In this episode of Luxury Cruising, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis welcomes Joelle and Jeff, who share their unforgettable group trip aboard the Celebrity Flora in the Galápagos. They discuss why they chose Celebrity Flora, the luxurious yet expedition-style experience, standout service, incredible wildlife encounters, and practical tips for booking this bucket-list destination.
What does a true luxury expedition cruise look like? In this episode, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis sits down with Joelle and Jeff to dive deep into their recent sailing on the Celebrity Flora to the Galápagos Islands. With only 100 passengers and an impressive crew-to-guest ratio, the Flora delivers a unique blend of expedition adventure and high-end comforts.
The duo shares why they selected Celebrity Flora over smaller ships or Silversea, the benefits of traveling with a large group, penthouse suite perks, all-inclusive experiences, exceptional personalized service, and the abundant wildlife they encountered. They also offer candid advice on pre-cruise planning, flights, and what to expect from this once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Episode Highlights:
Joelle and Jeff are passionate travelers and retired professionals who spend their time exploring the world. Jeff founded Purple Lemming Travel seven years ago after a corporate career, building on 20 years of organizing group trips for friends. Together, they specialize in curating memorable luxury adventures, from milestone celebrations to bucket-list expeditions like their recent Galápagos sailing aboard Celebrity Flora.
Listen to previous episodes our guests were on:
Ep 19 Amawaterways European Cruises
Ep 43: Celebrity Apex Iconic Suite: https://luxury-cruising-podcast-come-explore-the-world-in-style.simplecast.com/episodes/celebrity-apexs-iconic-suite-cruise-to-iceland-ireland-ep-43
EP 48 Exploring Antarctica on Scenic:
Email: purplelemmingtravel@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/purplelemmingtravel
Website: Purplelemmingtravel.com
About the Host:
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a pediatrician, executive, and life coach for neurodiverse physicians—and the passionate host behind Luxury Cruising. She brings expert insight and honest excitement to every interview, helping curious travelers elevate their adventures at sea.
📍 Website: luxurycruising.net
📧 Email: luxurycruisingpodcast@gmail.com
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/krystalsodaitis
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👥 Want to be a guest? Fill out this form to connect.
Looking for the perfect spa experience: Spa table
[00:00:00] Welcome back to Luxury Cruising. I'm your host, Crystal Sarditis, and we've got a special treat today. We have Joel and Jeff, who have been on the podcast separately, but today they are both here to talk about their really cool recent trip on the Celebrity Flora to the Galapagos. So, in whichever order you would like, Joel, Jeff, please tell the audience anything you would like them to know about you.
Uh, hi everyone, my name's Joel, and Jeff and I are both retired from our, at least our original careers, and spend all of our time that we can traveling. Really looking forward to telling you guys about what was truly an awesome experience on the Flora.
My name is Jeff, and I started the travel business about seven years ago after leaving the corporate world. We have been putting together trips for our friends for about 20 [00:01:00] years. So at that point I was like, "Well, I might as well try and get paid out of some of these trips we organize." So that's where it basically started.
Awesome. So the Galapagos is on a lot of people's bucket lists, and definitely I wanna hear why decided now was the time to visit the Galapagos, but there are several different options to visit the Galapagos. Not every cruise line, not every cruise ship goes there.
So what went into your decision to go with, Celebrity and the Celebrity Flora?
so no ship can have more than 100 people on board. And so it was the biggest ship, and we had 24 people on board, so it was a large group. So I wasn't gonna risk doing some of those smaller 16, 24-person ships.
Celebrity Flora is by far one of their best ships. Obviously, S-Silver Sea has exactly similar ship, um, 'cause it was built and then Celebrity sold it to them. But for whatever reason, [00:02:00] the Silver Sea ship is a lot more expensive, and we haven't figured out why, because they're basically the same.
But so we went with Celebrity Flora 'cause it was more affordable, as affordable as Galapagos can be, because it is not a cheap trip. It's a commitment, but it was awesome. it exceeded our expectations.
Yeah. When I was looking at making the decision, all the things that Jeff was talking about came into play, right?
The fact that we knew we'd have a good number of people but also because while this was a bucket list trip, as you mentioned, and it always is, we were actually celebrating a milestone birthday for Jeff as a group. And so it is a bucket list kinda thing, but I was looking for a balance of that expedition style.
So Jeff and I, on our own, had been to Antarctica on Scenic, which is obviously a clear expedition style ship. And I was looking for, yes, that expedition style, but I [00:03:00] still wanted some of those creature comforts. I wanted high-end dining. I wanted a nice suite to celebrate Jeff's birthday. We wanted the ability for our group to, you know, get together in a nice space at the end of the day.
And some of the ships, while they are certainly, it looks to be great for seeing Galapagos and that expedition part, because they are so small, they don't have much of an emphasis on the cuisine and- just kind of those things. There isn't any entertainment to speak of even on the Flora.
for one thing you're too tired really. But I was just looking for that nice blend of a ship that was big enough to have some of those amenities while still maintaining that expedition style, that true expedition. I wanna go out twice a day, I wanna go hiking, I wanna get on a kayak, I wanna do all those things when I'm in Galapagos, and we did.
