Trip Report 2 Weeks in Galapagos in Dec - Land + Liveaboard

[jjmochi]

Describing your trip report as amazing would be an understatement. I have never read so much specifics with tons and tons of helpful information. You are rivaling DrRich for poster of the year! We were there in January so I'll just give a few thoughts on your comments.
1. We were on the Calipso and the crew, boat and food were the opposite of your experience. Crew did everything or nothing for you based on what you wanted. Keeping your wetsuit on between dives is nuts in that weather. We had 4 hot showers on the back of the boat...always hot...and the crew would help you either get there in your wetsuit or get your wetsuit off and get you there for a warm up then wrap a HOT towel around you and offer you hot chocolate. We always laughed because they would even bend down and help you take your boats and socks off...if you wanted them to. First dive was at 6:30 am after very light snack. All in all, everyone of our group (16...we had the whole boat), loved the boat and the crew.
2. Wolf and Darwin were a bit hazy so we saw schools of hammerheads as shadows. We did get lots of closer encounters in small, 1 to 4 groupings. For the marine iguanas, spouse and I wore a 7 mm, 3 mm hooded vest, two lavacores (one long sleeve and one short), a beanie over the hood on the vest and another 2mm hood over the beanie. Water temp was 59 F and we were lightly shaking after 35 minutes. On the Mola Mola dive we only saw one in the haze. Temp was surprisingly warmer than we expected...68 degrees.
3. Had the same conversation with my wife when we got home...If the water temp isn't over 80 F, I'm not going. We've been blessed with being able to travel for diving since the kids left for college. We're now in our late 60s and we can't handle cold, even topside...though we live in the Chicago area...go figure.
4. A couple in our group stayed for an additional week and did the naturalist tour on the Calipso. Same itinerary (alternating hiking and snorkeling) light snack, then hike, breakfast then snorkel, lunch then either hike or snorkel then reverse after afternoon snack. They loved the 7 day naturalist trip.
5. Since we spent 5 nights in Quito, our trip had some variety and we really loved Quito and the hotel we stayed at. All in all, we're glad we went but agree with you that maybe price to enjoyment ratio was out of whack a bit. Others on the trip were more "over the moon" because they handled the cold a bit better.
Thanks so much for your post. Those with an interest in the Galapagos will benefit greatly from the time you took to write it.

Rob

That sounds much more comfortable! At least we had dry towels after every dive and they did have really yummy hot chocolate as well. I wish I was less of a cold water wimp (especially being Canadian lol, so I can relate to the Chicago comment), there was a German couple who had a blast and kept making fun of my gazillion layers. I do think my expectations for wildlife was set higher than usual to compensate for the discomfort of diving in the cold. Glad to see you had a great time and perhaps our experience could have been much different if we went with a better boat. Will keep the Calipso in mind for the future, although I think it will be many years before we go back, and when we do it will be with kids so may be naturalist trip over liveaboard (it's an amazing place for kids).

 

[jjmochi]

So there were 2 people in my dive group who knew the Master owner and wrote a very lengthy email to them afterwards with all of the complaints/issues, I'm not sure if they heard back or got offered anything. However I think I made a mistake and that ship has sailed for me because I just made another (fully paid urgh) booking with Master Liveaboards on the Philippines Siren for April (on the back of all the praise and raves from our dive group who said it was night and day from our experience on the Galapagos Master). I doubt they'll offer credit/refund for the Apr trip but maybe still worth a try... I didn't think they would give anything since nothing that disastrous happened (no one died or was lost for days etc).

 

[also_anon_dc]

I didn't think they would give anything since nothing that disastrous happened (no one died or was lost for days etc).

"Not having someone die on your boat" is a pretty low bar. It's not like you were on a cheap Red Sea liveaboard. When you pay $6-7,000 for a trip it is reasonable to request you not share your room with termites. I wouldn't ask for a full refund, I'd ask for maybe a $1,000 credit towards the Philippines trip.

 

[drrich2]

huge termite problem

I have a question about this. I've been thinking about it since I read your mention of it. I haven't been on that boat; my one trip to the Galapagos was aboard the Humboldt Explorer, back in Jan. 2020. If my memory got jogged right, I think a staff back then apologetically explained there were some sort of gnats that infested things, and were virtually impossible to keep out entirely, but they'd be actively treating for them.

It didn't turn out to be a problem for me, and I don't recall other guests complaining about them, either. But it was clearly something that at times could be a 'thing.'

I wasn't on your boat, I didn't see your bugs, and so I'm just asking, what's the confidence level those were termites?

I'd think the crew were be afraid to get way out by Wolf and Darwin with termites actively munching on the boat the whole time. But I've been surprised by people before, so who knows?

 

[jjmochi]

I have a question about this. I've been thinking about it since I read your mention of it. I haven't been on that boat; my one trip to the Galapagos was aboard the Humboldt Explorer, back in Jan. 2020. If my memory got jogged right, I think a staff back then apologetically explained there were some sort of gnats that infested things, and were virtually impossible to keep out entirely, but they'd be actively treating for them.

