Live - Celebrity Flora 9/1/24 - Slow Boat to the Galapagos

[Rewind]

Hi all!  It's finally here after more than two years of planning, we are sailing on Celebrity Flora on an Inner Loop itinerary of the Galapagos islands.

 

Let me start with the recent news - Flora is having propulsion issues and has canceled a couple sailings in December so she can go into drydock to get repaired.  They are making adjustments to both the Inner and Outer loop itineraries, but I think the Inner loop had less modifications.  Here is what has changed for our sailing:

 

 

I don’t think these changes are too bad, but I really don’t know what we will be missing.  Generally speaking, they had to cancel the stops on the Western side of the Western island (Isabela) in order to keep on schedule for a 7 night sailing.

 

I do want to share a bit of the booking process for anyone who is thinking of doing this trip in the future. I am a fairly detail oriented person when it comes to booking cruises and have planned many trips in the past so I thought this would just be a super easy process and I could handle everything myself and just book the simple 7 night cruise and take care of all the other aspects on my own.  While I wasn’t wrong, I will say that it wasn’t wise.

 

You have to factor in quite a bit more if you book the cruise only package.  First off you don’t want to just fly into Quito and not see Quito.  And by spending a day in Quito, you will need a hotel, and you have to get to that hotel.  So there is the transport cost from the airport to the hotel, the night in the hotel, the cost of the independent tour, meals, a second night in the hotel, and then transfer back to the airport.  Then you also need to book airfare for Quito to Baltra (which isn’t direct and also doesn’t specify that the rates on the website are for Locals and you will need to pay extra for being a tourist).  From what I can tell, once you land in Baltra, the ship will meet you there and take over the rest of the process.  But then on the way back, you need the return flight to Quito, and then depending on plans, maybe another night in a hotel or just hanging out at the airport for 8 hours.

 

While I had all of this planned out, I did stumble on a deal as I was checking rates often.  For us, we were able to rebook our 7 night cruise (cheapest Balcony) to a 10 night cruise package (Guarantee that turned into an Infinite Veranda) and the cost difference was MUCH cheaper than booking everything ourselves.  I think the cost of our individually booked hotel nights alone covered the entire upgrade.  Everything is now included pretty much from the time we land in Quito including the hotel stays, a direct chartered flight from Quito to Baltra (faster, no layover, and more space to spread out), the tour in Quito, meals in Quito, transfers to and from the airport, etc.  It’s not impossible to plan the trip on your own, but honestly it is SO much easier to do the 10 night package.

 

Yes we would have loved to do the 16 night extended trip to Machu Picchu, but my DW and I are still working stiffs and can’t get away for that long.  We will just make a note and go back once we retire; maybe do the outer loop then.

We checked in for our flights tomorrow, doing our last bit of frantic packing, and trying to understand how we are going from 95 degrees in Columbus to a much more mild 70 degrees at the Equator.

 

Please feel free to ask questions.  I'm going to take quite a few pics but also need to remember not to live the trip through the camera.  I will try to remember to take pics of the documents we receive and post as we go, but I'm also planning on scanning them once we return for higher quality images.
 

[alexandria]

Have a great time in the Galapagos!

 

For those who are following along and prefer to make independent pre- and post-cruise travel arrangements, flying in and out of Guayaquil is always an option.  It is on the coast so no altitude sickness concerns and the flights from Guayaquil to Baltras are two hour non-stops.  There are many well-priced and highly rated luxury hotels and plentiful things to do and see there as well.

 

But I've heard and read that the pre-cruise experience in Quito is quite excellent so I'm sure you will enjoy it!

 

Fair winds and following seas...🛳️

[Ciaranaman]

So excited to be following along!  I've been waiting for someone to start a "live" for this itinerary.  Thank you for that!  We are booked for the same, but not until spring 2026!  So far away!  Safe travels tomorrow!

~Bernadette

[catspaw1]

Will follow along so happy to get your posts.  We are doing cruise only. About planning independent trips, yes it takes time & lots of research to plan but it's actually not hard & fun. We just did a 17 night trip to CO, SD & WY that I posted a TR on TA if anyone wants to see it. It's very satisfying when it comes out right but it does take work & peserveance. I'm currently planning our 10 day trip to Spain before our TA this November. I have been planning independent trips for over 40 years. Usually much cheaper to do on your own. Today I found a hotel that booking.com wanted to charge a recovery fee. I emailed the hotel directly- it was cheaper, no fee & included a free breakfast.  As for our upcoming Galapagos trip, we have free air courtesy from US  of our points from the Chase Sapphire card & free Marriott hotel in Cuzco from points. So we will have to pay air to Baltra & some other minor things like meals. We will get a free breakfast as Marriott lifetime titanium members. We will fly to Baltra a few days ahead to make sure we don't miss the cruise but we don't mind. We will probably hire a private tour for Quito & will head up to Mindo also. So we are saving at least 2G from booking the 10 day with Celebrity.  Do it!

