and we are very glad we went.
Comments
We are booked on the Silver Origin for Sept 12th, 2020. I believe their initial sailing is in August, 2020. Looking forward to it. Love reading all the comments and advice.