After 58 cruises, I may have just found my favorite one yet! We just returned from a cruise to the Galapagos on the Celebrity Flora, and it was – spectacular. The Celebrity Flora is a purpose-built ship for the Galapagos, and it sails year-round with only 100 passengers. It’s a beautiful ship with an amazing itinerary! Here are 10 reasons that it may just be the perfect cruise for you!
1. The Flora is a True Luxury Ship – The Flora is a small, expedition-size ship, built in 2019. The rooms are beautiful and a great size. There are some ultra-large suites with incredible views on the aft of the ship, but there’s no bad room onboard. They are all verandahs or infinite verandahs, and that’s important on a cruise when you spend so much time looking at the ocean. The rooms are modern with tons of storage, comfortable beds, and nice bathrooms. The public spaces are beautiful, and the top deck has some great seating areas, indoors and out, and a nice Al Fresco restaurant. The ship doesn’t’ dock anywhere, we took zodiacs every time we got on and off the ship. We embarked and disembarked the zodiac from the aft of the ship, and what a beautiful aft of the ship that it was! It felt a little “celebrity” to embark and disembark like that! Or maybe that was just me? Nah. There are some other great luxury touches, like the inclusions (which we’ll talk more about later), the chef having freshly made snacks waiting for you when you get back from excursions, and the general level of service from the crew. The small size means more personalized attention, and it shows.
2. The Wildlife – Wildlife was everywhere! Everywhere. We were completely undersold on how much we would see. Wildlife is just that, wild, and it can certainly vary from cruise to cruise, but wow, we were blown away. And so much of the wildlife we saw is only found in the Galapagos. We saw Galapagos penguins, red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, flamingoes, sea lions, sea lion pups, fur seals, crabs, marine iguanas, land iguanas, hammerhead sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, giant schools of porpoises, and more! It was a nature lover’s or photographer’s dream.
3. There Are So Many Inclusions – If you are used to giant ocean ships, you may be surprised at how much is included onboard. Gratuities were included, premium Wi-Fi, and all drinks, alcoholic and non, including specialty coffees. All food was included, including some pre-packaged snacks that were great to grab and eat during off times. Celebrity supplied all of our snorkeling gear and wetsuits, and they were all high quality products. We had two nice hiking backpacks in our room, along with refillable water bottles with our names on them. The room had sunscreen and ChapStick for us, as well as a quality pair of binoculars to borrow. There were walking sticks for anyone that wanted them on the hikes. All excursions were included, and they even did our laundry for us a few times. Considering how many times we changed clothes during the day, the laundry was a lifesaver! Truth be told, I don’t know if I’ve ever spent so little onboard a cruise! Don’t tell my husband…
4. The Excursions Choices Are Great – Not only were the excursions included, but there was also a good selection, and they were great! Every evening, we all met in the lounge to hear about the next day’s excursion options. Every day there was a morning and an afternoon excursion, and on a few days, there was a third deep-water snorkeling excursion thrown in. They did a great job of describing the details and difficulties of each option. If anything, they generally oversold the difficulty level so there were no ugly surprises. They showed us pictures of the terrain, and pictures of the zodiac disembarkation points so we could tell how hard it would be to get on and off the zodiacs/tenders. When it was time for each excursion, we met in the lounge and signed up for a tender. Each tender had a naturalist assigned to it who led that group through the entire excursion. The naturalists were wonderful! The excursions would not have been the same without them. I’ll talk more about them later. We could have skipped excursions and stayed onboard, but once we realized how great they were, there was no way. We saw and did some amazing things!
5. The Snorkeling is Some of the Best There Is – Snorkeling in the Galapagos is top-notch. During the time of the year that we went, the water was chilly! Breathtakingly so in some places! But the wetsuits were great, and we got used to it quickly. We snorkeled with exotic fish, penguins, sea lions, reef tip sharks, giant manta rays, eagle rays, and I’m sure countless other creatures. We had 5 different snorkeling opportunities. One was cloudy and cold (or “refreshing” as the naturalists call it), and we still saw lots of things! My best advice is, don’t miss any of the snorkeling excursions. They are all different, and even if one the day before was cold, the next day may be totally different. You won’t regret it!