[mahdnc]

13 hours ago, Rewind said:

Hi all!  It's finally here after more than two years of planning, we are sailing on Celebrity Flora on an Inner Loop itinerary of the Galapagos islands.

 

Let me start with the recent news - Flora is having propulsion issues and has canceled a couple sailings in December so she can go into drydock to get repaired.  They are making adjustments to both the Inner and Outer loop itineraries, but I think the Inner loop had less modifications.  Here is what has changed for our sailing:

 

 

I don’t think these changes are too bad, but I really don’t know what we will be missing.  Generally speaking, they had to cancel the stops on the Western side of the Western island (Isabela) in order to keep on schedule for a 7 night sailing.

 

I do want to share a bit of the booking process for anyone who is thinking of doing this trip in the future. I am a fairly detail oriented person when it comes to booking cruises and have planned many trips in the past so I thought this would just be a super easy process and I could handle everything myself and just book the simple 7 night cruise and take care of all the other aspects on my own.  While I wasn’t wrong, I will say that it wasn’t wise.

 

You have to factor in quite a bit more if you book the cruise only package.  First off you don’t want to just fly into Quito and not see Quito.  And by spending a day in Quito, you will need a hotel, and you have to get to that hotel.  So there is the transport cost from the airport to the hotel, the night in the hotel, the cost of the independent tour, meals, a second night in the hotel, and then transfer back to the airport.  Then you also need to book airfare for Quito to Baltra (which isn’t direct and also doesn’t specify that the rates on the website are for Locals and you will need to pay extra for being a tourist).  From what I can tell, once you land in Baltra, the ship will meet you there and take over the rest of the process.  But then on the way back, you need the return flight to Quito, and then depending on plans, maybe another night in a hotel or just hanging out at the airport for 8 hours.

 

While I had all of this planned out, I did stumble on a deal as I was checking rates often.  For us, we were able to rebook our 7 night cruise (cheapest Balcony) to a 10 night cruise package (Guarantee that turned into an Infinite Veranda) and the cost difference was MUCH cheaper than booking everything ourselves.  I think the cost of our individually booked hotel nights alone covered the entire upgrade.  Everything is now included pretty much from the time we land in Quito including the hotel stays, a direct chartered flight from Quito to Baltra (faster, no layover, and more space to spread out), the tour in Quito, meals in Quito, transfers to and from the airport, etc.  It’s not impossible to plan the trip on your own, but honestly it is SO much easier to do the 10 night package.

 

Yes we would have loved to do the 16 night extended trip to Machu Picchu, but my DW and I are still working stiffs and can’t get away for that long.  We will just make a note and go back once we retire; maybe do the outer loop then.

We checked in for our flights tomorrow, doing our last bit of frantic packing, and trying to understand how we are going from 95 degrees in Columbus to a much more mild 70 degrees at the Equator.

 

Please feel free to ask questions.  I'm going to take quite a few pics but also need to remember not to live the trip through the camera.  I will try to remember to take pics of the documents we receive and post as we go, but I'm also planning on scanning them once we return for higher quality images.
 

 

Congrats on the deal that you got.  Enjoy your trip to the Galapagos.  I would be interested about what you learn on board regarding Flora's mechanical problems.

[Rewind]

And so it begins...

 

[Galaxy2004]

@Rewind Safe travels!

[Rewind]

Round two.

 

[clochette]

looking forward to your trip, thanks for taking us along

 

[Beachlover1989]

Excited to follow your trip!

[LisaLeone]

A dream trip for us so I look.forward to following along!

[Rewind]

WELCOME TO QUITO!

 

We got through customs in about 10 minutes.  A quick pickup of our one checked bag,  a stop at the restroom at baggage claim, and Celebrity was waiting Directly outside the baggage claim area.

 

Many sitting near us on the plane are on this cruise and we are waiting for the last few for our transport to the hotel.

 

No pics for now - it's an airport.  😉

[sonnycruises]

3 hours ago, LisaLeone said:

A dream trip for us so I look.forward to following along!

