In July 2013 we embarked on a 7 day cruise on the Quasar Expeditions Evolution. It was truly one of the most enjoyable and well-designed holidays I have been on. Everything about the evolution and it's crew was simply perfect.

The most important element of the trip for me was the Galapagos wildlife experience. I had very high expectations but the evolution crew still managed to exceed them. The Naturalist guides were unbeliveably passionate about the animals (one of the guides even read us a poem he wrote about the blue footed boobies!) and could spot a Galapagos hawk in the sky amongst swarms of hundreds of blue footed boobies and frigates. Good guides should be the priority on the Galapagos and the evolution nailed this. When on hikes or dinghy-rides it is extremely crucial that your guide can spot wildlife quickly and accurately. They should be able to talk at length about what you are seeing and both our guides excelled at this. I never ceased to be impressed at how many interesting things our guides spotted that I would never have seen on my own (snakes swallowing a lizard, sharks hiding in caves whilst snorkelling, hawks amongst the frigates, differentiating between fur seals and sea-lions). Having been to the Galapagos before I know that good passionate and knowledgeable guides are by no means the standard, the Quasar evolution team really hand-picked the best.

The service on the evolution was impeccable: the staff was friendly and open (they knew us by name!), our rooms were cleaned twice a day, and due to the small size of the ship it really felt like everything was tailored to our wishes. One day a group of us expressed that we would prefer to go snorkelling instead of hiking, the crew immediately latched on to this and figured out a way that they could split our group into two so we could snorkel - this would never happen on larger more standardized ships. Service is about the details, and the crew was extremely detail-oriented, they were extremely good listeners and were dynamic enough to adapt to the different needs of each passenger. This type of tailor-made service really is only possible on a ship the size of the evolution. We also got a tour of the ship's bridge, which was fascinating, and stayed and chatted about sea stories with the ship's captain for well over an hour. Read more