Wow, that sounds awesome. And yes, if anybody wants to hear about Joelle's [00:04:00] experience in, Antarctica, we will definitely link that in the show notes, 'cause that was an amazing episode. how much did the known product go into the decision? Because you are semi-regular celebrity cruisers.
I know that from, you also- Mm-hmm ... were on talking about being in the celebrity, I think it was the penthouse suite or the apex suite?
The iconic suite.
iconic suite, yeah.
On the apex ...
Thank you. I knew there was apex in there somewhere. ... did any of that factor in, just that it was a known product?
Oh, definitely
I think especially for our friends. I think for us, I had done enough research that I kinda got comfortable with the decision, but I think certainly for our group, knowing that it was Celebrity, some of them have status on Celebrity, all of those kinds of things. In retrospect, honestly, none of that mattered because the [00:05:00] Flora product is so distinct in the Celebrity business model, and we can talk about that.
It's just a very different product. It really is, in a good way. And so at the end of the day, a whole lot of that didn't really matter, but you don't know that going in, right?
Yeah. So tell us what did you think of the Flora overall, I can't imagine the comparison probably between an Edge-class ship is probably there's no comparison.
But how, you know, if you've been on a Millennium or Solstice class of- Mm-hmm ... Celebrity, like how did it compare, if at all?
Well, it's hard to compare because there's only 100 people. There's only one bar. There's only really one restaurant, and there's one up top that's kinda like the pool bar, even though there's not much of a pool.
It's really one big kind of lounge where everyone hangs out at for the most part when you're doing the talks and all that kind of stuff. there's an observation [00:06:00] lounge, and there's upstairs where you can see the stars and the other discovery lounge. That's about it. Everything else it's cabins.
there's a spa. There's a small spa, and there's a very small gift store. But that's about it. Uh, when you get off on the excursions you're walking off the back on the marine deck which most other ships don't have. So that's basically the differences. But pretty much there's 50 cabins,
46 cabins are either on deck five or deck six. Deck five has an actual balcony, and deck six are all the infinite verandas where like the window comes down that kind of thing. There's two royal suites, and then there's the two penthouse suites in the back that are stacked on top of each other.
And we had, our group had both penthouse suites. So we were able to get some extra amenities that most others didn't really get. But yeah, it's only 100 people. You have to tender everywhere. there's no docking. But it was all very easy. To what else?
So I think he very [00:07:00] accurately described the difference in the physical ship, right?
It's just a much smaller ship. I personally focus more on the differences on the service side of this. You know, if I think about the focus of your podcast in saying, "Okay, what about this experience is luxurious?" we were in a penthouse suite, so certainly that was luxurious. But what was interesting to me as I started thinking through this in the context of your listeners, is this entire experience was luxurious on a level, and I don't mean just being in the penthouse suite.
Anybody that walked onto this ship, the entire experience was luxurious in a whole 'nother way. It felt much more, from an attitudinally, as far as, the interaction with the other guests, the interaction with the staff all of that felt much more like a high-end river cruise, I'd say. And by that I mean, on the Flora specifically, everything's included.
There are no drink [00:08:00] packages. Everything except spa services, obviously, and shopping. But I mean, there's no drink packages, there's no casino, there's none of that kind of thing. And so pretty much when you walk, all the excursions are included, all the expeditions are included, you know, everything's included.
And so again, it kind of more reminds me of a very upscale river cruise experience. And so that in and of itself, to me, is a very luxurious experience. I think when I was on your podcast once before, I mentioned that to me, not having to sign stuff all the time feels very luxurious, right?
Yeah.
And sometimes on the larger ships, a Celebrity Edge class, for example, or even I've been on a Millennium class you know, it's just the nature of the beast. You're signing stuff all the time, even if you're not gonna pay, because they don't know, right? They have to ask. On this ship, everybody has a level of inclusions that lead you to this experience of [00:09:00] whatever you want, just ask.
You know, one of our buddies that was with us, for example, asked for hot sauce at breakfast. They brought him, I think Tabasco or something sort of normal, and they could see on his face that he'd hoped for something more interesting. He ran back to the crew mess and got this hot sauce that they use, this Ecuadorian hot sauce that they use in the crew mess, and brought it out, and that's what we ate the whole rest of the trip because it's just interesting, right?
And that's the kind of thing. It was a very personal experience. You got to know the crew at a way that... There were 87 crew to 98 guests on our sailing.
Amazing. Yeah, and that makes sense given the size of the ship, you know, maximum of 100 passengers, that is closer to a river cruise size. And I agree, having that high crew-to-passenger ratio, and that personalization, that level of attention definitely does up-level it into a luxury [00:10:00] experience
And in a ship of that size, I can imagine that the penthouse suite is not gonna be, 3,000 square feet like on a giant ship. But what was that penthouse suite like?
