It all started in April 2019 when we saw a very good offer for the flight FRA-BOG-FRA in December 2019 and booked it without the possibility of refund. Our idea was to fly from Bogota to Ecuador for the Galapagos Islands. Little did we know that people normally booked such trips at least one year in advance. When we called Galapagos PRO and asked about the cruise in December, their first question was “December which year?”:) It turned out we hardly had any chance of getting a cruise in such a “short” notice. But amazingly enough Galapagos PRO were able to do it for us! They were nice enough to hold it for us for several days so that we could think it over (later we understood that there was absolutely nothing to think about and that it simply was our only chance:)). So this is how we found ourselves on the Galapagos Odyssey yacht about 8 months later, for which we are so very grateful to Galapagos PRO!

Galapagos PRO were very helpful preparing us for this trip – in a timely manner they provided us with a lot of useful information from what we would need there to the info on islands’ history and fauna and flora.

The yacht had absolutely everything we needed: good spacious cabin with shower, good food, great crew who worked very hard to make our experience on the Galapagos Islands smooth and comfortable, and wonderful, full of knowledge guide Jaime. We felt being taken care of every minute of our journey! We also enjoyed the company of other tourists around us (overall there were 15 tourists on the yacht, including my husband and I, from 19 to 70 years old). It is worth noting though that the yacht had enough free space, so it would also be ok for those not so much of company people.

Since we wanted to prolong our stay on the islands (the cruise lasted from Dec 19th till Dec 24th), we asked Galapagos PRO to arrange for us three more days there after we disembark the yacht. They booked a wonderful B&B hotel on San Cristóbal island (where the cruise ended), called “Casa Iguana Mar y Sol” with a very hospitable owner and host Luis, who, as it turned out, built all the wooden furniture, windows, doors, stairs in the hotel himself. The hotel has only 5 rooms, so thanks to this fact and to the very warm attitude of Luis we felt very comfortable and welcomed there.

Two day trips from San Cristóbal that we asked Galapagos PRO to arrange, however, did not go smoothly. For some reason the schedule that we received from Galapagos PRO did not reflect the actual state of things as the dates of the trips were surprisingly mixed up, and one of the boats was different from the one stated in the itinerary. Also, despite the fact that the trip to Leon Dormido started at about 8:00 in the morning, snorkeling did not begin until about 13:00 (since people from other boats were snorkeling there). I do not know if the time of day was the reason why we did not see many animals there that day, but I would rather snorkel earlier and spend the time on the beach after that (not vise versa like we did).

It is worth mentioning that the pricing we got from Galapagos PRO for our three extra days was very reasonable comparing to what the person can get, booking this hotel/day trips on the internet individually.

All in all we would like to thank Galapagos PRO team for making this whole unforgettable experience happen for us! We wish your company further success and prosperity!

With warm regards,

Olga and Nikolay