Bartolome Island Full Day Tour

It was a very exciting trip. One of the most beautiful in my life. Very good organization and professionalism. I recommend Viator as organizer.

It's a long day at 10 hrs, but the landscapes of Isla Bartolome' are stunning. The Hike to the summit of the Island is not difficult, but there are lots of stairs. Worth the climb! Snorkeling was an added bonus, seeing many marine animals, seals and fish.

My wife and I went on this tour and really enjoyed it. It's a full day but the guides take great care of you. We even got to snorkel with the penguins! Highly recommend this tour!

Super duper pricey tour, but perhaps Galapagos are all like that. Looks to be fully booked up so not sure if any chance to book last minute at the local shops and/or if it would be any cheaper. Pick up location was changed at the last minute (morning of pick up!) so please make sure to check your texts (but it totally makes sense, and they should just have given that pick up location at the beginning). Long ride out to the jetty, then onto a smallish boat with some space for sunbathing. Snacks were provided and the lunch was really excellent! Guide and boat crew were really really nice. Hike up to the viewpoint at Bartolome was great, where a Galapagos hawk came and hang out with us for really long. Also swam with penguins while snorkelling in super cold water - that was the highlight of the day. Long boat then shuttle ride back to town, where we got back around 5pm. A great day out!

Sadly this was my least favorite tour of all of the 6 tours I did in the Galapagos (even though it was BY FAR the most expensive). The tour started off well with great information from the tour guide and we then boarded the ship. We then started our long 2.5 hr journey to Bartolomé. Once we arrived, the guide gave explanations about the volcanic matter on the island, and we moved on to the snorkeling part of the tour. This is where things started going south. The snorkel equipment appeared to be very low quality - we were brought out to the snorkel spot by dingy boat without getting a chance to try out the equipment. My first mask was broken, and I had to flag down a dingy boat driver to get another one. The second mask didn’t work either and made the snorkeling impossible getting lots of salt water in my eyes. I got frustrated and rather than trying to flag down the dingy boat again, I decided to end my snorkeling early. Also disappointingly, the tour guide did not show us where to snorkel, so we were all out swimming around aimlessly and with fairly strong currents - it did not seem safe at all. After snorkeling, we were rushed into the very cold air conditioned cabin of the boat to eat our cooked meal. The meal was delicious but we were all freezing and struggling to eat the meal with our shaking hands. We then could not leave to head back to Santa Cruz until all meals were finished and cleaned up, to begin the long 2.5 hr journey back. During the trip back, our tour guide slept and didn’t do any ‘guiding’ or educating. Our boat was also passed by several similar ships and a small cruise ship, so I’m not sure if it was necessary that we drove that slowly, or if the crew was trying to save fuel costs. Overall, it felt like a wasted and very expensive day in the Galapagos, and I preferred my much shorter snorkeling excursions hands down to this one, sadly!

My favorite day of my ten day trip to the Galapagos. The island is stunning and it feels like you’re in National Geographic. I learned so much about volcanoes and volcanic rock. The snorkelling was also fantastic - i snorkelled with a sea lion.

The Captain and crew of Yate Espanola did a fantastic job keeping everyone safe, well fed, comfortable, and entertained. They provided a lovely breakfast of coffee eggs, toast, marmalade, and a delicious lunch of tuna steaks, veggies, and maracuja iced tea. Our group was diverse in age and interests - some wanted to take photos and remain dry on the boat/beach; others (myself included) could not wait to go snorkeling with the sea lions, penguins, turtles, and more. The snorkelers were encouraged to snorkel back to the yacht in lieu of riding the dingy with the dry folks. This allowed us to have more time with the animals in the water and maximize our time on Bartolomé!

This was the most expensive tour I took in Galapagos and for good reason! The other tours are pricey for no reason, this was a luxury tour and everything was simply made to perfection - the vessel, the crew, the guide, the operation, lunch and the snack bar , the whole service throughout the day was impeccable and worth every penny.

Nature Galapagos – Christian We did the Bartolome Island tour with Nature Galapagos on 27 April 2023, it was one of the best tour we have done. I pre-booked this tour a few months before arriving, communicating with Christian at Nature Galapagos was so easy. Communication was done via email, Christian was very fast at responded with questions I had, and received confirmation very quick. The day before our tour I reached out to Christian to verify everything was still a go ahead, Christian responded, everything is good. The day of the tour to Bartolome Island– One of the tour guides met us at our hotel lobby, and waited for the bus to come pick us up (there was 19 people on our tour- so the bus had to go to different hotels for pick up), once the bus picked us up we had to drive about 45 minutes to the boat (yacht). Bus was very cleaning, and very comfortable. Our tours was divided into two groups (Spanish speaking and English speaking) once we arrived to the pier we took a water taxi to the yacht. We arrived on the yacht, with a chef, refillable water and coffee/tea. The yacht was very spacious, clean, and comfortable. While going to the Bartolome Island, we saw sea turtles swimming and lots of different fish. We arrived at Bartolome Island, the first thing we did was go for a hike to get one of the most beautiful views of the island. You do not want to miss this. We had to take a small little raft boat to the land. The raft took each group separately. Sealions greeted us when we arrived. The group was divided into language (Spanish and English). We hiked in our group, hike was very easy, lots of wood stairs, I did the hike in my flip flops, however I live in flip flops. Lots of stretchy steps (broken steps). After the hike the raft picked us up and took us around the corner of the island where we saw the Galapagos penguins sitting on the rocks. We got pictures of the penguins and the scenery. After we returned to the yacht and had a snack while getting our snorkeling gear ready. Once ready the raft picked us up and we went snorkelling. The snorkelling was amazing, where we swam with the penguins, fish, starfish, stingrays and sharks. We snorkelled for about 45 minutes, if you wanted to you could snorkel for about an hour as some people did. Returned back to yacht and had a fantastic lunch served by the tour guides, and staff. We had a huge piece of fish, vegetables and rice, juice, wine, coffee, and dessert. On the way back to land most people had a nap on the boat. After we returned I reached out to Christian to see if he could contact the vendor for some of the penguins pictures (our camera died at that time of the tour), he reached out and we received some pictures. Overall I would recommend this tour, Christian was very easy to communicate with via what’s app, and it was a fantastic tour, we were very satisfied with this tour.

I kept getting reminders for my excursion departure at 0600 on day I booked. I have done Viator many times without incident .I had no reason to doubt my booking but had a weird feeling I wanted more detail as to departure as all they said was wharf . At Santa Cruz that is not specific so I called Nature Galapagos the provider listed on my ticket . They initially said I was not on the list and then they found my name . I spent over 500 Canadian!!! They were able to book me 2 days later on a fabulous yacht the Windrose. It was luxurious the guide excellent we saw penguins the view fabulous. The crew and food excellent. I happened to have flexibility - most people coming here don’t spend over 2 weeks. Deal with providers directly - there are Facebook groups that are full of great tips with companies. You can also show up and book - maybe not when it’s high season. I had 2 cancellations so I booked other trips withDiscovery Galapagos. So booking a nightmare but trip excellent you could probably get it cheaper dealing with companies.