About 1,200 square feet we had two balconies. We had the small one and, like, the bigger kind of wraparound one.
And we were on the sixth floor. The one on five had one continuous balcony and it was a hair smaller, I think the room was 1,200 square feet .
Yeah, the room was 1,200 square feet. I would say what it struck me about it, it was very well-conceived. I guess it was well-designed.
There wasn't a ton of wasted space. So when you think about an iconic suite or some of the other really big suites on the bigger ships, yes, they look really cool and there's a lot of floor space, and if you put 40 people in there or 50 people in there, you'd use it all. But generally speaking, there's big chunks of floor that, quite honestly, you're not really using on a regular basis, and, you know, they'll put a grand piano in there or something.
[00:11:00] This was more compact. It had a good size. It had a bedroom and then a decent-sized living room that had a sofa and a couple of chairs, you know. Tons of storage. Lots of little cubby holes here and there and everywhere. You know, a couple of TVs. One of the TVs was like the one in the iconic suite on the Edge class that it comes out of the ceiling kind of thing.
The balconies were very, very cool because, again, these two suites take up the entire back of the ship and the balconies are cantilevered to each other. I think that's the right word. they go like this, right? One's this way and one's this way so that both of you have a view down to the marine deck where everybody's coming and going on the tenders and also, have some sky.
You can see that kind of thing. Nice furniture out there. The whole nine yards. Interestingly, and at first I was a little thrown by it, but in retrospect it, it didn't matter because of the crew ratio. They do not have a true butler. So if you had a [00:12:00] penthouse suite on any other Celebrity ship, you would have someone that they defined as a butler.
this ship does not have that concept, but half the time we were served by the director of hotel services or the director of housekeeping. We had our guy, whatever he was called, or suite steward or something, you know, and he did a great job keeping everything clean and we had a mini bar.
Everybody has a stocked mini bar, meaning including beer, that kind of thing. The penthouse suites And the royal suites can also have spirits in their room. So I mean, he did a great job keeping all that organized. But, as people do in the big suites, we threw a cocktail party, for example, for our group, and we were able to have both suites.
So we had both, a cocktail party running in both suites at one time. but the director of hotel operations and the director of housekeeping handled that, you know? So I mean, it's just everybody pitches in to do everything.
Yeah. It would make sense on a ship of that size. And you're right, like with that level of attention, you don't necessarily need a butler.
You've got your room steward, and [00:13:00] the director it probably is like the director of hotel or the director of food and beverage are so close to the action, and they probably have to be involved, that-
...
It makes sense that they were also heavily involved in your cocktail party, Jeff, I think you said there's only one dining room?
Yes. It's like river cruising. It's one big dining room.
And how was the food? What did you think?
Awesome. It was amazing. So the one thing about the Flora is all the food has to be from Ecuador. Like, it's all local. And all the crew has to be from Ecuador, and the naturalists all have to be from the Galapagos.
That's how they drive that situation for the crew. breakfast is breakfast, but dinner every night was amazing. It was the best celebrity food 'cause it was, like, 98% seafood. It was amazing.
And locally sourced, so- Yes ... it's so fresh.
And I didn't realize that, that the crew all have to be from Ecuador, the naturalists have to be [00:14:00] from the Galapagos. It really is almost like cultural immersion.
Yes. And, it was really interesting. The crew, because they're all from Ecuador they really love seeing us get out and be amazed by the animals and, you know, all of those good things.
But all the housekeeping staff, all the food and beverage staff the chef is Ecuadorian, even though he had worked on Celebrity for like, 15- 20 years
20 years elsewhere, but then he came back and is the executive chef on the Flora. The other thing I found interesting, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, and yeah, okay, maybe I am. But the crew on this ship, because they're all from Ecuador their contracts are much more manageable from a life perspective.
They're, like, six or eight weeks on, a couple of weeks off, as opposed to months on and a couple of months off because they don't have to get them across the world, right? [00:15:00] A lot of them go see their families on Saturday when we're in one of the little towns in Galapagos. We all get off and go look at turtles, and they go see mom.
It literally the waitstaff were telling us they're gonna go see their wife or their kids or whatever that day. And that they encourage us all to get off so they can go do that, which I think is great.
So there were 24 of us- I love that too ... staying in a hotel in Puerto Rio, he's not a cruise manager, but he's the guy that helps facilitate a lot of the stuff getting onto the ship.
He came to our hotel and did all of our paperwork for us and did the $200 refund that you get back paying the park fees. He's like, "Yeah, they're three blocks away." He's like, when he found out that there were 24 of us in town, that saved him a ton of time the next day dealing with everybody else.
So that kind of service as well. Plus the first day we went on excursion, I had my camera that I rented and my giant ass lens. I left my battery in the cabin. So as I'm trying to take pictures, I'm like, "Fuck, forgot my battery." Literally, the naturalist called the [00:16:00] ship, got my cabin steward to get the battery, gave it to another naturalist, and they brought it to me within, like, 20 minutes while we were touring.
