Flights — Quito ⇄ Galápagos

✈️ Into the islands — Fri Dec 18

• 7:50 AM Quito → Baltra, with the whole group at Quito airport by 5:50 AM. In practice that means sleeping in Quito on Dec 17 — no Quito hotel is booked for anyone yet.
• Round-trip island flights + the TCT transit card ($20 pp) are inside the cruise fare on both channels, Sandra and Rodrigo.
• A Tip Top representative meets the group at the airport and handles the Galápagos formalities: TCT card (included in the fare) and the biosecurity baggage check.
• Park fee on landing, cash: $100 per person on a Colombian passport (Carlos, Mom, uncle) and $200 for Maheva — $500 total for four. No card fallback at the booth, so the cash has to be on you.
• Separate arrivals into Quito are fine: each traveler just has to be at the airport for the 5:50 AM rendezvous, however they got to Quito the day before.
• Checked-baggage allowance on these included tickets is not stated in writing yet — follow-up on the Luggage page.

🧮 The island grid — retail round trips, Quito ⇄ Baltra

Round-trip totals per person, USD — both ways included (Quito → Baltra out, Baltra → Quito back), checked Oct 27 on Google Flights. The Dec 18 column is verified on results pages; the Dec 16 and 17 columns are calendar-grid level. This is what the flights inside either Tip Top package are worth at retail: roughly $320 to $460 per person.

• Flying in on cruise day, Dec 18, is the cheapest inbound for every single return date. Arriving a day or two early costs $12 to $34 more per person, and Dec 17's morning options are worse: later departures, more connections. There is no price reason to pre-position on Santa Cruz before the cruise.
• The return curve peaks at Dec 30 ($437) and falls back to $320 on Jan 1 — the joint-cheapest return in the window, because almost nobody flies on New Year's morning. Jan 2 was $407 in an earlier check, so a Jan 2–3 exit also lands on the cheap side of the curve. (One caution on Jan 2: an October Duffel sweep found no GPS → Quito flights that day — confirm the actual flight exists before relying on it.)
• Availability looks wide open: no "few seats left" signal on any date in the window. Retail seats exist at normal prices for Dec 26, 28, 30 and Jan 1 alike — which undercuts the scarcity pressure from sellers, including the earlier claim that return flights were full until Jan 2.
• The fine print: every cheap Avianca total ($320–437) is the fare family that excludes overhead-bin access. LATAM's cruise-aligned 7:50 AM via Guayaquil runs $461–588 depending on return date, with no such exclusion.
• One-way exits off the island: Dec 28 from $248 · Dec 30 from $347 · Jan 1 from $213 nonstop, the cheapest single exit in the window.

🛫 Out of the islands — return dates, per person

• Sandra's channel (confirmed in writing): each passenger can fly back to Quito on a different date at the same price. She asked for the confirmed dates as soon as possible to secure the Christmas flights.
• Rodrigo's channel (conditional answer, Oct 27 ~14:26 COT): the flight IS flexible and “doesn't usually go up in value.”
  But if only “economic premium” seats remain, everyone charges extra — and if a flight is closed or full, “ni Sandra ni nadie” can book it.
• He is now checking the specific flights Carlos cited (“Ya te averiguo los vuelos que citaste”), and blocks flights once he has dates.
• Read: his flexibility is conditional in his own words, vs Sandra's written unconditional same-price promise. Today's live grid does not support the closed-flight scare — retail seats at normal prices on every return date Dec 22–Jan 1, no sell-out signals.
• His incoming flight answer is now part of the Thu Oct 29 paperwork test: blocked flights named at the same $9,188 total strengthens his offer; surcharges or “only premium left” and Sandra's flexibility wins outright.
• Working assumptions, not decisions: Mom and uncle fly back to Quito around the end of the family chapter (Dec 21–22 in the current estimates); Carlos + Maheva stay on for the land chapter.
• A Dec 27 couple's return appears in drafts but has not been chosen — the couple's Galápagos departure date is still open, and it also decides the Dec 26 – Jan 2 lodging and the Dec 27 Bartolomé seats.
• Also owed to the operator once the channel is picked: passport copies, signed liability forms, dietary notes and wetsuit sizes. Sandra said there is no rush, but the return dates are the one item that locks seats.