The Galapagos Islands – cruise or island hopping?

Getting to visit the Galapagos Islands was one of the things that we were most looking forward to from our whole year away travelling. It is such a unique and iconic destination. And it certainly didn’t disappoint. We had a magical two weeks there, splitting our time between a cruise around Isabela Island and island hopping on Santa Cruz and San Cristobal Islands. If you wish to read about our experiences there then please click on the above links; whereas in this post I’m going to give my tuppence over whether you should visit the Galapagos on a cruise or by island hopping.

First thing to say is that no matter what you choose, you are going to have an amazing time. There is so much to see and do with either option that you shouldn’t stress out too much about it. So lets have a look at some pros and cons regarding each option:

Cruise

So let’s start with a cruise. Now I’m only going to discuss this in a rather general manner. There are plenty of blog posts out there that go into lots of detail about how to select the right cruise for you. The options include boats of varying sizes and quality; tours around different parts of the Galapagos; and a variety of lengths of the tour. If you need help with this sort of information then you really need to seek out an expert as I’m going to group them all together in the following discussion.

Pros:

• Everything is organised for you, from the meals to the activities.
• As well as the time you will save through having everything organised, you also save time whilst moving from one place to the next, so you can potentially see more.
• Some cruises visit areas that you cannot access through island hopping.
• You have a guide that gives you information about the places you visit and the wildlife you’ll encounter.
• You can change out of your wet clothes as soon as you’ve finished snorkelling in the cold waters (and potentially have a hot shower).
• There are opportunities to get last-minute-deals that make it cheaper.

Cons:

• The expense. Regardless of what type of cruise you do, it is almost definitely going to be more expensive doing a cruise than island hopping.
• Lack of flexibility. The balance to saving time on organising is that you have less choice on what you do.
• You spend most of your time on a boat. This might sound very obvious but if you’re susceptible to sea-sickness, then it’s something you need to consider.

Island Hopping

The other option is to ‘island-hop’. This is where you base yourself on one or more of the islands and you organise your activities from there. Some activities you can do just by yourself but you might also choose to go on the variety of day trips that are offered.

Pros:

• It is generally much cheaper than a cruise.
• You have more flexibility in what you choose to do.
• You can help your budget even further by taking advantage of the many free activities that you can do on the islands.
• You can still access most of the same destinations that people on a cruise can visit, by taking day tours and by using the inter-island ferries.
• You can still see the iconic wildlife.
• It can be nice to spend more time on dry land.

Cons:

• You probably won’t be able to see as many places / do as many activities in the same time period.
• There are some places that can only be accessed as part of a cruise.
• When you take a day trip, you can spend a lot of time on the speed boats getting to the destination.
• These speed boats are smaller and thus it feels much more choppy (again something to consider if you get sea-sick).
• You have to expend much more time and effort in getting organised.
• Day tours can still be very expensive.

So which one should you choose?

As I said earlier, there are no bad options here. Both choices will lead to an amazing trip. But from our experience there may be a couple of things you may want to consider.

If money were no object then going on a cruise would be the better option. But given that this won’t be the case for almost everyone who will read this post then I’ll move on to our thought processes when we were deciding.

The main suggestion I’d make is for you to do your research on what you actually want to see and do on your trip to the Galapagos. There are plenty of blog posts and websites out there that offer a lot of information and inspiration. After you have done this then a clearer picture should have formed about whether it is necessary to take one of the cruises or not. When we did this we found that out of the major places we wanted to see, there was only the area around Fernandina Island and the north of Isabela that could not be accessed with a day trip. When we looked further, it seemed that these areas could only be reached on the longer cruises that were way over our budget. So we decided to just island hop. But then…

When we got to Quito in Ecuador our hostel also had a tour desk and was offering advice about last-minute deals for Galapagos cruises. We thought we may as well chat to them and unbelievably there was a cruise going during our time-window that went to the exact places we wanted to go. Not only that, they were able to cut off the start of the cruise (that went to places we weren’t so bothered about) and have it pick us up at a later port. This meant that the price, whilst still expensive, was now something to which we could stretch. And we had an amazing time on the cruise. The destinations we went to were incredible, there was a really enjoyable variety of activities, the cabins were comfortable and the food was great. For more information, feel free to read the page on the cruise. So my second piece of advice is to check on last-minute deals on cruises. If you’re lucky (it helps if you’re a bit flexible in terms of dates) then there may be an opportunity that is just too good to say no to.

If there is not a suitable cruise for you within your budget then don’t worry. By island hopping you can still visit almost all of the same major places and you are still able to experience the unique nature that the Galapagos is famous for. You might just have to rush a bit more and accept that you may not have time for everything. In terms of what you can see for what you’ll pay, you can definitely make it so that your island-hopping trip is much more cost-effective than going on a cruise. We spend a few days based on Santa Cruz and a few days based on San Cristobal and there was so much to do. We also had friends who had time based on Isabela and they were able to do a couple of activities that we weren’t, as they were not included on the cruise itinerary (e.g. a trip to Los Tuneles and a full hiking excursion to Sierra Negra).

Final thoughts

So my overall opinion is that the cruises are amazing but unless they are going to the exact places that you want to visit, then they are probably not worth the expense given what you can do whilst island-hopping.

And my final thought is that if you ever get the chance to go to the Galapagos, regardless of whether it is on a cruise or island-hopping, just go. It is an unbelievable and unique place. The ‘how’ is not really so important and what ever you are able to do, you won’t regret it.