That ain't gonna happen- That's service ... on any other ship.
Yeah. That's personalized service that you get on a small ship like this.
to give your listeners a little more detail about the food, breakfast in the morning was largely buffet with some added menu items if you wanted an omelet or, you know, s- pretty standard breakfasty stuff.
Lunch was largely buffet and was a different style every day. So one day was Spanish, one day was Asian, whatever. And the seafood was always amazing. So I mean, they had sushi on the days that it was Asian. They had ceviche, really good ceviche on the days that it was Ecuadorian. I mean, just, really good food.
And then at night it was fairly standard I'd say main dining room kind of stuff, except that the quality was so [00:17:00] amazing. The fish was some of the best fish I've ever had in my life. The lobster, oh my gosh, the lobster. I'm not one of these people that is like, "Oh my gosh, the lobster, the lobster, the lobster."
I figured usually I can go get one of the quality that they have on cruise ships, but this was a whole another level because it was locally sourced, right?
So- The guys pulled up to
the
ship and handed up the lobster. I mean-
Yeah. Um, now they do have at lunchtime sort of a pool bar kind of concept upstairs with burgers and, really casual stuff.
And by the way, nobody dresses up on this ship at all. You get back from your excursion, take a shower, throw on a sundress or a different pair of shorts and go to dinner. There is no dressing up on this ship. Unless you just want to. You're
so tired.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I love that. I am a big fan of locally sourced foods, and I don't know if that's unique to Celebrity or just like you said, if there are regulations that they all have to do that.
It's interesting too , were there opportunities [00:18:00] to eat off the ship as a part of the excursions, or really were all of your meals on the ship?
There was one excursion that included lunch off the ship, but it was still a pre-planned deal.
On Saturday ...
mostly the excursions are not in towns.
Like, mostly you're on uninhabited islands. So there's only really two opportunities to even shop because you only go to two real towns. Now we did the inner loop. On the outer loop, I don't know. There is one more town in the Galapagos apparently. But I would say mostly no.
Mostly you're gonna eat on the ship. Other than, like I said, if you really wanted to go eat those couple of times we were in towns, you could have done so. But mostly on the
ship. Because you're busy doing everything else. Yeah.
Like on the day we went to Puerto Ayora, you go to the Darwin Center and run around there for a couple hours. And then they bring you up to the tortoise ranch . And then [00:19:00] you come back and you have maybe hour and a half, two hours to shop around town, and then you have to be back on the ship.
So I mean, there were restaurants and we were in Puerto Ayora the day before the cruise because I didn't wanna fly in the day of, which I will get to another story in a second. But we ate at a local brewery that was in Puerto Ayora, and there's restaurants. I mean, you could do Galapagos without doing a cruise.
It looks like there's just day trips that you can do out of either Puerto Ayora or San Cristobal. I didn't investigate, like, everything you were doing, but, pretty much you would take a boat out and go see what we saw.
That would not be luxurious.
Yeah.
that was just getting on a boat and going out and seeing stuff, and, oh, and the interesting thing was even at the Darwin Center in Puerto Rico, you had to have a naturalist with you. Like it's kinda like a jobs program. It's like you have to have a naturalist everywhere you go. Like even when I forgot my battery, I was gonna go back to the ship and do it, and she, and I was like, "Oh, I'll just wait h- down here for the guy..."
And she's like, [00:20:00] "No, you cannot be by yourself anywhere. Like you have to be with a naturalist." So-
Well, I would say the waitstaff being from Ecuador is a jobs program. The naturalist thing is making sure that stupid people don't do stupid things on the islands.
I'm sure it's to protect a lot of not just the animals but also just the plants and people.
Yeah, they need to really keep it as pristine as they possibly can. And so I'm sure that's also, again it's like Joel said, like not any of us, but somebody would do something stupid and that's why they have to make up these rules.
Right.
Exactly. Uh, there was nothing you could really do stupid in the Darwin Center.
you know, they're, it's kinda like a mini zoo. You kinda see the tortoises and then you see where they hatch them and grow them and like move them, as they grow. But they're not wild out there, so I was kinda like we need a naturalist because the day we flew in on the Saturday beforehand, most of us were gonna go there in the couple hours that we had.
Well, it turns [00:21:00] out we couldn't have because we didn't have a naturalist, although I think there's some on the street that will kinda like go in with you. We just didn't have time to deal with it because 10 of us took a flight that got delayed six hours, and we almost didn't make it because you cannot land in Galapagos after 6:00 PM because that airport has no runway lights.
So there are times, I will say, if you buy the Celebrity package, they have a charter, and they do all the transit card and all the other paperwork for you. So if you don't wanna worry about that, you can do the 10-day package with Celebrity, and they take care of the flights. We were very stressed about that.
Oh, that is good to know. So did you take advantage of the package or you-
No ...
did it on your own- ... and that led to all those problems?
So we did it on our own. We went in a day early, and so because I had a group of 24 we figured out we saved about 700 bucks a person doing it [00:22:00] ourselves because they stayed at the JW Marriott in Quito.
