Even though our boys are getting older (and bigger!), we still prefer to stay in the same room while we travel so we have to look for hotels that have larger rooms or suites. The Family Room at the Hotel Catalonia Porto worked great for us. This 86 room boutique hotel is located in an historic building just up the street from Batalha Square. While not close to the river, we liked the location. It was close to Rua de Santa Catarina, which was nice for dining and shopping (since I had no luggage!). We walked everywhere from the hotel …

While we booked all our tours and transfers as a package through our hotel on Isabela, we created our own itinerary for our time on Santa Cruz. After tons of research and trying to piece things together myself, I decided to reach out to Johanna at book-ec to help us book everything. And boy am I glad I did! Johanna can book any part of your Galapagos trip – inter-island flights or ferries, airport transfers, cruises, day tours. Even Quito tours for your stopover on the mainland. You name it, she can do it.  You can use book-ec for a …

While we knew from the beginning that we wanted to stay at Iguana Crossing during our time on Isabela, we did a fair bit of searching before settling on Hotel Fiesta on Santa Cruz. Part of this was because there are just more options in Puerto Ayora and part of this was because the really stand-out hotel on the island (Finch Bay) was well beyond our price range. So we read through lot of reviews and poured over pictures before settling on Hotel Fiesta. And it turned out to be a great choice! It was about a 5 minute walk …

From early on in our planning process, I knew that we wanted to spend the majority of our time in the Galapagos on Isabela Island, and after just a little bit of research I knew that Iguana Crossing Boutique Hotel was the only hotel on the island that I wanted to stay in. The hotel itself looked absolutely gorgeous and its oceanfront views were stunning. As my research progressed and I started prioritizing the activities we wanted to do on the island, I discovered that Iguana Crossing offered packages that included all of my top tours. Wanting to maximize our …

Our cruise returned to port too late to catch a morning or early afternoon flight back to Charlotte. The remaining options were a red-eye departing late that night or a very early flight the next morning. We opted for the 6:00 am flight the next morning, which meant we had to figure out one more night in a Vancouver hotel. In deciding on a hotel location, we had to choose between convenience when disembarking the cruise or convenience when flying out the next morning. While the airport is relatively easy to get to from the city, it is probably not …

I did a lot of research prior to our Alaskan cruise leaving from Vancouver, and there seemed to be an obsession among cruisers with staying at the Pan Pacific. And obsession is not an exaggeration. Every forum, board, and FaceBook group was filled with people touting the wonders of the Pan Pacific Vancouver. I tried not to play into the hype and kept an open mind while I thoroughly researched all hotels in the area. But after all my research and price comparisons, we ultimately we ended up at the Pan Pacific. When push came to shove, the convenience factor …