Galapagos Islands - April, 2024

            There's no Cafe Al Bacio on this ship, but the bar in the Discovery Lounge also serves specialty coffees and a small selection of pastries every morning.  After finally getting a good night's sleep, we were up bright and early this morning and got coffee right at 6:00AM when it opened.

            Breakfast is always served starting at 7:00 at the Seaside Restaurant buffet-style and also includes a made-to-order omelet station.

            The night before, after the excursion briefing, we chose Option 3 for this morning, which was a beach walk and optional swim/snorkel, starting at 8:45AM.  Even though you are signed up for the excursion, you aren't given a tender number until you check-in for whichever option you chose.  The naturalists begin the check-in process 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the excursion and you are assigned to one of the tenders on a first-come, first-served basis.

            We checked-in at 8:30 and at exactly 8:45, our tender number was called.  We headed down the back stairs to Deck 3 to collect our dive bags with the wet suit and snorkeling equipment, put on a life jacket (you must wear them at all times when on the tenders), scanned our SeaPass, then boarded the Zodiac.

            This was a wet landing, which meant the tender got as close as possible to the beach, then you step off into several inches of water:

Beach walk (Gardner Bay):

            After the walk, you had the option to take a tender back to the ship immediately or stay for a swim/snorkel.  I sat down on the beach and enjoyed the day while my wife snorkeled.  We ended up taking one of the last tenders and arrived back just in time to get ready for lunch.

            You have two choices for lunch every day:  The Seaside Restaurant on Deck 4 which has a themed buffet, or the Ocean Grill on Deck 7 which has hamburgers, hot dogs, wraps, etc.  We chose the Seaside buffet (theme of the day: Ecuadorian)

            After lunch, we had a 3 hour break before our 4:45PM tender ride, so we went back to the room and took a power-nap.

Tender ride (Punta Suarez):

            Once back on the Flora, we had about an hour to shower, change, download our pictures and get back downstairs for the excursion briefing at 7:00.  This usually consisted of two parts:  First, a presentation about the conservation/restoration activities in the Galapagos and then a detailed description of the options for tomorrow's excursions.

            As soon as the briefing had completed and we signed up for the next day's excursions, a member of Guest Services collected us and escorted us up to Deck 7 for our Glamping experience.  

            This menu was actually brought to our cabin earlier in the day in case we had any requested changes.  There are two cabanas: one with a table and chairs for dinner and breakfast and the second with the bed, as circled below:

            Andres (the Hotel Director) and Boris (the Maitre D) came by to check in and welcome us to Glamping and introduce Zarella, who would be our waitress for the evening.  She was wonderful and took great care of us!

            After dinner, we placed our breakfast order with Zarella, then moved over to the cabana with the bed and enjoyed looking at the stars and listening to the sound of the waves.

Final step count for Day 4: