Review: Celebrity Flora 04/07/24 - 04/14/24 : Galapagos Outer Loop

[Moby_Spout]

To keep with the packing theme - footwear. Did you guys tend to keep your sandals on for treks after wet landings? Change shoes? Wear socks and sandals (that comfy fashion faux pas)? 
 

[Fedic]

1 hour ago, Moby_Spout said:

To keep with the packing theme - footwear. Did you guys tend to keep your sandals on for treks after wet landings? Change shoes? Wear socks and sandals (that comfy fashion faux pas)? 
 

We had 2 excursions that were wet landings.  Wore these Keen water shoes (no socks) for the landing and the walk:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T9TLQN9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

In the excursion briefing the night before, they tell you if you should change or if the water shoes are fine for the walk.  Both times it was a beach walk and no issues with the Keen's.

[Fedic]

Here are a few misc. things that didn't make it into the review, but might be useful:

 

• If you are Team Pepsi, you are probably out of luck in Ecuador.  I only ever saw Coke products.  They must have a Coke bottling plant in country.  And I mean the "bottling" part.  All of them were in recyclable glass bottles with pry-off caps.  They had Coke Classic and Diet Coke, or what everyone there refers to as Coke Regular and Coke Light.
• The fridge in your cabin on the Flora has Coke, Orange (Fanta?), Diet Coke and a local Pilsner beer.  Your cabin attendant will refill when you drink them.  All are included in your fare.
• Consider avoiding beef unless it has been marinated or slow-roasted for many hours.  Otherwise, the beef is generally tough.  I have no idea if this is true or not, but one of the waiters said that Ecuador doesn't have much flat land, so the cows have to climb hills to graze, which builds their muscles and makes the beef tougher.  
• How close can you get to the animals?   Within a couple of feet.  Most of them do not care in the slightest that a group of humans are in their midst.

[JackE]

46 minutes ago, Fedic said:

We had 2 excursions that were wet landings.  Wore these Keen water shoes (no socks) for the landing and the walk:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T9TLQN9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

In the excursion briefing the night before, they tell you if you should change or if the water shoes are fine for the walk.  Both times it was a beach walk and no issues with the Keen's.

Excellent recommendation. Just curious what you wore to hike around when water was not an issue? 

[Fedic]

12 minutes ago, JackE said:

Excellent recommendation. Just curious what you wore to hike around when water was not an issue? 

 

I had purchased these Salomon hiking boots last year before we went to Alaska:

 

https://www.salomon.com/en-us/shop/product/x-ultra-4-mid-gore-tex-21.html#color=47953

 

They might be overkill for the Galapagos because you don't really need waterproof for the dry landings, but they did the trick.  Great grip for the lava rock walks.  Never felt in danger of falling.

[catspaw1]

Thanks habendic, would really appreciate any tips you will have for the Xploration as we are booked for the room without the balcony. We booked cruise only as we will arrive in Baltra a few days early on our own. Plan on seeing Mindo (if safety allows) & will hire a private guide to see Quito. I love to snorkel so am interested in that. Also if you can tell us if you used celebrity wetsuits or should we bring our own? We are trying to reduce weight & may leave some things at the Marriott in Quito. Should we bring our own binoculars?

[habenicd]

18 hours ago, catspaw1 said:

 I love to snorkel so am interested in that. Also if you can tell us if you used celebrity wetsuits or should we bring our own? We are trying to reduce weight & may leave some things at the Marriott in Quito. Should we bring our own binoculars?

We are avid snorkelers and will definitely include wetsuit info. Given the bag/weight limits we are leaving our wetsuits at home as well as the rest of our own snorkeling gear but for our masks. (We are really picky about our masks.) Our info says that binoculars are provided but I am still taking my small, pocket binoculars as its always in my camera back anyway.

[catspaw1]

Agree that wet suits are heavy so we were thinking of using Celebrity. So let us know what you think of theirs. I'm bringing a neoprene leggings & rashguards also. We have dive flippers & boots which make it easy to get them on/off in the water. The flippers are bulky though. Just got back from 10 days in Great Smokey Mts & even though we drove, we minimized our suitcases so we could see if we could pack less & it was a success! We did use the hotels washer/dryer though. I think I'll have to hand wash in the Galapagos to minimize weight. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

I popped into this review not thinking I’d stay long as I’ve not had a great deal of interest in the Galápagos Islands….boy was I wrong!  Your pictures are stunning and trip report truly engaging. I’m glad your illness wasn’t too serious and that they took great care of you!  Thank you for taking the time to share this vacation with us. You have me rethinking g my stance on a Galápagos Islands cruise for sure. 😊

[Fedic]

3 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

I popped into this review not thinking I’d stay long as I’ve not had a great deal of interest in the Galápagos Islands….boy was I wrong!  Your pictures are stunning and trip report truly engaging. I’m glad your illness wasn’t too serious and that they took great care of you!  Thank you for taking the time to share this vacation with us. You have me rethinking g my stance on a Galápagos Islands cruise for sure. 😊

 

Thank you so much!  I was a little apprehensive when we booked the trip because it is far removed from what I think of as "normal" cruising.  But it truly is a magical place.

[ethan1171]

We will be on Flora next April (Mar 28 departure) - so thank you @Fedic for this report and all the advice for how we can best prepare. Amazing trip and we are very excited to finally get to Galapagos especially after reading your adventures.

 

We are usually "picky" with flights and hotel room assignments. Was there an option provided by Celebrity to specify preferred location of the room or the seats during the flight from Quito to Baltra?