We did this amazing dream trip in May and we're following along.

[Rewind]

Past my bedtime but wanted to give one last update for tonight.

 

The shuttle ride is 45 minutes and Pablo will give you some information on the drive to the JW Marriott.  Once you arrive, they will hand you a hot towel, a small hot Canelazo (cinnamon and naranjailla), and then check-in to get your water bottles and then your hotel room key.

 

We dropped our bags in the room and then went back downstairs to fill up our water bottles at the filtered water station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rewind]

Good morning.  Other than a car or building alarm going off outside our window at 2am, we slept pretty well.  So far have just gotten up and dressed and waiting for our other party of our party to be ready for breakfast in another 10 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[catspaw1]

Did you get concierge lounge privileges? Is the breakfast there? We will be staying there using points. My husband is lifetime titanium so we will redeem points to stay for free. 

[Rewind]

No lounge access that I am aware of.  Yes, breakfast is included with our tour package.  If not doing the package, I think they just charge your room.  I will say the bacon is really tough (don't know if that is just a "today" thing).

 

We are meeting in the lobby in about 30 minutes to head out for our day tour.

[woodythebeagle]

Thank you so much for doing this.  Looking forward to all the updates!

[cruisetonowhere10]

No food provided on arrival?  Just checking as we will have a flight that likely will arrive and we’d need to figure out dinner.

[Rewind]

We arrived at the hotel around 11pm local time.  All restaurants in the hotel were closed but room service is still available.  There is a McDonalds less than a block East if you want something quick.

 

We did get dinner on our flight down.  We flew Delta and had a nice meal in "Premium Select" seats but the regular seats were served food as well.

[Rewind]

Back from the Quito tour - no time, had to clean up and now we are heading out to dinner.  More later.

[Barwick Cruiser]

Thank you very much for doing this posting, we are booked in 2025…seems so very far away at this point but reading about your journey will make it seem sooner! Loving all the timing details. We don’t have loyalty with any airlines or hotels so leaving all the booking reservations to X seems like a very enjoyable and stress free vacation. Enjoy! 
Cathy

[Buddysmom10]

Following.  We are on the ten night Flora Outer Loop in October. We're flying in on a Wednesday and embarkation is on Sunday. So we've got an additional two nights on our own. One will be a private tour to the Mindo Cloud Forest but we have nothing scheduled for the first day-maybe just will try to get acclimated to the elevation! 

[Stem to Stern]

[Rewind]

Time for a review of today:

Breakfast at Botanica was pretty good.  I want to almost say "standard breakfast buffet" but they have a good selection of fruits that we don't recognize (and the labels for them were on the other side from where you serve yourself), there is a custom omelette station, and the pastries are pretty nice.  So I would have to bump it up to an Elevated Breakfast Buffet.

 

Tour - meet in the lobby by 8:45am.  You are split up into groups of about 10 people but two groups will share each bus.  Once you get to a location, your group goes with your assigned tour guide.  

 

First stop is a drive up to the large statue of the Virgin Mary on top of a mountain.  You get a quick overview of the area, description of the mountains and volcanoes in the distance, and a good at the old town where you head next.  This stop was maybe 30 minutes.

 

Next in Old Town, you will be walking for a few hours.  There is quite a lot of information to take in, you visit a couple squares, a couple churches, and then on to lunch (this is more interesting than I'm making it sound right now).

 

Lunch was at Convento San Agustin where they had a buffet with salad, ceviche, potato soup, chicken, rice, veggies, and a selection of small desserts.

 

From there it was a short walk to the bus meeting place and an hour ride to the Equator Line Museum.

 

(Quick side note - each group has a tour guide and a "body guard" assigned to them.  The body guards help keep the group together and watch out for pickpockets.  On top of that, Celebrity has hired special duty officers to help monitor the congested tourist areas and streets.  You should still be vigilant, but Celebrity is doing great keeping guests safe.)

 

Quick nap on the way to the museum, and then there is a lot of info about the indigenous population and the regions of Ecuador.  Then you go take all the pics of you standing in both hemispheres.

 

Back to the bus for a 45 minute ride to the hotel, just under an hour to freshen up before dinner, then back on the bus for a 10 minutes ride to La Gloria.  There is a limited menu for the group, but the food was good - I had the Veal Shank and honestly I think it could have been better, but the pasta my wife had was excellent.

 

Back to the hotel, pack up the checked bags and take them down to the lobby, and now to pass out...  after I post some pics.