What A Galapagos Adventure Trip Is Like

The two of us had a cabin to ourselves and our own private bathroom with a shower. There was about another seven couples on there as well, so another seven bedrooms maybe.

Did they feed you well on the boat?

They did! The food was excellent, that was one of the highlights of the Galapagos adventure. Big breakfast, back for lunch and a meal in the evening. There'd be cake and snacks in between.

Here are more Cachalote yacht reviews by people who have sailed with them in the past.

No, we didn't do any diving. It was very, very expensive to do diving, so we didn't manage to do that. To do it on the Galapagos adventure boat would have cost some crazy amount of money so that was a non-starter. We would have had to stay extra time on one of the islands and done a dive trip from there so we didn't do diving in the end, which was a disappointment.

But we did lots of snorkelling from the boat and that was absolutely fabulous. Every time we went out there'd be something amazing to see. Sea lions, turtles, penguins, iguanas… we saw everything in the sea. Shark, once - a large reef shark. To see the hammerheads I think you need to do scuba diving, there's only one place that you can see the hammerheads.

Did you have any seasickness problems on this Galapagos adventure tour?

How to prevent sea sickness in the Galapagos.

Really good. Every day we'd go to a different island or different bits of each islands and each stop would have a different speciality. So one will be a place for iguanas and one will be a place for tortoises and one would be a place for the birds … they'd all have their own speciality.

We snorkelled maybe three times within touching distance of the sea lions and turtles. You literally … they'd come and play with you. That was a really big Galapagos adventure highlight - playing with the sea lions.

Which was your favourite island?

I'm not sure I have one… to be honest we often didn't know where we were. It was all a bit irrelevant. We'd jump on the boat; they'd take us somewhere and say "get off, we're going to see so-and-so", and we didn't know which island we were on specifically, or it didn't really matter which one we were on. Each island had its own speciality but I couldn't recall now which was which.

The weather on our Galapagos adventure tour was perfect, beautiful every day. Not too hot, not too cold, just a pleasant say 28, 30 degrees I would guess, every day.

And was the water cold?

Chillier than you'd expect, but not unpleasantly cold. We could hire wetsuits from the boat for a nominal fee and you'd need to wear your wetsuit but it wasn't unpleasant by any means. You could have gotten by without a wetsuit, but it was nicer with.

Realtime readout of what the Galapagos weather is like right now.

Every day was very much the same. You'd get up fairly early, say 7 o'clock and have a nice breakfast. We were usually motored overnight so we'd be at a new place, not actually know where we are.

Then they'd take us on shore to see whatever wildlife is on that area and they'd bring us back for lunch and then probably go for a snorkel first thing in the afternoon. Maybe motor to somewhere else in the afternoon and get the boat again late afternoon for another shore stop. Then back for dinner on the boat and then early to bed, everyone's tired very early so everyone goes to bed early.

We may have been delayed on our way out to Ecuador, about an hour, which was vaguely inconvenient because it was our first destination and we were eager to get there before sunset. But nothing that you wouldn't expect on any flight system, an hour delay here or there.

Tips for Galapagos flights.

Our camera, absolutely. A Galapagos adventure is a photographer's paradise. We have a digital camera and we had our laptop with us as well so we could download our photos. We're quite keen photographers, so we were well prepared there.

Was there a power source for charging the batteries on the boat?

Yes, you could plug into power sockets on the boat, no problem. It had I think 110V supply. We could plug it in our room or the lounge anytime, no problem.

Comprehensive Galapagos packing list to help you pack everything you need.

I think it's probably obvious advice - it's pretty expensive but it's well worth it. We were sort of passing by so we didn't have the expense of flying to Ecuador in the first place because we were already in Ecuador. But it's still relatively expensive to do the Galapagos adventure trip. But it was well worth it.

I'd make sure about the wildlife guide that you get. Makes a very big difference to your trip if you don't have an English speaking one. There are two levels of guides - there are the more expensive guides who have got a qualification and are very knowledgeable. Then there are cheaper guides that just take you around and don't know much.

To be honest they're probably quite misleading on what they do know. So I'd say make sure you get yourself a quality guide but how you'd know that he's a quality guide before you get there, I'm not so sure. They have a sort of classification level, like Naturalist level 1, or Naturalist level 2… but certainly we got a good guide and it made a massive impact.

The top three Galapagos travel agents can advise you about the best guides...

Oh, it must be a 9 or a 10. I mean, if money wasn't a problem then it was a 10. The only downside of it is that you have to pay for such wonderful wildlife and such a wonderful experience, so it was relatively expensive. Worth it in my opinion, definitely.