Galapagos Islands - April, 2024

            I woke up the next morning feeling rejuvenated and ready to roll.  Unfortunately, the cruise was over and rolling meant checking out of our cabin for the last time by 7:30AM and then sitting around waiting for 2 and a half hours to leave the ship.  But we had some catching up to do with our friends and Celebrity played a Galapagos documentary narrated by David Attenborough, so the time went by fairly fast and then we were called up to be assigned a group and given our boarding passes for the flight back to Quito.

            After the tender ride and the short bus trip back to the Baltra airport, we located our bags and wheeled them inside, checked them with Avianca, then passed through security.  At this point there are multiple shops with merchandise from local vendors.  My wife had no interest in these (HA!).

            So after we went through every. single. shop in the Baltra airport, we made our way to the VIP lounge, which everyone from the Flora has access to;  the flight to Quito actually leaves out of Gate 4, which is inside the VIP area.

           Special mention to this little guy, who was also here to greet us when we arrived a week ago:

            Old school boarding from the rolling stairs at both the front and back of the plane:

            For lunch, we were given caprese salad, a choice of either Cobb salad with turkey or Ecuadorian shrimp, and dessert of a fig cheesecake:

            After the 2-hour flight, we collected our luggage in Quito at baggage claim.  Most people with the Celebrity package go back to the JW Marriott, but because our flight out the following morning was at 6:00AM, we were assigned to the EB Hotel at the airport.  

            We found the Celebrity guide with the EB sign, loaded onto the bus and quickly arrived at the hotel (it's about a 5 minute drive as opposed to about an hour for the Marriott).

            The EB Hotel doesn't exactly look fancy on the outside, but it actually is very modern and nice inside.  We were pleased with our room, the dinner and our stay.

            Like the Marriott, there was a special check-in desk just for Celebrity guests.  We quickly received our room keys and this welcome letter:

Our room on the 4th floor:

Pool area and hot tub:

There is a grass walking path around the outside of the hotel:

            I'm guessing the airport area where the EB is located is not the safest location?  I've never actually seen an electrified fence around the perimeter of a hotel before!

Dinner at the hotel's restaurant was included as part of our package.  Here is the menu:

            After dinner we walked around the outside of the hotel a little more, but then decided to call it a night since our bus to the airport was scheduled to leave in the morning at 3:30AM.

Final step count for Day 10: