An Extraordinary Journey to the Extraordinary

  We were treated like royalty, and saw new amazing wildlife each day. We got to spend 3 days closely observing penguins from an 8 passenger panga (zodiac) and even... read more snorkeling with the penguins, off Isabela Island.

  We had an absolutely marvellous time on board the Ocean Spray. The crew was incredibly hepful and very skilled, our guide Morris extremely knowleadgeable with a nice dry sense of... read more humour, and the cabins were very comfortable. As for the islands and their animal population...More

  We recently completed a week long adventure of a lifetime on the trimaran the M/T Camilla operated by Haugan Cruises arriving Isla San Cristobal by air from Quito and exiting... read more again by air for Quito from Isla Baltra. In between we cruised many of the...More

  I chose the Ocean Spray based on itinerary, but I think I ended up with the best boat in the Galapagos anyway! The trip was amazing, the service was... read more excellent. Everyone on the crew was friendly and great. Many thanks to Sebastian our cruise director...More

  My fiance and I traveled with Haugan Cruises for 9 days. Haugan Cruises made the entire experience so smooth. We worked with Veronica D book our trip and she was... read more very responsive and helpful with our planning (we added 4 days in the Amazon at...More

  5-day Galapagos cruise aboard the MT Camila. The cabin was spacious with a large bathroom and shower, but very little storage space. The veranda was nice but the itinerary of... read more excursions left no free time to use it. The hikes and snorkeling was great, but...More

  I just returned from a 4 day tour of the Galapagos on the Petrel. The Petrel has recently been redone and is so nice (very luxurious). My room... read more was so much larger than what I had on a Royal Caribbean cruise. The floors were hardwood,...More

  What an amazing Galapagos holiday we have just had on the beautiful Ocean Spray (Itinerary “A”, 7 nights). From start to finish it was organised superbly and the entire crew... read more went out of their way to ensure we had the very best of holidays. Special...More

  Our group of 8 friends decided to splurge and choose Haugan Cruises and the Ocean Spray to explore the Galapagos Islands for an entire week. We only have good... read more things to say. The crew was friendly and courteous, the food was excellent, cabins are roomy,...More

  We had a lovely time on the cruise. The ship staff were amazing and went out of their way to accommodate everyone. The cruise director was personable and the panga... read more drivers were amazing. However, we were disappointed in two respects. First, we have a son...More

  This is a sad review to write. We had a very nice experience aboard Camila and enjoyed the crew, the naturalist, the food, and the stateroom. Unfortunately, we also entrusted... read more Haugan Cruises to book an add-on Scuba Dive trip out of Puerto Ayora with Scuba...More

  I did an 8 day/7 night cruise on the new trimaran Camilla. I went in with very high expectations and this trip exceeded them. Starting with Vladimir at... read more Haugan who helped me book the best cruise for my interests, to Jhosellyn (naturalist guide) who was...More

  We had probably one of the beat adventure of our life time on Camila cruise boat in Galapagos.We were lucky, due to unforeseen circumstances, the company had cancellations and we... read more were two of the four passengers. The Itinerary we think is more or less perfect...More

  What a wonderful 8 days on the Ocean Spray! Sebastian, cruise director, Brian, barman, Adrian, chef, Daniel, guide were all fantastic and if I could name all the crew I... read more would!!!! Nothing was too much trouble and the whole trip was unforgettable! I was encouraged...More

  I recently returned from a great trip to Ecuador. Paola from Haugan Cruises helped set up a trip to remember for years to come - Thanks Paola! ... read more We started with a few days at the Hotel Mama Cuchara in Quito and then flew to the...More

  I will start out by saying that the M/T Camila is a well-maintained ship with a friendly, accommodating crew. My wife and I spent 8 days/7 nights aboard this fully-booked... read more (16 passengers/11 crew members) vessel. We also enjoyed the Ecuadorian food and we got along great with all the passengers.

Our major complaint is that there was only one naturalist guide for all 16 passengers. This was a problem because there were many excursions for hiking and snorkeling, which required two dinghies, as they hold only 8 passengers each. This meant that one of the dinghies did not have a guide, and the dinghy operators did not speak English. Our guide did use a two-way radio to point out observations to the other dinghy, but it was hard to hear what he was saying. I did speak to the guide about this and he responded that the M/T Camila always uses 1 guide per 16 passengers. However, everywhere we went, we saw one guide per 8 or fewer passengers, and I recall reading elsewhere that the Galapagos Park has rules in this regard in order to protect the tourists and the environment. The result was that we felt less safe in the water when snorkeling and we missed out on a lot of spoken info regarding the animals and nature.

Secondly, we were not pleased with our "bar tab" experience. We are not big drinkers and expected a very small bill. To our surprise, the bartender requested $171 of us without presenting a bill. I insisted on an itemized bill, which he reluctantly scrawled out. Well, we knew we did not have that many drinks and the bartender "reduced" the bill to $131. We decided to pay it as everyone was being rushed off the ship. Later, we read in our cruise brochure that only alcoholic beverages were chargeable...but we were billed $35 for our bottled Cokes too.

Thirdly, the marketing materials indicate that tipping is "voluntary" but we felt pressured to pay them at high levels. On night 7 we were told in a group meeting that these tips equate to a "service charge" that is not included in the cruise price, and that the entire crew relies on these tips. The naturalist then went on to state that everyone should pay him $10-$12 per person per day, and $22 per person for the crew...and additional amounts to others (e.g. the bartender) depending upon level of service. So, this equates to $1,536 for the naturalist guide and $2,816 for the the crew, i.e. $544 per couple. And this is on top of the approximate $2,000 per day cost of the cruise!

In a nutshell, we feel we did not get a first-class experience with having only one naturalist guide for 16 passengers. In addition, we had to pay an extra $200 for Park admission tickets upon arrival to the Galapagos Islands because Haugen Cruises did not include that fee in their already hefty cruise price. And with the overcharged bill tab and suggested tipping rates, we felt "nickle and dimed" on this cruise. If you have "money to burn" then this is not a problem and you will be paying "first class prices" to board the M/T Camila. But if you are looking for "value" when booking your Galapagos Island cruise, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Lastly, after our cruise was completed, we wrote to management about our complaints and disappointments but all we received back was a terse response, basically thanking us for our comments.