And they only did one, like, city tour. I don't think they had a tour where they went out to the cloud forest. so I hired my own guide. There was 20 of us 'cause a couple people weren't coming in time, whatever . So the first day... Oh, by the way, we didn't get to the hotel until like 1:00 in the morning because your flights don't get in till like midnight.
And so then we had to be up ear- not early, early, but so we had a city tour the first day, and that took all day. we did a city tour, and then we went out to the equator where there's a museum out there. They have some interesting history and some sort of scientific-y games to, play with the equator.
And then the next day we went out to the Mindo cloud forest where we saw butterflies and hummingbirds and tons of birds, and we went to the chocolate factory, and there's just a lot of things you can do out there. But it's like a two-hour drive out there and a two-hour drive back. So that was a long day.
And then we had to get up early and go to the airport and, get on our [00:23:00] flights.
But fundamentally, we got an extra day of touring and saved $700 a person, which when you add it up across 24 people is a lot. Yeah. Because the JW Marriott is not a terribly expensive hotel. We stayed in the same hotel.
So it just made sense when we're a big group. looking back on it, I would do it again, given how many of us there were and that we were able to save everybody so much money. If it was just Jeff and I, I don't know. I'd still probably do it myself, but if I was a nervous traveler, which I'm typically not, I would do the package.
Yeah. So if you're someone that knows you're a nervous traveler, just do the package because If you're already spending this much money on the cruise, I would say just suck it up and do the package.
Unless you're willing to come in
several Days in advance.
Right,
exactly. Uh, just to make sure you don't miss your flights.
Exactly.
Well, and that's why on Saturday we flew to Puerto Arroyo so we could be on the island, in case there was an issue. Now, when we were having our flight issues, [00:24:00] I'm like emailing the celebrity guy going, "Okay, worst comes to worst, can we get on your flight in the morning to get there?"
I mean, they would've held the ship for us 'cause-
The answer was no, by the way
No, he never said- 'Cause that's what they- He never said
yes or no. He never said yes or no. But he didn't have to. It was gonna be no. He didn't have to. I can tell you it absolutely was gonna be no.
But generally speaking, I think that it's like anything else with these land packages, right?
When a cruise ship does a land package, it's never gonna be a good deal. it's like a ship excursion. You're paying more, and part of what you're guaranteeing is that they will hold things for you. That's what you're getting for that extra money, fundamentally. And this just happens to be more money because it's a bigger thing
Yeah, I can tell you the one and only time I ever flew in, and my family still talks about this, the one and only time we ever flew in on the day the cruise ship was leaving, I did do the Royal Caribbean calls it land and sea, or no, calls it air and sea.
I [00:25:00] did do air and sea because I knew they would get us to the next destination. And for just school and all this other timing reasons, we couldn't go a day earlier. But that is the one and only time that I have ever used that program and it was only for that reason.
Yeah. we also didn't know about this whole six o'clock rule, by the way. that one threw us for a loop.
Yeah.
But it makes sense- Yeah ... 'cause it's very ecological and you know, they have flights, Three flights a day may- like, there's not a ton of flights going in and out of Galapagos.
Big flights ...
yeah, big flight. and we were originally on a nonstop flight on Avianca to Galapagos. It got canceled for whatever reason. We ended up on a flight going through Guayaquil, And we had the chance to switch to LATAM. I don't know, it was all a big pain in the butt.
We figured I didn't wanna change anyway. Any flight can get canceled, whatever, delayed. But so we ended up flying through Guayaquil and just stress [00:26:00] waiting for the flight to take off.
Yeah ...
but there's not that many flights coming in or out.
Once it took off, we knew... And we landed at, like, 5:45.
And they had everybody getting on that plane lined up. They were all lined up outside ready to get on that plane to get out of there.
Yeah. I bet. So tell us about the animals, the plants, the excursions. Just hit some of the highlights of some of the amazing things that you saw.
So we did the Interloop cruise mainly because you see more of the blue-footed boobies. And the reason we went in late May was because it was mating season, and I hit all my bucket list items of seeing the boobies, seeing them do the little mating dance, and then seeing them consummate a marriage.
All that kind of fun stuff. I think I took 2,000 pictures. there's the blue-footed boobies, there's red-footed boobies, there's all kinds of birds. There's the marine iguanas, which are like the black ones that kinda like squirt the stuff out of their eyes. And then there's land iguanas, which are like orange, [00:27:00] and you practically trip over them.
half the time you don't even notice they're there. They're just everywhere. But I found the crabs that are on all the rocks just super cool 'cause they're red and blue and just these bright, vibrant colors. And so I ended up taking a bunch of pictures of the crabs. And then there's the sea lions that pretty much will just lay around everywhere.
A couple of them got onto the Zodiacs of the ship and like just were sunning themselves, and then they can't really like push them off. They kinda like have to like clap and make noise and w- have them go away. So that was interesting. the sea turtles and the mangroves. we saw what?
