REVIEW: ARIANA’S GALAPAGOS HOSTEL

After a 2 hours plane ride from Guayaquil, a 10 minute bus ride from the Baltra Galapagos airplane terminal, a 10 minute ferry Ride from Baltra to Santa Cruz, and then a 45 minute taxi ride to Puerto Arroyo, we were finally at Ariana’s Galapagos Hostel. We arranged a taxi through the hostel ($25USD) so they knew we would be coming. The owner greeted us, told us a few things, and led us up to our room.

Our 2 bedroom suite, was simple but sufficient. We were on the second floor and didn’t have much of a view. The master bedroom had a stiff queen size bed. The other bedroom had 3 twin beds. Each bedroom had a TV, with bad reception and no English channels. There was also a kitchen that had a full size fridge and a hot plate and different cooking items.  We did not use the kitchen much but it was nice to be able to put plenty of water and drinks in the fridge. Then there was also a kitchen table and a small couch as well The bathroom had a small sink and a stand up shower. There was not a lot of storage in the bedrooms or bathrooms. In the bedrooms there was a few small shelves and a rack with hangers.

While not fancy, this met our needs just fine. It was nice to have the space to spread out and have two separate bedrooms after sharing a room for most of the trip with our kids.

There was great views from the patio the 4th floor. This is also where breakfast was each morning from 7-8am. Breakfast was good, but simple consisting of bread,  some type of eggs, fresh fruit and juice. A lot of the tours start at like 7am, so we weren’t always able to enjoy the included breakfast. They also had filtered water up here, as well as a small fridge with drink on the honor system.

I think the big thing to remember is that this is still a hostel. They did make up the room each day, but we always had a weird number of towels and often had to ask for more. The water in the shower would just stop every once in a while. You would have to turn it off, and wait about 2 minute and then it would be fine for 5 more minutes. The toilet stopped working one day and we had to call to get it fixed. There was an air conditioning unit in each bedroom and it just worked when it wanted to. The windows didn’t close very tightly and you could here every car that drove by, or every kid that walked by. However, we slept great here. From 10pm to 6am, we were out!

The Hostel is on the edge of “downtown” and very easy to get a taxi to go anywhere. It’s a $1.50 USD taxi ride within the city, or a 20 minute walk to the port where the tours start. There are some small quick marts close by for snacks and drinks.

We paid $150 a night through Expedia. While not cheap for a hostel, it was quite large and clean. If it was just two of us, we would have gotten a  much cheaper place close to downtown. We were also the only guests here. I believe we could have gotten it for about half what we paid if we would have waited till the day of arrival as it seems like that’s what a lot of people do during the off season. I would wait if it was just 2 of us, but not with our family as that would stress me out too much.