It didn't turn out to be a problem for me, and I don't recall other guests complaining about them, either. But it was clearly something that at times could be a 'thing.'

I wasn't on your boat, I didn't see your bugs, and so I'm just asking, what's the confidence level those were termites?

I'd think the crew were be afraid to get way out by Wolf and Darwin with termites actively munching on the boat the whole time. But I've been surprised by people before, so who knows?

I'm not sure - they looked like termites, and when we discussed amongst ourselves the other guests said they thought they were termites too. I'm not a bug expert by any means.

Of all the cabins, only the upper deck cabins had this problem. Our room had it on day 1 (adults), another room had it on day 1 (larvae), and another room got it halfway through the trip (adults - I think our bugs moved to their room after we asked the staff to start fumigating every time we dove/ate so when we came back the room would have already cleared a bit and we wouldn't see them).

Their solution was pretty basic tho - bug spray from a can, then vacuum up the dead bodies. That's why they kept coming back. If they got a proper exterminator and thoroughly fumigated in between trips maybe it would have resolved the problem once and for all? I really doubt it's seasonal gnats since we didn't see them in any of the common areas, or outside, or in any of the other islands/hotels we've stayed at. We even stayed at a pretty low budget B&B in Santa Cruz and things were spotless with no bugs.

The boat was in really poor shape in general. The wardrobe doors don't close, the drawers don't open, etc etc. So I think it's more of a (lack of) maintenance problem specific to the boat. We were also told the boat isn't actually run by Masters Liveaboards - it's a locally owned boat called Deep Blue that Masters just handle bookings for.

 

[jjmochi]

"Not having someone die on your boat" is a pretty low bar. It's not like you were on a cheap Red Sea liveaboard. When you pay $6-7,000 for a trip it is reasonable to request you not share your room with termites. I wouldn't ask for a full refund, I'd ask for maybe a $1,000 credit towards the Philippines trip.

Ok let me try that! I booked through PADI Travel for the Galapagos trip, should I go to the agent or Masters directly?

 

[also_anon_dc]

Ok let me try that! I booked through PADI Travel for the Galapagos trip, should I go to the agent or Masters directly?

My guess is Master directly. My assumption is that PADI just sends most of the money for bookings back to Master. Also, ultimately Master Liveaboards is responsible for the quality of the boat. Let us know what happens!

PS. Assuming you paid for two people in the Galapagos and two in the Philippines I’d ask for $2000 credit.

 

[jjmochi]

My guess is Master directly. My assumption is that PADI just sends most of the money for bookings back to Master. Also, ultimately Master Liveaboards is responsible for the quality of the boat. Let us know what happens!

PS. Assuming you paid for two people in the Galapagos and two in the Philippines I’d ask for $2000 credit.

Sent them a lengthy email with all the issues. I'm honestly not expecting anything in terms of credit, but we'll see! I think at least 3 of us (6/14 ppl on the trip) have written to them now so I hope they take it seriously.

 

[paolobl65]

thanks jjmochi for your detailed report , and sorry for all the disappointing events .

I'll board the Master next April so ... I understand I have to lower my expectation .

I have just few questions :
- why is required to keep your wetsuit on in between dive 1&2 and 3&4 ? is there any specific reason ? how long is the surface interval ? .... let me say it is the first time I heard such a thing about a Liveaboard .
- why and when the crew keep the weight out from BCD pockets ? I have Halcyon Eclipse BCD and I like to put the weights in the weight pockets around the tank and do not move them anymore so it is very annoying to set every time again.
- what was the crew answer about the hot water shortage complain ?
- what was the crew answer about the termites complain ? is it a relative new problem or a long time one ?
- I had a look to your Flickr album ( some very nice photos indeed ! ) and I'd like to ask you if you had the feeling Tokina 10-17 mm FE on cropped sensor ( same I have ) was too wide for this trip . Usually for Galapagos it is suggested a linear 10-22 mm lens on cropped sensor , but I don't like this set up because a big dome is required so I'd like to understand how big is the penalty to shot with Tokina .

sorry for all these question and many thanks for your answers
all my best
Paolo

 

[Scared Silly]

- why and when the crew keep the weight out from BCD pockets ? I have Halcyon Eclipse BCD and I like to put the weights in the weight pockets around the tank and do not move them anymore so it is very annoying to set every time again.

At least on our boat in the Galapagos the normal procedure when exiting the water was to first hand up your weights, then your tank/BCD, then your fins, then climb up the ladder. The crew lifts tank/BCD so they want the 10-20 lbs of weight off the tank/BCD so it is not as heavy.

Our tank/BCD set is similar to yours, fully integrated on the tank bands and not easily removed (but still releasable). So the boat driver had work harder. At the end of the week we made sure to tip him specifically for the extra work (normally tips are shared).