Galapagos Islands - April, 2024

           At that time, the Galapagos Islands weren't really even on our radar.  But our curiosity was peaked and after some research and discussion, my wife and I decided we needed to add this trip to our vacation schedule.  We eventually landed on April as the time of year we would want to go for a couple of reasons;  it's at the end of the rainy season and the water temperature would be warm enough for comfortable snorkeling.

          From https://www.nathab.com/know-before-you-go/galapagos-islands/best-time-to-travel/

          We already had an Alaskan trip scheduled for 2023, so we booked for April 2024.  Note: Celebrity offers several different options here:

• Cruise-only.  This is for the 7-day cruise and nothing else.  You are responsible for any hotels (pre or post cruise), for getting yourself to Baltra, and for paying the park entrance fee.
• 10 or 11 night package
• 16 night Galapagos and Machu Picchu package

           We chose the 10-night package, which included 2 nights pre-cruise at the JW Marriott in downtown Quito, a full day of touring, meals, all transportation, a private charter flight to/from Baltra, park entry fees and, one final night in Quito post-cruise.  Once  you land at the Quito airport, you really don't have to worry about anything during the entire trip; Celebrity takes care of everything.

            As noted in the email, we could have booked air-fare through Flights by Celebrity, but I like to be in control of our destiny when it comes to airlines and flight changes and not have to go through a middle-man, so we opted for an immediate discount on our package price and booked the flights ourselves.  We just needed to call the Celebrity Galapagos desk and give them our flight information so they knew when to pick us up.

Fast forward 2 years later and it was finally time for our trip!

            Flying from Tampa, most airlines require you to fly hundreds of miles north (to Atlanta or Charlotte, for example) in order to make a connection to your destination, adding hours of extra flight time to your trip.  For this reason, we ultimately decided on American Airlines since their hub is in Miami.  This was our selection for Tampa to Quito:

Day 1 – Travel and arrival in Quito, Ecuador

Friday, April 5

             We arrived at the Tampa airport for our 7AM flight at about 5:15AM.  Check-in at ticketing for American Airlines was absolute chaos.  When we booked this trip, I did lots of research on best time of the year to go to the Galapagos—rainy season vs dry season, water temperatures, different wildlife you might see.  What I totally missed was that this is the start of Spring Break week for a lot of colleges and is one of the heaviest travel weeks of the year. 

             On top of the airport being packed with travelers, American Airlines chose to force everyone to use their kiosks to check in.  This would be okay, except there are about 12 total kiosks—one of them was broken, one was out of paper to print luggage tags, one of them wouldn’t scan passports and another totally froze up while we were there.  So add 100 people to a line with 8 working kiosks and a total of one employee to help with any issues.  Fun times!

              We finally got our luggage tags printed and bags dropped off only to find the security line with about 500 people waiting to be screened.  We were fortunate enough to be able to maneuver ourselves to the one Xray machine at the F terminal that has the newer technology that doesn’t require you to remove your electronics or liquids for scanning.  I would take the time-savings wherever I could get them at this point.

              We managed to make it on the plane to Miami for the short 37 minute flight and had Exit Row seats on both that flight and the one to Quito, Ecuador (about 4 hours gate-to-gate).  Both flights were pleasant and uneventful.

              After deplaning in Quito, you go straight to Immigration—note that there are no restrooms between exiting the plane and the loooong line.  Also nothing at baggage claim, which is the next stop.  Fortunately, our bags were waiting and we were able to grab them, put them through an Xray scanner and quickly exit the area. 

              Celebrity greeted us in the next room, checked us in and took our bags.  And there were restrooms here.  45 minutes after leaving the plane, relief was in sight!  [Note to self:  Don’t drink an entire can of soda before the plane lands if you ever come back to Quito.]

              There were about 15 of us on the flight who were are also on the Celebrity Flora this week.  They loaded us all on a comfy bus for the 50 minute drive into downtown Quito.  Once we arrived at the JW Marriott, we were given hot towels, led to a special Celebrity check-in desk in the Marriott lobby, given a welcome drink, our personalized water-bottles and room keys.

              The room:

            Since it was now almost 3PM (or 4PM Eastern time) and we hadn't really eaten much today, we went back downstairs to the Kaori Sushi Bar in the hotel.  

         Here's the water bottle refilling station in the lobby of the Marriott.  When we were on the bus from the airport, our guide gave each of us a bottle of water and said, "This is the last plastic bottle you will see on your trip."

Pictures from around the JW Marriott:

              We stopped at the podium for the hotel’s South American restaurant (Raices) and made reservations for 8PM for dinner.  They offered an 8-course tasting menu with wine pairing, which we agreed to.  Note:  An 8-course menu takes about 2 ½ hours.  Even after skipping one of the courses, we didn’t finish until 10:30PM.  And the time zone is an hour behind what we are used to in Eastern time, so our bodies felt like it was 11:30PM and I had slept a total of about 3 hours the night before.   I think I almost fell asleep twice at the dinner table.  Oops.

        At this point, we called it a day. 

Final step count for Day 1: