Side Trip to Galapagos on a Cruise Instead of HAL's Overland?

Am going to be on HAL cruise next January to South America and would like to do a side trip during the cruise to the Galapagos for a few days, before rejoining the ship in San Antonio. We would disembark in Lima, so would be gone for 3-4 days, tops.

Has anyone done this? I'm looking for tour company suggestions, ease of DIY, etc. The HAL overland is very expensive!

Am going to be on HAL cruise next January to South America and would like to do a side trip during the cruise to the Galapagos for a few days, before rejoining the ship in San Antonio. We would disembark in Lima, so would be gone for 3-4 days, tops.

 

Has anyone done this? I'm looking for tour company suggestions, ease of DIY, etc. The HAL overland is very expensive!

Not much to offer here, but I will comment that the Galapagos belong to Ecuador, and trips to/from Ecuador are likely more plentiful and competitively priced than the few that originate from Lima.

Also, what are 'overland' trips on HAL?...do you mean the excursions to Machu Picchu?

I use the term "overland" rather loosely. It's really a side trip. Get off the ship in one port, rejoin at another port. Overland is a common term, but it doesn't quite fit when one visits islands rather than something on a mainland..

We could conceivably exit the ship earlier in Manta and rejoin in Lima, but either way we're not starting/ending in Ecuador. The dates and port stops work out better by leaving in Lima and rejoining in San Antonio/Santiago.

A few days in the Galapagos is, frankly, not much time. You'd be flying into Baltra and transferring to Puerto Ayora, an adventure in itself. Puerto Ayora is tourist central, with lots of hotels and restaurants, and there's enough to do on that island - Santa Cruz - to keep you busy for a couple of days. But you'd be missing a lot of the variety of the islands, which can only be seen on an inter-island cruise. (I believe you can book day-trip cruises to nearby islands in Puerto Ayora, though.)

A couple of days would give you time to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station (giant tortoises), walk to Tortuga Bay, maybe go further afield. We spent two and a half days there before a week-long Celebrity cruise and didn't see everything.

Regardless, you'd be booking fairly costly flights (unless you get lucky, at least $500 r/t Quito and all flights to and from are routed through Ecuador) and paying the $100 park fee. And flights from Baltra to Santiago take at least 11-plus hours. If you want to say you've been to the Galapagos, go for it. If you want to experience more of what makes the islands special and see a variety of wildlife and terrain, you might rethink things. Or not.

Yeah. I just got two quotes from tour companies and the cost is quite a lot for the time being spent there. And the flights are horrendous - both time consuming and costly.

You’re right as rain - better to do a longer trip to just there and do one of their cruises between the islands.

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