TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums World Wide Travel Amazon and the Galapagos

Hi all. Looking for input on travel companies that provide Amazon and Galapagos expeditions. Any info is appreciated.

I don't have any info on that topic, but I think I would love to be you!! Looking at trips to South Africa AND the Amazon!!

My daughter as part of her "college experience" did a 4 week mini semester in Ecuador and the Galapagos.
Ecuador was a land adventure, but the Galapagos was on a small yacht (16 people)
She said the small boat was great!
Here is an example of the size boat she and her classmates were on: https://www.galapagosislands.com/cruises/yacht (example only)
She went in early January and the weather was perfect

let us know what you decide

Carol, these are two big trips and as I said, I’m feeling overwhelmed about the planning so I better get started. Thank you for all your work and all of the wonderful participants who are so generous with their knowledge. TomB, thank you. I’ll update as we firm things up.

Good luck!! Sounds exciting!

We used Aqua Expeditions for an upper Amazon River Tour (https://www.aquaexpeditions.com/cruise-ship/aria-amazon/). It was one of our most memorable trips. Great Naturalists Guides that were excellent, interesting daily tours through the rainforests and tributaries of the river and excellent cuisine on board. Very small groups so we got almost one on one attention.

For our Galapagos tour we went on a 96 passenger Celebrity ship. Which was enjoyable because they broke us down to 16 person groups. There are a number of other tour companies that use small boats with between 8,16 or 32 passengers. Choose the company with boats/ships that most fit your travel style as they all visit essentially the same parts of the same islands.

Thank you, Fletch. I was looking at Aqua Expeditions. It looks like a class act. One question - did you combine these two trips? We were thinking that it might make sense since it is such a long (and expensive) flight to get there. Your thoughts? Also, we’ve never sailed on Celebrity, although we have heard good things about them. Our favorite is Azamara which is similar, I think.

We did separate trips but there's nothing to stop you from doing both "back to back" as it could save you on airfare.

That was what we were thinking.

Yes, several of the big brand cruise lines have smaller ships that do the Galapagos. For the best experience you should look for a tour operator that combines 3, 4, 7 night locally based boats and a land package. A&K a is top of the line operator

Thank you, Jphart.

Odd, I thought related initially to Amazon delivery to Glapagos. Carol, we hope also to return to South Africa this Summer. Been there several times a great place, but so sad to see how the government is ruining it.