 

Also - you mentioned you chose your own flights. We have not decided whether we will do our own arrangements or book through Celebrity since it is still too early to book flights for next April. However, we will be interested exploring if booking through Celebrity might be better in case of a schedule change, or better pricing? e.g. i see that we currently have $500pp off in our booking confirmation for guests who choose to make own air arrangements, but if we were to get air by Celebrity we would get a $750/pp credit. Actually given the flight duration and connections from San Francisco to Quito - we will likely explore business class tickets, especially since I am not seeing a lot of options avoiding a red eye flight.

 

Thank you!

--e

 

 

[Moby_Spout]

Ethan, we are looking into the same March-April Flora cruise, and with both loops. Also Bay Area. Sure have found fedic's posts, especially, to be an excellent resource among many for Galapagos here on CC.

[Fedic]

5 hours ago, ethan1171 said:

We are usually "picky" with flights and hotel room assignments. Was there an option provided by Celebrity to specify preferred location of the room or the seats during the flight from Quito to Baltra?

 

Also - you mentioned you chose your own flights. We have not decided whether we will do our own arrangements or book through Celebrity since it is still too early to book flights for next April. However, we will be interested exploring if booking through Celebrity might be better in case of a schedule change, or better pricing? e.g. i see that we currently have $500pp off in our booking confirmation for guests who choose to make own air arrangements, but if we were to get air by Celebrity we would get a $750/pp credit. Actually given the flight duration and connections from San Francisco to Quito - we will likely explore business class tickets, especially since I am not seeing a lot of options avoiding a red eye flight.

 

Thank you!

--e

 

 

Thanks.  Glad the review was helpful!  

 

I don't believe there was an option to change seats on the charter flight to/from Quito.  They already have the boarding passes printed and hand them to you at the Marriott right before you board the bus to the airport and on the Flora as you are preparing to leave via tender.  They seem to group everyone by cabin number.  We were in 518 and the occupants of 517 and 519 (who we also shared a table with the night of the Quito tour) were in the rows around us.

 

It's an AirBus A320 and the space between rows seemed to be more generous than typical these days.  My knees were not touching the seat in front of me like they are on some flights.

 

As to the hotel, I am a Hilton person, so I have no status with Marriott.  But if you have any Marriott status, I have seen reports from others who called the hotel in Quito ahead of time and gave their Marriott # and was rewarded with higher category rooms.  I suspect you would have a better chance of getting your preferred location at the hotel than with the flight.

 

If you are getting an extra $500 in credit towards flights by booking through Flights by Celebrity, that sounds like the better way to go.  I used them once before and they waited until the absolute last minute to fully ticket the flights, so I couldn't pick seats until then.  Probably not as big of a deal with business class.  

 

[catspaw1]

Thanks for the helpful comments. One thing I would like to comment on is hiking boots. We are very experienced hikers- just returned from 10 nights in Great Smokey National Park where we go to yearly. Anyway, hiking shoes are like low cut like sneakers where hiking boots cover the ankle.  Both give great traction on rough surfaces. It seems like it's more important here, with uneven terrain,  to have good hiking poles though with rubber tip bottoms & collapsible to put in your suitcase. We are definitely bringing our hiking poles but haven't decided if we are going to bring the hiking shoes or boots. I usually use the boots when the terrain is tough, with tree roots or rocks but I'm leaning towards bringing the boots. To show our hiking experience,  1 day in Great Smokey we did over 21000 steps with 162 flights of steps & almost 10 miles- that was far beyond our usual 5 miles per day! Hope this helps.  We already have the keen water shoe.

[Gary72]

Have a question on the Flora tenders. My back usually requires some support. Are there any seats on the tenders where you have a back?  Have no problem on long walks, buses or snorkeling. 

[ethan1171]

On 5/11/2024 at 4:13 PM, Fedic said:

If you are getting an extra $500 in credit towards flights by booking through Flights by Celebrity, that sounds like the better way to go.  I used them once before and they waited until the absolute last minute to fully ticket the flights, so I couldn't pick seats until then.  Probably not as big of a deal with business class.  

 

 

I used Flights by Celebrity to get our flights. It was a little bit of a pain because they asked us to rebook the reservation with the special $750/pp promotion for flights included vs. the -$500/pp credit for No Air. Although the prevailing rate was a couple hundred dollars more expensive than what we booked a month ago, overall the cruise+flights ended up being a little cheaper than getting the flights on my own.

 

The main benefit is that they secured refundable airfare for the same (almost) price as the published non-refundable business class SFO-PTY-UIO, so I would say it was worth going through FBC for peace of mind with changes / cancellations / securing getting to the ship on time etc. However I have to note, as an aviation junkie who likes to control flights and staying on top of the details, dealing with some of the agents at FBC/Galapagos flights left me not very "impressed".

 

They will not ticket until final payment, I think, and although COPA, was not willing to assign seats on a non ticketed reservation, the FBC desk has access and they assigned us our preferred seats.

Edited Saturday at 05:30 PM by ethan1171

[ethan1171]

On 5/11/2024 at 2:12 PM, Moby_Spout said:

Ethan, we are looking into the same March-April Flora cruise, and with both loops. Also Bay Area. Sure have found fedic's posts, especially, to be an excellent resource among many for Galapagos here on CC.

Awesome. Maybe we could start a new thread Rollcall/Review for Celebrity Flora Mar 30 — Apr 6, 2025. 😀

[Fedic]

20 hours ago, Gary72 said:

Have a question on the Flora tenders. My back usually requires some support. Are there any seats on the tenders where you have a back?  Have no problem on long walks, buses or snorkeling. 

Yes.  There is a bench with some back-support in the very back by the pilot.  They usually can fit about 3-4 people back there.

 

You can see it on the far left of the tender in this photo: 

[peanut head]

Some questions about the glamping.  Were you bothered by insects?  Noise level when trying to sleep?