Dolphin... on the snorkel we saw all kinds of cool fish. We saw sharks, saw starfish. Oh, you know, just all the birds. The frigates with the big, red thing that puffs out when they're in mating season. Those are super cool. Somebody saw an albatross, I think
I don't know. Or maybe it was We had lots of pelicans.
Yeah ...
it, what's interesting is much like Antarctica, the [00:28:00] animals are not afraid of us because nobody's allowed to mess with them, right? So the animals really are not... Like, one time we were snorkeling off the beach, and really we just kinda wound up swimming because the snorkeling wasn't great.
There was a little bit of bad visibility that particular day. There was this pelican who started floating around on top of the water, and he just kept banging into people. And he wasn't trying to, he just wouldn't move. And he would, people just kept banging into... I guess more like people kept banging into him, and he just didn't care.
He just looked at us like, "What are you doing? Go away." that mean the animals just really are not afraid of us, which is a really interesting situation, especially when you're snorkeling. The last day we were there, we were snorkeling, and the penguins, that's what you didn't mention, Jeff.
So they have- Yeah ... penguins in Galapagos, and they're small penguins. And they were up on the rocks. And so everybody pops up, and we're all wearing [00:29:00] our things, you know, we're sitting there on top of the water watching them, and then all of a sudden they start jumping in, and they just start swimming around in us.
Which was amazing. Just to give your listeners a little better idea of how the excursion process works or how the expedition process works. So in case anyone's considering it, one of the benefits that you get in the penthouse suite is you get a private meeting with one of the naturalists at the beginning of the week to sort of walk you through the whole week which I actually thought was a very nice benefit.
I, I don't entirely know why they don't do it that way for everybody, because really all he did was walk through every day and, you know, sort of what you could plan to see, and it just sort of let me orient what I wanted to do on the week. Because at the beginning of the week, they give you a printout of your entire week, and often you have two different options at any given point in time.
So normally there are two excursions a day, sometimes three, and so you have one in the morning that might run any- be anywhere between 8:30 and 9:30, let's [00:30:00] say. And you go out and do that. You come back maybe 10:30, 11:00-ish. You have... Y- you clean up a little bit, have lunch, rest for a little bit, and then you may or may not have another excursion at, like, 1:00.
That's only a couple of days, I think, that you have the third one, and then you usually have another one around 2:00 or 3:00. And so at any given time, your excursion may be just riding around on a boat, and we had a couple people that preferred to not do so much of the active stuff. And if anybody is, I would say, not heavily mobility impaired, but slightly mobility impaired, these Zodiacs are amazing.
And if you have any level of balance issues or any level of mobility impairment, I would tell you do Celebrity over Silversea, because for whatever dumb reason, Silversea doesn't have them. So these Zodiacs have a built-in staircase-
Yeah ...
that they [00:31:00] fold up, and it comes up against the edge of the marine deck.
And so you're not climbing into a Zodiac, you are walking downstairs with two rails. So if you have any level of discomfort with getting onto boats or any of that kind of stuff, these Zodiacs are amazing. And the other thing that they have as a side note is when you go snorkeling, they have a platform that lowers down the back of the Zodiac so that you don't have to hop up onto the, the tube of the Zodiac.
You just sort of , they called it sea lion-ing yourself. Yeah, you just scooch yourself. Sea lion yourself onto this little ramp, and then you can just sort of flip over, take off your slippers. They'll take them from you. You know, it's just much, much, much easier.
Um- That is
good to
know. That is good to
know.
And for-- I don't know why- Can I ask you- ... they didn't give them for Silversea. It's dumb. Yeah. But anyway.
can I ask you what was the temperature of the water like?
I thought it was- 72 degrees ... reasonably comfortable. Some [00:32:00] people, I would tell you, so they give you a wetsuit and they give you a, what they call a shorty wetsuit.
So they give you a wetsuit that has short sleeves and short legs, like bike short length.
Yeah.
They fit you for it the first day. You keep it the entire time. Uh, it, well, you don't take it to your cabin. It- they have a space for it. You hang it up. It has your cabin number on it. And I wore it the first time I went snorkeling.
I did not wear it the second time I went snorkeling. I didn't really need it, but some people did. I think it, it was a level of comfort. It was right there. I don't know what the temperature actually was, but it was right at that level where some people really felt more comfortable wearing the wetsuit and other people didn't care
Now, I think in the wintertime the water gets colder,
But I think in general, you're at the equator, their temperature is gonna be between 70 and 80 degrees every day. It doesn't change
much. Ambient temperature, air temperature.
But I think 'cause of the, some of the currents, the water gets a little bit colder in the wintertime, but, [00:33:00] um, nothing major.
Yeah. So anyway, to finish the expedition discussion, you either go out for a Zodiac ride... Sometimes everybody goes for a Zodiac ride, like when we went into the mangroves to look for the tortoises, or the turtles rather, not tortoises, turtles.
Sea turtles.
Sea turtles. You go snorkeling, you go to a beach if you want to, or you go for a hike.