6. The Food is Wonderful – The food onboard was delicious! The dining room isn’t open all day, it’s open at set times, and as someone who likes to snack all day, I was concerned. I shouldn’t have been! The snacks that were waiting for us when we got back from excursions filled the gaps! They even had hot chocolate waiting for us after snorkeling! Brilliant. Room service was also available 24 hours a day and there were hot items available all day from room service, even for breakfast. We had a hot breakfast in our room a few times! Lunch and breakfast in the dining room were buffets, and you could also choose to eat on the top deck at the Al Fresco restaurant which was a la carte. Dinner in the dining room was also a la carte, or you could book the Al Fresco restaurant up top, which was no additional cost, they just asked that guests make reservations. We never went hungry!
7. The Crew and Naturalists Are Top Notch – The ratio of crew to guests was impressive. 100 guests to 80 crew members! Wowsers! And, all but two of the crew were Ecuadorians (if you didn’t know, the Galapagos Islands are a part of Ecuador), and they could not have been more friendly and welcoming to us as we visited their country. We were so impressed with the friendliness of everyone onboard. They tried to greet us by name whenever they could. Our friends onboard had their names in foam on their lattes the first morning, without even introducing themselves. The crew just knew! They were always there to help and make sure everything was going well. The Naturalists were superb. They were knowledgeable, and personable, and added real value to the excursions. They also took photos on our excursions and everyone got a thumb drive full of pictures at the end of the week! It was such a great touch.
8. There’s Glamping! – You heard me! Glamping! Glamping was one of the few things with an additional cost onboard, and I suspect they needed to charge because of the limited availability. On the top deck, there were two double cabanas that you could rent for the night for $299. Each double cabana had a table on one side, and a bed on the other. The night began with a private four-course dinner brought to you by your own server. There was also a cabana attendant who checked on us and gave us a phone to contact him if we ever needed anything. He asked how many blankets and pillows we wanted and made sure the bed was ready when we were. We were given some games like Jenga and Dominoes, as well as an iPad full of movies if we wanted to watch any. When we were ready for bed, we placed our breakfast order for the morning, and adjourned to the other cabana with the bed. They closed the cabana from the back and we settled in for the night. The front was open to the ocean and stars. Because we were so close to the equator, we could see both the northern and southern hemispheres of stars! We fell asleep to the sound of the ocean and woke up to gorgeous views and a hot breakfast waiting for us. I loved it! This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing! When will I ever get to glamp on a cruise ship again?
9. Celebrity Makes Getting There a Breeze – Getting to Baltra n the Galapagos Islands, where you board the Flora, is not easy! But if you package it up with Celebrity, it’s easy! Celebrity takes care of everything! And bonus – they usually have included air or a huge discount on it. So, there’s even more reason to do it all through them! When you add air with Celebrity, you add two nights in Quito before your trip, and one night after, to make it a 10-night trip. You are in the Celebrity bubble the moment you get off the flight in Quito. They pick you up at the airport and take you to a very nice hotel for the night. On the full day you have in Quito, you eat breakfast in the hotel and then leave for some tours around town in small groups. We saw the sights of Quito and took a trip to the equator. We had a wonderful lunch in a monastery with the whole group. Dinner was with the entire group again close to the hotel at an excellent restaurant. The next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we traveled to the airport and boarded a chartered flight to Baltra. After landing, we took a short ten-minute trip to the ship tenders. It was all seamless! After the cruise, we did the same thing in reverse back to Quito for the night! Even the guests that had red-eyes that night were given a hotel room to relax in, with dinner at the hotel. Celebrity took us back to the airport in time for our flight, and our wonderful vacation came to a close.
10. You Can Add on Machu Pichu – If you don’t want your vacation to come to an end so quickly, or just want to see Machu Pichu in Peru, there’s a Machu Pichu add-on you can do as well! I mean, who doesn’t want to see Peru? In fact, on our cruise, about 25% of the guests decided to take advantage of the proximity to this storied location and were headed to Peru as we had to travel home. They just wanted to keep staying in that Celebrity bubble! It’s a great place to be!
Do you have any questions about the Flora? Just ask! We are happy to answer!
