Big Five Tours & Expeditions

"Like work there"

"Great food, great service"

"If your looking for Luxury, Elegance, and Adventure then this is the way to go."

"These people are either liars or just downright incompetent. Everything they did on my Central American trip was a NIGHTMARE, other than one short segment. Booked me in a hotel in the Galápagos Islands that is literally crumbling, is filthy, and practically deserted. The hotel "driver" drives like a bat out of hell with no seatbelts in a funky old pickup (all cabs there are white Toyota pickups, or most of them, but his driving and the no seatbelt situation are bad combinations). Doesn't speak a lick of English. The truck is comically beaten up and has stuff everywhere. This is not what you expect when you think you're booking a nice hotel. The "tours" they set up have compelling descriptions,, and you get a nice package in the mail talking about them, but they are so ghetto or stupidly designed or scheduled it's difficult to describe. If you have any good sense at all, trust me, do NOT use these people. Some concrete examples. They went far enough to tell my "travel agent" (whom I think is just as useless but less deceitful) that the Ecuadorian airline, Tame, doesn't have business class or first class. That's just not true. Booked me on a scuba trip with a rickety boat that had no first aid when I was bleeding from 3 places. No basic medical aid. but let's go back to the main attraction, which is the hotel. Royal Palm, the "five star hotel" they booked for me (and subsequently outsourced my Galápagos tours to). The craziness starts before you leave the airport. The guys they have in country fill out forms with a typewriter that doesn't hit the actual text boxes so you have to re fill forms you pay their people to handle for you. The wrong forms. The check to be tourist board couldn't be cashed so I had to pay the entrance fee twice (got reimbursed later but had I not had a bunch of cash, I would not have been able to leave the airport). Endless vignettes like this. Nice people in country, mostly because I found Ecuadorians to be generally lovely. Not their fault. They probably have no idea that tourists like me are paying absurd amounts of money for a first rate experience and at least reasonable facilities. I could barely control my rage when we were delivered to the Royal Palm, the aforementioned dump hotel and had I not had a Spanish speaking assistant who charmed her way into booking me at the Finch Bay Eco Lodge, my trip would have been ruined with literally tens of thousands of dollars wasted and more importantly, an important trip blown up. Needless to say, I'm angry about how these guys operste. Just so people don't think I've got an unreasonable gripe, I uploaded some pics of the Royal Palm. Google that place and you'll see what I mean...We are talking .5 stars, not 5. I knew I was in the wrong place for sure when the "safe" for my passports was easily removed from the closet, by me. And we were literally the only people there. Filth covered everything. Pool was filthy. The lounge chairs were torn up. It is a mess. Tennis courts are torn apart. There are abandoned trucks around. No view. Rooms have cracked ceilings and describe "luxury" but are laughably Poorly appointed. There's nowhere to sit but the bed. Woman who runs it is sweet but she's in a tough situation. It is in the middle of nowhere in the highlands 30 mins from town and you can tell it's failing, so they've stopped maintaining it. Other idiotic things they did: get me and a 9.9 year old girl arriving into Ecuador at 1 am, back to the airport at 830, ridiculous layovers, tours that have you up at 530 am. One required us to be picked up by a BUS in the middle of nowhere, with ridiculously long transit times. No itinerary details. ISeemed that everything they set up I had to undo on the fly, without losing it, so my daughter and I could enjoy ourselves. In fairness, the Quito team is incredible. The guy who runs operations there is great. Nice van picks you up. Booked me in a Marriott in a lame part of town vs one of the manh colonial boutiques there, but they're buttoned down."