Schooner Trip Only Ilha dos Frades, Leaving Salvador-Bahia.

The island is beautiful but I who already came from Morro de Sao Paulo was not surprised. It is better Morro de Sao Paulo, I think it would have been better to spend another day in Morro. I put 3 stars because as other comments say they put a little pressure on you to go to restaurants. I didn't go. You just have to know how to say no. The tour comes with a free umbrella and you insist those in the umbrella go to their restaurant: Five times we said no. Prices are not VERY high but not low, for that price you can eat very well in Salvador. And worst of all: restaurants have no view of the beach! So you get lost on the beach for eating, that's why I didn't go.

Actually, the night before our trip we got an email saying that the trip to Ilha dos Frades only was canceled and we could switch to the Frades/Itaparica tour for the same price, which we did. It was an entertaining and excellent experience. There are several boat companies that run the same tour though you cannot tell from TripAdvisor who you are booking with. Our boat was run by Apolonio. The Marina embarkation point is slightly chaotic and we had to wait around for quite a bit not knowing when our boat would leave. There were three guides, all of whom spoke good English, though of the 80+ passengers there were, as far as we could tell only 6 non-Brazilians. The best part of the experience was the boat trip itself. Those Brazilians really know how the party and the on-deck bar which opened t 9:00 AM did a roaring trade in caipirinhas made with many varieties of fresh fruit. The chief guide was an amazing dancer and had the entire company dancing and singing along to Brazilian carneval music — everyone seemed to know all the words to dozens of songs. After about 1 hour 40 minutes sailing, singing, drinking, and dancing we reached our first destination. The Ilha dos Frades is a lovely, well maintained and protected island. Everyone headed for the beach, but the chapel on the hill, and the little village were also well worth visiting. The sea was calm and warm and well worth a dip. We spent a relaxing 2 hours before heading back to the boat for the 40 minutes trip to Itaparica. This was our lunch destination. The restaurant (Restaurante Manguezal) had no dock, and we went from our boat to the beach on some sketchy looking motor boats with about 20 passengers each. You needed to jump off the big boat into the little boat, then wade ashore from the little boat to the restaurant, where there was a massive all-you-can-eat buffet for 75 reales. We did not indulge, but pretty much everyone else did. There was certainly plenty of choice of Brazilian, Bahaian, and international type food. We went through the restaurant into the village, which was pretty scruffy and rundown - not worth visiting. After 2 hours of eating and drinking, it was back on the (overcrowded) motorboats and then clambering up onto the “Schooner” for the 1.5 hour trip back to Salvador. The dancing guide worked had to get everyone moving again, but most people were exhausted. Overall this whole trip was a blast and a real insight into happy, indulgent, music obsessed Brazilian party life. The islands themselves are nice stopping points, but the boat trip itself is the major draw.

Great trip to Frades Island! Paradise beach and excellent infrastructure, with a very good company that noa took to her in an excellent boat, I recommend!