And some of the hikes are described as strenuous. One of them was described as steep and strenuous. A lot of them are not. A lot of them are, are fairly straightforward, you know, nice little path. So y- really if you have any level of discomfort, you can talk to the naturalists and they'll sort of talk you through it.
Every day for everyone, they have a talk about the next day's activities. And they'll show pictures and, here's what you can expect to see, and this, that, and the other. You feel somewhat informed about what to pick. Oh, and then we, we went kayaking as well. They have [00:34:00] kayaking.
Awesome.
But only 16 people can go at one time.
Yeah, they only have kayaking twice, and only 16 people can go at one time. It really didn't seem to be an issue. I didn't observe... When we were on, um, when we were in Antarctica, I think sometimes people felt like they didn't get to go kayaking as much as they wanted to. This one, I didn't feel like so many people were begging to go kayaking partially because of what it went up against.
They wanted to do that. The kayaking actually was not as... You didn't really see as much as you did some of the other things,
that's good. Good to know. Awesome. Anything else that we haven't covered about Galapagos or Celebrity Flora that you really feel like people should know?
I think I, I really feel like it's a-- I really want people to know that this is an experience unlike anything else you're ever going to encounter on [00:35:00] Celebrity, for sure. It I would just-- I, I just can't sing their praises enough. The crew on this ship is just amazing. They really are. And I just thought it was such a positive experience.
Yeah. You can't compare- Such
a positive experience ... you can't compare Galapagos to all the other Celebrity ships 'cause there's nothing else like it. It's 100 people. It's its own thing. Like it's You know, one of the, one of the best cruises we've, experiences we've done. But you can't just say, "Oh, it's like all the other Celebrity."
Like, it's-- the service has not been like any other Celeb- like, Celebrity service is fine. This was above and beyond, I mean- Yeah ... because you have one-to-one practically, you know, ratio. Um-
And I will say the one thing I was really worried about with it being Celebrity as opposed to, let's go say a Nat Geo or somebody else that you think of when you think of Galapagos, right?
The one thing I was really worried about is that the ex- expeditions would not be as expedition-y, right? I will say if you're [00:36:00] someone that really wants to go for, like, a long hike distance-wise, you're, you're probably not-- this may not be for you because I do think most of the expeditions are shorter in time, right?
But as far as the expertise of the naturalists or the, what we felt like we got to see, I, I was not disappointed in the least. Now if you are a, a, you know, a super, super active, I wanna go hike 10 miles, yeah, this is not gonna be you. It's a luxury experience. It's not...
It's an active luxury experience. It's not a straight up, adventure experience.
The longest walk was what? Three miles maybe?
Three or four. Yeah, the one I did that one day was three or four miles.
That's great. That's-
and what's funny is at the beginning they're like, "You're going to see all the animals.
Don't worry. There's going..." Like, by the third day you're like, "Okay, I've seen the boobies." Then, you know, [00:37:00] now seen the pelicans, seen this, seen that, you know? It's like you will see the tortoise, like, The tortoises are all on like one day. So you go to the Darwin Center and they drive you out to this place that has lunch that's kinda like the tortoise ranch, and they're all just walking through this whole area.
Don't worry about not seeing you're gonna see everything. Um, and-
And, and to be clear, the tortoise ranch is not, they're not captives, they're wild. It's just they choose to hang out there pretty much. Yeah. Oh, the other thing that was really cool that Celebrity does that I do wanna highlight is we planted a tree, which I thought was a lot of fun.
So one of the other things that Celebrity does is they take you out to sort of the middle of nowhere and this charity or the, the Natural Park Service, somebody or other, has basically bulldozed an area that was covered in invasive vegetation And they take us all, put us in wellies and hand us trees, [00:38:00] and we all hike out there and plant trees, these little teeny trees, which I thought was a lot of fun.
You know, it's, it's, yes, is it a gimmick? Sure. But I thought it was a lot of fun.
That is definitely cool. Awesome. T- the last time, it may not have been the last time, maybe the first time that you were on the podcast, Joel, I asked you w- how you defined luxury. And one of the definitions you mentioned already, which was not having to wait...
Well, you said not having to wait in line, but also not having to sign anything. But another, another definition for you was being able to get whatever you want within reason.
Mm-hmm.
Do you think that this experience on Celebrity Flora met your definition of luxury?
Absolutely. In fact, they got some stuff that was not within reason, and I didn't even ask for it.
I forgot to tell this story. It's kind of funny. So as I mentioned, it was a [00:39:00] milestone birthday for Jeff. When we had a party for Jeff at home, I had created a signature cocktail. The signature cocktail involved a s- fig syrup. So we were just telling this story to the hotel manager because we thought it was fun.
We didn't expect him to do anything with the story. When we had our cocktail party in our suite, he walks in with a jug of fig syrup.
Wow, that's awesome. Yes, Above and beyond. Yes, and I didn't even think to ask for it. That's amazing.
Exactly.
