Galapagos on Nemo II
Debbie Foley from Canada and three friends went on a 17-day trip to Ecuador of which they spent the 11-18th January 2009 in the Galapagos on Nemo II. She submitted her review to Top Adventure Tours:
We spent months planning the holiday on the internet and ended up booking with Eva at Happy Gringo (make an enquiry). We emailed back and forth for many months and Eva was so gracious and never complained about the amount of questions we had.
She was so easy to deal with and emails were responded to quickly. We were travelling from Canada with a group of 4 and wanted the trips to be small but we wanted to see lots.
We booked a few day trips, Galapagos trip, Amazon and all airport transfers through them.
I want to be sure they get the praise they deserve.
We arrived in Quito late on a Thursday night and sure enough Milo from Happy Gringo was there to greet us. (We never worried about someone picking us up at the airport or getting us to the airport on time because they were always there.)
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He drove us to a great little B+B (Hostal Santa Barbara) which Eva had arranged for us and who treated us like family. It became our home base. We were able to leave extra luggage and shopping with them and we always felt like we returned home between adventures.
We spent many evening in front of their fireplace playing cards and having a cocktail.
We did a few day trips with Happy Gringo and as we requested it was only the 4 of us and we were treated to amazing trips that were not only tourist sites. We went to in-town markets and got to try any different fruit we wanted, we went to a private home where we treated to a weaver and his products.
On rainy days the tours could be adjusted to accommodate that and instead of river rafting we did the cable car and hummingbird tea house.
We had a tour guide that had studied Ecuador and could answer any question we ever thought of asking (Andrea).
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We also booked the Nemo II through Happy Gringo and were very pleased with our naturalist (Juan Carlos) and all staff. We were very fortunate and ended up with only 6 of us on the boat (more staff than guests).
We did have some issues with plugged toilets and broken air conditioners but they were quickly remedied. Our air conditioner broke down late at night and they called the mechanic back from town and he did what he could but no luck so they made up one of the extra rooms for us and fixed it in the morning.
We felt very fortunate to have the naturalist to ourselves (6 of us) when we saw some of the boats with 16 guests and 1 naturalist. We got to ask lots of questions and got lots of personal attention while doing Galapagos on Nemo II. We were able to land quickly rather than waiting for everyone else from the boat to go ashore.
Juan Carlos was very knowledgeable and did a great job in keeping the days busy. We were fortunate to have Juan Carlos know Steve Devine on Santa Cruz and we were able to go to his farm and see the wild tortoises (simply amazing to walk through open fields and see huge tortoises grazing).
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We were a little disappointed with the snorkelling. The fish, turtles and sharks were amazing but we did run into jelly fish at 2 of the spots and only were able to snorkel for 15 minutes before we were hauled back into the boat with stings on legs, arms and faces.
We also found a couple of the spots cloudy. What we saw was unbelievable but just imagine what we would have seen had we had more success.
We saw many turtles (4-5 ft across), black and white tip sharks, sting rays, manta rays, penguins, marine iguanas and way too many fish to speak of.
We did have a long day in Santa Cruz and wish we would have more warning about the day off so we could have maybe booked a scuba trip or another snorkel trip with someone on shore. Oh well a good day to shop and have a beer at the local bar.
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The days were very long (up at 6am) and going all day and we came home tired but with such good memories and unbelievable pictures.
The cruise of Galapagos on Nemo II was quite expensive but worth every penny; it was an amazing adventure and we all had a great experience.
This is a trip of a lifetime.
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