Celebrity Cruises, Celebrity Xpedition, South America

Celebrity Xpeditions to the Galapagos & Machu Pichu. This was an unbelievable trip from swimming with sea lions and giant turtles to witnessing wave albatross and blue footed boobies flying just overhead or performing their mating rituals’ one step in front of you. On our final day we took the Higham Bingham express down from Cusco at 11500 feet to the glorious Machu Picchu on its own little pinnacle at around 8000 feet. Celebrity Cruises treated us royally all of the way. The mainland hotels were all superb and the service on the boat exemplary. Conservation is taken very seriously and the Galapagos authorities search your bags BEFORE you leave the mainland to fly 600 miles over the Pacific Ocean just in case you have some seeds, fruit or livestock. With two trips ashore every day each with about 12 other guests and one Galapagos naturalist (government approved) the amount of nature that we witnessed close up was extraordinary. The diversity of the same species on different islands was obvious even to our untrained eyes so it is little wonder that a naturalist such as Darwin would be inspired. We were not allowed to interact with the wildlife but had we wished I am sure we could have touched virtually every creature we saw. Quite often an animal would decide the well-marked path was the best place to sit so you have to make a decision, do you risk a ticking off from the naturalist by stepping off the path or risk disturbing the very animals you are not supposed to interact with. In several places the sand or shale around the paths contained turtle or iguana eggs so care was definitely required. For the nature lovers the list is enormous but the following are just a few examples: - a Right Whale with her baby, a pod of dolphins feeding, marine & land iguanas, Galapagos penguins, giant sea turtles, eagle rays, wave albatross, blue footed boobies, Nazca boobies several of the famous finch species, lava lizards, hawks, displaying frigate birds with their bright red throat sacs, snakes, octopus, sally lightfoot crabs, a myriad of fish species, reef shark, white tipped shark, several species of giant tortoise and of course lonesome George possibly the last of his species on the planet. Everything was included except drinks at the mainland hotels. This struck us as slightly bazaar as expensive hotel rooms and meals were included but we had to buy bottled water or cola. We paid for no drinks on the boat and although we were expecting “Ecuador whisky” etcetera we were given quality branded products. It was our lowest cruise tab ever at $50 and that was for a hat as the sun on the equator is fearsome! Trips ashore took place morning and afternoon with lunch on board out of the way from the midday sun. The food was the only slight disappointment and not up to Celebrities cruise ship standards but it was still probably 4 stars. Peru was very interesting but the altitude in Cusco did take us a couple of days to get used to despite taking the altitude sickness tablets prescribed before we left the UK. More time between landing in Cusco and exploring the Inca ruins would have been a great help as we did not get the most out of the city or the Sacred Valley. Machu Pichu did not disappoint it is a magical location and in our experience without comparison.