I have read through the posts, but really didn't see what I am interested in. My apolgies if I didn't look far enough back.

This is what I am looking for in a Galapagos trip, in addition to wildlife viewing:

Add on to MP with walking the Inca Trail
Very, very, very few children on the boat
Active - snorkeling, hiking
10-15 days including travel/to from the boat.

We are early 60's, vegetarians, winos, 'er I meant we enjoy good wine, great health

By first class, I don't mean casino, bathrobes, TV or anything like that - just upscale food, crew, ability to get us to/from the best places.

Thank you so much

Month is open; I do need some hand-holding so I don't care to book locally.

PS I should have mentioned the 'short' Inca trail trek - 1 day only

To be perfectly open and honest here, this sort of tailored trip is exactly what we do. Though, I'm going to tread carefully here as we, quite rightly, can't use this forum to sell our services, so here is the most objective advice I can offer:

The combination of Inca Trail and Galapagos in your timescale, given that it is the one day trail, is perfectly achievable. You need a couple of nights in Cusco before the trail and at least one afterwards so let's call it 5 nights in Peru before heading up to Ecuador. It is probably worth a couple of nights in Quito before you fly out to the Galapagos, presumably for a week long cruise. This takes us to 14/15 nights and it will not feel rushed.

Do note that for the one day trail, you still need a permit and those are sold out until much later in the year so the earliest you can consider doing this trip would be the very end of October 2014. In fact, the weather in the Galapagos, at least the waters, are warming up as you move towards November and December so that's no bad thing.

Note that the chance of rain on the Inca Trail increases as you get into November and December. Being the one day trail though you aren't camping so the impact of rain is not as severe as it might be if you were slogging through it for four days!

On the Galapagos, there are many choices of boats which should suit. It's rare for children to travel outside of holiday times, even in holiday time there are only so many families who can afford to go to the Galapagos.

All Galapagos cruises are active to an extent, certainly the smaller boat journeys. Snorkelling you can take as read, walking as well.

If I were to throw out some names of boats, I might look at Ecoventura as they are very comfortable (not luxurious) but great guide:guest ratio (1:10) and also better ability than most to make a decent fist of vegetarian food. Healthy food is something they concentrate on too.

I'm a great fan of the beautiful Mary Anne who is a very large sail boat but with just 16 passengers is very personal feeling.

A more upmarket small catamaran might also work…

To be honest, it would be a case of picking the right month then finding the right boat doing the right itinerary and then working back from there. For this reason you probably want to start with a month during which Inca Trail permits are freely available, i.e. November 2014 onwards.

If November doesn't work for you this year or if you just want to know the best possible time to do this combination, it's going to be amazing most of the year but at a push, I would say go for May.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask for more information!

Tom

Tom, thanks for your reply. I went to your website and see you are UK based. Although it sounds like your company does a great job, does it make sense for 2 US travellers to use a UK company to go to a Latin American company?

Also, your prices are in pounds!

How do we DM and take this off line?

debbie

You have probably read my report as it was just a couple of months ago. We used Treasure of the Galapagos and we loved the ship, the pace and itinerary was great.
I am also a vegetarian and even though two emails were sent they did not get the memo but we worked around it.
The food was edible but not gourmet
There are a number of 'first class yachts' that would suit your needs. I would just look at all the trip advisor reports on them as they talk about food and staff etc.

There were no children on this boat , it was rather small anyhow. Most companies do the same thing as the galapagos tours are quite tightly controlled.

It was one of the highlights of our three month South American trip however.

We did Peru and Macchu this year as well, but a few years ago did the short inca trail and it was wonderful.

In both cases we used local companies but booked in advance over the internet after doing some research on the various sites.

We stayed a couple of days on land on either side of the cruise in the Galapagos. Food was not an issue there, both places I found something I could eat. If you eat cheese then it is easy. Throughout the world it seems that Pizza is the standard vegetarian fare.

I would recommend doing land, cruise, then land again if you can.
Let me know if you have any other questions.

Just thinking again, there were some folks on the ship who did the northern route for five days and then the southern route for another five. That might be a good option too. We only did the southern route (Galapagos)

I appreciate your help live42day!

It rough when you're in the middle of no where and there's no veggie foods except canned corn and iceberg lettuce! Glad you were able to work it out.

Hi Debbie!

I very much appreciate your kind words. As we have always had direct relationships with a wide variety of key people on the ground out there, for years, it perfectly make sense for you guys to come to us if you want to go to Latin America. Unfortunately as it is not allowed to do direct selling here I cannot provide you with our company's data. But please, find our email contact and telephone number (adding +44 from the US) on our website.

Look forward to speaking with you soon!

Tom

Or you might want to send a message through the website FAO: Thomas (for the attention of)

Speak soon!

Tom

We had a great trip - on the Cormorant in May 2014 (or go with its sister catamaran OceanSpray). 16 people - Huge rooms. Private Balconies. Kayaks. Great Snorkeling Gear. Use Eric Sheets at Latin Excursions. They are in Florida 305 356-8488

Excellent Food - catered to all dietary needs.

Thanks Cheweyhead. DH and I are sitting down today to finalize our plans