Bartolome Island Full Day Tour

The Captain and crew of Yate Espanola did a fantastic job keeping everyone safe, well fed, comfortable, and entertained. They provided a lovely breakfast of coffee eggs, toast, marmalade, and a delicious lunch of tuna steaks, veggies, and maracuja iced tea. Our group was diverse in age and interests - some wanted to take photos and remain dry on the boat/beach; others (myself included) could not wait to go snorkeling with the sea lions, penguins, turtles, and more. The snorkelers were encouraged to snorkel back to the yacht in lieu of riding the dingy with the dry folks. This allowed us to have more time with the animals in the water and maximize our time on Bartolomé!

This was the most expensive tour I took in Galapagos and for good reason! The other tours are pricey for no reason, this was a luxury tour and everything was simply made to perfection - the vessel, the crew, the guide, the operation, lunch and the snack bar , the whole service throughout the day was impeccable and worth every penny.

Nature Galapagos – Christian We did the Bartolome Island tour with Nature Galapagos on 27 April 2023, it was one of the best tour we have done. I pre-booked this tour a few months before arriving, communicating with Christian at Nature Galapagos was so easy. Communication was done via email, Christian was very fast at responded with questions I had, and received confirmation very quick. The day before our tour I reached out to Christian to verify everything was still a go ahead, Christian responded, everything is good. The day of the tour to Bartolome Island– One of the tour guides met us at our hotel lobby, and waited for the bus to come pick us up (there was 19 people on our tour- so the bus had to go to different hotels for pick up), once the bus picked us up we had to drive about 45 minutes to the boat (yacht). Bus was very cleaning, and very comfortable. Our tours was divided into two groups (Spanish speaking and English speaking) once we arrived to the pier we took a water taxi to the yacht. We arrived on the yacht, with a chef, refillable water and coffee/tea. The yacht was very spacious, clean, and comfortable. While going to the Bartolome Island, we saw sea turtles swimming and lots of different fish. We arrived at Bartolome Island, the first thing we did was go for a hike to get one of the most beautiful views of the island. You do not want to miss this. We had to take a small little raft boat to the land. The raft took each group separately. Sealions greeted us when we arrived. The group was divided into language (Spanish and English). We hiked in our group, hike was very easy, lots of wood stairs, I did the hike in my flip flops, however I live in flip flops. Lots of stretchy steps (broken steps). After the hike the raft picked us up and took us around the corner of the island where we saw the Galapagos penguins sitting on the rocks. We got pictures of the penguins and the scenery. After we returned to the yacht and had a snack while getting our snorkeling gear ready. Once ready the raft picked us up and we went snorkelling. The snorkelling was amazing, where we swam with the penguins, fish, starfish, stingrays and sharks. We snorkelled for about 45 minutes, if you wanted to you could snorkel for about an hour as some people did. Returned back to yacht and had a fantastic lunch served by the tour guides, and staff. We had a huge piece of fish, vegetables and rice, juice, wine, coffee, and dessert. On the way back to land most people had a nap on the boat. After we returned I reached out to Christian to see if he could contact the vendor for some of the penguins pictures (our camera died at that time of the tour), he reached out and we received some pictures. Overall I would recommend this tour, Christian was very easy to communicate with via what’s app, and it was a fantastic tour, we were very satisfied with this tour.

I kept getting reminders for my excursion departure at 0600 on day I booked. I have done Viator many times without incident .I had no reason to doubt my booking but had a weird feeling I wanted more detail as to departure as all they said was wharf . At Santa Cruz that is not specific so I called Nature Galapagos the provider listed on my ticket . They initially said I was not on the list and then they found my name . I spent over 500 Canadian!!! They were able to book me 2 days later on a fabulous yacht the Windrose. It was luxurious the guide excellent we saw penguins the view fabulous. The crew and food excellent. I happened to have flexibility - most people coming here don’t spend over 2 weeks. Deal with providers directly - there are Facebook groups that are full of great tips with companies. You can also show up and book - maybe not when it’s high season. I had 2 cancellations so I booked other trips withDiscovery Galapagos. So booking a nightmare but trip excellent you could probably get it cheaper dealing with companies.

I enjoyed the steep walk up to the top, the boardwalk, steps and handrail made it easy to return to the bottom. Viewing down below, the colors of the water, the islands and Pinnacle Rock pleaded to be photographed. Penguins, birds and sea lions added movement to the peaceful island.