sapphire.
galapagos is worth for all the efforts to get there. keep saving. Yes i spent one week on Ecuador's mainland, been at Guayaquil and Quito, It was really nice. hope i could have been some more days to go to Cuenca and Banos, as so many persons advised me. If you like hiking and mountains, you'll have a lot of fun at Quito and surroundings.
The dive operator i use, was galapagos sub aqua, and they arrange the live-aboard trip. Ricardo help us also with plane tickets and changing schedules on our flights from mainland to galapagos, and he also arranged Janet, one of our dive buddies, reservations for her trip at Ecuador mainland. (
http://www.galapagos-sub-aqua.com/about.php) I think he can offer also other boats and options.
Our dive master, recommend us also, the deep blue, as he said they will be sponsoring some scientist to go tag whalesharks, so it might be interesting to go on a trip with some whalesharks experts, if they offer that option... (they plan to do it at cocos, malpelo and galapagos)
Our boat was really nice, the food was excellent, the best was the friendly atmosphere with all the divers from differents countries, and the crew, you don't really need many things there to enjoy a lot.