review posted (finally)

[more from les]

Hi

 

Those planning to take the Xpedition cruise in the Galapagos may want to check out my review of the Nov 13th sailing.

The link is

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=14035

 

If you have questions - fire away

 

Les

[Shelly&Jack]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful review. We leave this Friday afternoon Jan. 20 for our flight to Quito from Newark Airport. Unfortunately, the flight does not arrive until 12:30AM and the tour of Quito supposedly starts at 9:00AM on Saturday morning. Based on your review we will make an effort get up in time to participate on the tour.

 

It is nice to know that we can expect the same high quality Celebrity service on the Expedition.

[more from les]

Bon Voyage!

 

Hoist a glass of South American wine to toast Xpedition from me.

 

If Naturalist Fabio is on board, tell him "hi" from Les in Nanaimo BC

 

Les

[Shelly&Jack]

Les,

I'll send your regards to Fabio if he is on-board.

 

You mentioned in your review that your flight was diverted to Guayaquil, Ecuador. What time were you scheduled to arrive in Quito and what time did you actually get there? Guayaquil is at least 150 miles (90km) from Quito. Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Quito at 12:20AM.

[more from les]

Our flight - Continental from Houston - was due in at 11.30pm. We landed at Guayaquil just after midnight..... did the immigration stuff, and were in our alternate hotel (a Hilton) soon after 1am though luggage was left on the plane! Flight back to Quito was 10ish next morning, after a pleasant late breakfast at the hotel. It threw things off kilter a bit - but Celebrity (Continental) handled it all smoothly. Another flight (AA from Miami) was due in to Quito just before us - they almost landed, but the pilot aborted at the last minute. They circled for a while, then went off to Guayaquil too.

May you have smooth on time landing.

Les

[Shelly&Jack]

Les,

 

Unfortunately we had the same experience on the Continental flight from Newark via Pananma City to Quito. The Houston to Quito flight landed minutes before us, but our pilot diverted at the last second to Gualiquil. Due to the high altitude of Quito, the planes have to come in at a higher air speed and the pilots need every foot of runway to land. The fog just makes it too difficult to see the runway.

 

I do not understand why the airlines don't schedule earlier arrival times into Quito to avoid the evening fog that seems to appear nightly.

 

[by-the-way, Fabio, one of Celebrity's on-board naturalist, sends his regards. He mentioned that he did not have your email address, but was looking forward to receiving an email from you.]

 

OUR REVIEW

 

This cruise was the best we ever had. The crew, excursions, food, transportation, passengers and weather were outstanding.

 

This is the rainy season, but they are unfortunately suffering a drought and we experienced outstanding clear weather. The night they turned off the lights on deck 6 for star gazing was unforgetable. I have never in my life seen so many stars in the sky, just amazing.

 

Don't expect great beef on board. The Galapagos authorities do not permit beef or other livestock to be imported to the islands, so Celebrity must purchase it from local farmers. Unlike corn-fed U.S. raised beef, free range beef is not as tender as the U.S beef usually served on Celebrity ships.

 

The high altitude and thin air of Quito does not make it my favorite place to visit, but the Marriott Hotel is outstanding and city shopping is fun.

 

Our farewell dinner was held in the Opera House Restaurant which is one of the city's best. It lived up to its reputation.

 

I highly recommend this cruise.:)

[bunnybear]

Did you need any type of adapters for your 110 appliances (battery charger, laptop) for either Quito or the Xpedition?

 

Karen

[Shelly&Jack]

The standard for South America is the same as the US, i.e. 120 Volt. The outlets in the hotel room will accept your laptop, etc. Each room on the Xpedition has a 220 to 110 volt transformer which will allow you to plug in one device's charger at a time. After each morning or afternoon excursion I always charged my camera to be ready for the next excursion. I took over 500 photos.

 

Check your camera and laptop chargers. Newer ones are rated at a range of 120 to 240 volts and if you have the proper adapter you will not need to use the room transformer to charge either of them. This will allow you to plug in your laptop in a 220v outlet in the lounge. There is only one spare 220v outlet in the room and that is where they plug in the transformer.

 

The ship has a wireless network if you bring a laptop. On our cruise they just received a laptop PC for passenger use at no charge. Depending on the location of the ship you can access the Internet via satellite, although sometimes the connection was very slow.

 

Unless you expect to do heavy duty PC work, such as downloading your photos, I would recommend leaving it home. In Quito, internet places charge only $.70 per hour for internet access and there are many places near the hotel. There is a Kodak kiosk on the ship to print photos (at $.90 per 4x6) or burn a CD for about $10 + tax. I brought several memory cards for my camera and did not need to download any of them until I arrived home.

[bunnybear]

We normally keep a power strip in our suitcases for our cruise travel so that we can have multiple places to plug in stuff.

 

I haven't decided if I will bring my laptop. The one reason was to use for a DVD player and ofcourse for uploading pictures.

 

Karen