Jeff, do you remember-
So as a travel agent for the Flora, you're o- you only get six cabins in your group as a travel agent. You can only that's all they'll do for the tour conductor credit and all that kind of stuff. But so we had 12 cabins. So on the first-- So I, we were, I was trying to arrange...
So they have dinner under the stars where you, where you can dine up on deck outside. You [00:40:00] can do it every night. It's not a big deal. But they let us do the whole group up, all 24 of us upstairs instead of just, like, the six cabins that we had. So I thought, I thought that was kinda cool.
They made me a cake, all that kind of fun stuff. What else?
Well, she was asking if you remembered what you'd told her was your definition of luxury
It's just- Make up a new definition of luxury. We're
open here I know. it's not having to think about a lot of things. It's not being nickel-and-dimed. So what's funny, so Joelle, did you tell her about the Norwegian Haven?
No,
we
haven't talked since then. We have not been on the podcast to talk about the Haven.
Okay. So, so we did the Norwegian Haven back in January. You have a drink package, but your butler can't bring you soda for your room. Basically, you have to go to the bar and just ask for a couple cans of soda.
And even though we were in the Haven and they gave it to you, that kind of thing is slightly annoying to me. Galapagos, I just told the guy, "Just keep the fridge full of Coke [00:41:00] Zero and I'm good," and he did. And I mean, that's, that's just the kind, you know, that's the kind of thing that defines, you know, a-- It's my annoyance on a lot of cruise ships when you have a drink package, why can't you just stock my fridge full of soda?
I paid for it. Why do I have to go to the bar and get my own? Whatever. That's a whole separate thing. The, um, the cruise man-- So the communication with Galapagos was great. You know, they ask you what you want, this and that. The pre-cruise guy, you know, was, getting us to the airport and showing us where the Galapagos desk was to show him your transit card and your customs card and all that kind of stuff.
We had to wait, you know. So the airport isn't that big, and a lot of people were waiting outside. It's it's toasty. It's warm. It's, it'd be nice if they had a bigger, more covered area to wait at, but that's separate. But the bus was fine. Like I'll, I'll-- Like, like the attention to detail and a lot of the service was just, was great.
that, that part was luxurious. you know, [00:42:00] we didn't take advantage of the hotel part of it, so I don't really know that part. But yeah, it's just not having to think about a lot of things and just not being nickel and dimed.
Yeah. I love that. I think that is what you said before, the not being nickel and dimed, if I remember correctly.
So amazing. Well, you do you have any luxurious trips? You guys are always going on amazing trips. So Yeah, we got a lot coming up ... normally, but what is coming up next for you all?
So we're doing a Seabourn Cruise out of New York to Canada in September. We haven't done Seabourn before, so we're looking forward to that one.
And then Regent is coming to Galveston at the end of the year. They're doing a Miami to Galveston reposition and then doing two cruises out of Galveston, and they're going from Galveston back to Miami. And we're doing that one because, A, it stops in Guatemala and the ABC Islands, but B, we don't have to fly anywhere to get on it.
I've got clients on Regent next year, [00:43:00] and I wanna just experience it before they did. Um, and just this happened to be a good time to do it 'cause it's in our backyard and we can drive down to it.
That's fantastic. And the people who have listened to the podcast know, like it's crazy, but I lived in Galveston for six years and never got on a cruise ship.
So- ... to have a, have a line like Regent come into your backyard, that sounds fantastic. Now, if people wanna get on this Regent cruise ship or want you to book any other cruise or any other travel for them, Jeff, how would they get in touch with you?
My email is purplelemmingtravel@gmail.com. Uh, they can go to my Facebook page, which I will admit is lame.
Um, but you know, Purple Lemming Travel on Facebook. You can PM me, DM me, um, all that fun stuff.
LinkedIn ... like
I said, I-
You get a lot of people through LinkedIn.
I do. I'm on LinkedIn as well. Um, you can find me there. Everyone thinks my logo is a gopher, but [00:44:00] really it's a lemming. But you know, hey, who knows what an animated lemming really looks like?
Yeah.
Um.
I don't even know if I could pick a lemming out, real or animated, so-
Exactly ... I'll trust you. There, there's a whole backstory to the lemming thing, but anyway. Yes, you can find me Purple Lemming Travel. Just Google it. you'll find me various places. Um, but like I said, I, you know, I don't, I'm not out to the world.
It's mainly friends and referrals that I do. So I'm, you know, I'm not Danny Harr on every ship taking, you know, video of every single cabin and, you know- Hey,
I love his videos. I
know. I'm not that person. I do very little social media. It- I'm just, I'm doing this for fun, not for work.
Although, um, we are doing a, uh, a France river cruise next year with a, uh, a guy in town that owns a French wine shop. So we're looking forward- Ooh ... to, um, to, to doing that one on a, on Scenic next year,
well, that sounds amazing. Well, I hope you all will be back to tell us about, definitely about your Regent cruise and your Scenic cruise, [00:45:00] and you're always welcome.
And for the listeners, thank you again for being here. And until next time, I wish you safe and luxurious cruising. Bye-bye.
Bye.