A beautiful tour on a slow moving boat ????. The hike is fairly easy-I have recently had a hip replacement. The snorkeling is next level. We swam with a penguin, octopus, shark, so many fish, rays, starfish. It was unbelievable. This is a must do!!!
As other reviewers have noted, arranging the trip with the tour agency directly is less expensive than going through Trip Advisor as a third party, so we contacted Galapagos BK Tours directly through WhatsApp to arrange our tour. We were able to book a last minute tour to Bartolome through this agency during our stay on Santa Cruz after the tour we had originally arranged with our hotel was canceled last minute due to a mechanical issue with the hotel's boat. Eduardo was extremely responsive and helpful in arranging a tour for us the next day. He even met us early in the morning prior to the tour so we could try on wet suits since we did not have time the day before. The tour was really excellent, Bartolome is a must see! The view is spectacular, and we were lucky and saw 10 of the 12 penguins that live on the island. Our guide was knowledgable and friendly. The boat was nice with good food and snacks. Overall and excellent experience.
I booked several tours and transfers between islands with Eduardo at GalapagosBKTours. My overall experience was partially mixed in working with Eduardo. Overall I rate my experience as 3.5 stars. I am splitting up reviews - here I will talk about my day-tours and separately I have a review that focuses on the transfer between islands.
I booked a total of 6 day-tours with Eduardo at GalapagosBK / baklaitos tours.
From San Cristobal: Isle Espanola and Leon Dorimdo (Kicker Rock)
From Isabela: Tintoreras
From Santa Cruz: Bortolome Island, North Seymour, and Santa Fe (I wound up canceling going to Santa Fe)
I booked all of this in advance so that I would not have to worry or think about these details during my vacation.
Remotely (before the vacation), it is difficult to tell online which bookings are services and which are directly with the tour companies. Booking in advance with Eduardo, I did not have to worry about it. In addition, some companies book tours on some days of the weeks and not others. My brief experience attempting to figure out which companies to book tours on certain days was difficult. Eduardo had access to planned tour trips, so he book these on the days I wanted without any additional work on my end.
The good: Eduardo is excellent with communication. Before booking the tours, after booking the tours and responding to questions, and then on the islands themselves during the vacation, Eduardo was responsive and worked to help my vacation happen as planned.
Also, Eduardo knows very good English, which is important for someone like myself who does not know much Spanish. This can be rare in Galapagos - so it was helpful to have him take care of things for me.
The tours that were booked were very high quality. I may have paid a little more for the tours, but the service and staff were top class for most of them. the Leon Dormido tour was not quite as high class, but it was still an enjoyable tour.
Not quite as good (some small things, but worth noting):
For my trips in San Cristobal, the tours were managed by Dava tours. They did not speak English very well, so it was difficult to figure out what I was doing (I resorted to google translate). But the big issue was that they wrote down for me to show up at their office at 7:30am for the Kicker Rock tour. On my way to their office that morning (7:25am), I see the owner walking in the other direction - so I ask him about the meeting. He then said 8am. So I go back to my hotel and then return at 8am. He then says "15 minutes". At this point, I'm just sitting around waiting. At 8:20am he then walks with me back to where my hotel was and "drops me off" at the pier, which I could have gotten to on my own at 8:20am. (mind you I didn't have a proper breakfast because of the 7:30 call time - which if he had originally told me 8:15am, then I could have had breakfast that morning). Of course not the end of the world, but annoying.
For my tintoreras trip in Isabela Island: Eduardo indicated that I would be picked up at the hotel at 10am. I confirmed this with him. That morning, he confirmed my hotel name again. I asked if I should be ready for pick-up earlier, and he said 10am was the right time. Someone then showed up at 9:15am, looking for me for pick-up for the tour. Turns out the tour boat was leaving the pier at 10am. Luckily, I was able to leave right away and got to the boat on time.
Also, prior to vacation, I had asked Eduardo advice regarding some items to pack - he had indicated sneakers would be fine for the tours I had booked. Some advice: if you go to Isle of Espanola and/or North Seymour, pack hiking shoes or something with a sturdier sole than just sneakers.
It seems to be Eduardo is pretty busy. He is a nice, friendly guy, and things mostly worked as planned. He may need more assistance in the office. His partner/ assistants do not know much English, and I gather that Eduardo predominantly had most of the information regarding my tours. I did stop by the office when in Santa Cruz a couple times - I did not get to meet Eduardo in person, but he was available by phone and on whatsapp.
It seems that many people book tours last minute in galapagos. I prefer to book in advance and not have to worry about travel details during my vacation. This worked mostly well with Eduardo, as I did manage to see what I wanted to without wasting my vacation time planning. I booked with him directly through email, not on tripadvisor. Yes, you pay a little more by booking early, but the price was reasonable for the tours.