Cruise
review:
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For reference, I am 25 years old, a
student, have been on a handful of packaged tours, this was my second
vacation involving living on a boat, I can speak passable Spanish, and
I normally don't enjoy guided tours (this was definitely an exception)!
Overall trip: Amazing, 8/10, I would definitely do it
again. My favorite part was the wildlife, mostly snorkeling where
you could play with the animals or watch them close up. The
itinerary I found to be okay, the crew and guide were *really* great,
the food was delicious and plentiful, the other tourists were a nice
and friendly bunch, varied in age and background. Major
downsides: age of the boat and total cost of trip (which was
actually relatively inexpensive compared to other tours, but expensive
compared to solo travel, which is the type of travel I normally do).
The crew get 10 out of 10 - they
were all just awesome - a fun group, any requests we had of them that
were reasonable were immediately granted, a great group if you needed
anything, or just to hang out with.
Tour guide, Alphonso, gets a 9 out
of 10, just because unless I really hate giving perfect scores out
unless they are absolutely outstanding - he was really great, though -
knew EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the Galapagos, and we asked some
tough questions. 16 (or was it 18?) years of experience, knew the
best places to find everything, had a great sense of timing, of what
was interesting to know, and so on. At first I wasn't too crazy
about him, but I really warmed up to him. Like a serious
walking-encyclopedia, he was exactly what I was hoping for in a tour
guide. I don't know if he normally works the New Flamingo,
though. I think he's freelance.
The snorkeling was my favorite part
of the trip - and we snorkeled almost every day. We got to play
with the sea lions and almost all of us had some incredible experiences
with turtles or penguins that just simply didn't care that we were less
than a meter away from them. Amazing!
The New Flamingo is an old
boat. It was probably the one thing about the trip I did not
particularly enjoy. The boat was small, which was expected, and
there was loud generator noise on the deck throughout the day and most
of the night, which I was not very fond of. Every once in a
while the electricity would go out. There were bugs that would
come out at night, despite the serious efforts of the cook to spray
them all. The room I was in had no hot water, though it was
supposed to, and though the other rooms did. The boat itself I
would give a 4/10. It worked fine, for the most part, except for
when a bolt got lost from teh rudder and we turned around in circles
(the captain ended up doing some impressive diving pre-sunrise and
making a temporary fix to get us all to our site so that we wouldn't be
inconvenienced by waiting for parts). As stated, the boat is
old. I did not enjoy sleeping in teh cabin, but luckily, we
didn't spend much time on the boat, and the crew allowed us to sleep on
the deck (if we wanted) most nights.
Hope that helps out some of your future clients, Robin. All the
best, and thanks again! If anyone has any specific questions,
they can feel free to send me an email at this address.
[Amy Leung |
June 6th to 13th, 2006]
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