Kicker Rock Full Day Más Playa from San Cristóbal
The rock, a beach and a boat back by mid-afternoon. $260 per person, rated 4.7 from 34 GetYourGuide reviews, with hotel pickup, wetsuits and a full lunch included, and free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
Listing details checked by Oleg Galeev, who has been to the islands three times
Check live availability & prices on GetYourGuide → See the key facts
Operator's own figure: 4.7 from 34 GetYourGuide reviews, free cancellation 24h before
Short answer
Galapagos Sharksky Travel & Conservation runs this seven-hour day from the aquarium pier in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno at 8:00am. The $260 covers wetsuits, snorkel gear, a nature guide, lunch with vegetarian and vegan options, snacks, fruit, drinks, a towel, fees and hotel pickup and drop-off. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before. You check in at their office the day before.
Kicker Rock full day: the key facts
Read from the live GetYourGuide listing. The day-before check-in is easy to miss and is the detail most likely to catch you out, so it is in the table rather than buried in prose.
| Full listing name | Galapagos San Cristóbal Full Day Kicker Rock Más Playa |
|---|---|
| Operator | Galapagos Sharksky Travel & Conservation |
| Platform and rating | GetYourGuide, 4.7 from 34 reviews |
| Duration | Approximately 7 hours |
| Start time | 8:00am at the pier |
| Departs from | Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristóbal |
| Meeting point | The aquarium pier on the day. You visit their office on the way to Playa Mann the day before to check in. |
| Price | $260 per person |
| Cancellation | Free up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund |
Thirty-four reviews is a small sample, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What lifts this listing is not the star count but the shape of the offer: a published price, hotel pickup, wetsuits and free cancellation, all stated openly rather than left to be discovered in the booking flow.
What $260 covers, and what it does not
Nine items, which is the fullest list of any San Cristóbal tour we verified. Hotel pickup and the fee line are the two that quietly save you money and hassle on the morning.
On the operator's included list
- Lunch, with vegetarian and vegan options available
- Snacks, fruit and beverages
- Nature guide
- Snorkel equipment
- Wetsuits
- Towel
- Fees
- Hotel pickup and drop-off
Not on that list
- The $200 national park entrance fee, paid to rangers at San Cristóbal airport on arrival
- The $20 Transit Control Card, registered and paid online before you fly
- Flights from Quito or Guayaquil, commonly $250 to $600 return
- Anything you buy on the beach stop
San Cristóbal has its own airport, so plenty of visitors land there rather than at Baltra, and the $200 fee is collected on arrival either way. It doubled from $100 on 1 August 2024 and the park directorate publishes the current tariff. Cash is the reliable way to pay it. Which month you come changes the water more than the price does, and our season guide sets out what the warm and garúa seasons do to visibility and temperature.
How the day runs
Seven hours from an 8:00am pier departure gets you back to town in mid-afternoon, which is the practical argument for this tour over the nine-hour circuit. Here is the sequence, with the operator's published facts marked.
- The day before, the office. Sharksky ask you to come to their office on the way to Playa Mann to check in. Build it into your previous afternoon rather than discovering it at 7am.
- Hotel pickup. Included, which removes the usual pre-dawn walk across town with wet-bag in hand.
- 8:00am, the aquarium pier. Boarding from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno's waterfront, where the sea lion colony gets going well before the tourists do.
- Out to Kicker Rock. The rock stands off the island's northwest coast in open water. Wetsuits and gear are provided aboard.
- The channel snorkel. The centrepiece: a swim through the gap between the two rock faces, deep water throughout and no standing up.
- Lunch and the beach. The más playa half of the name. Lunch is included, with vegetarian and vegan menus if you flag them at booking.
- Back around mid-afternoon. Roughly seven hours after the pier departure, with drop-off at your hotel.
The nature guide with the group is a legal requirement rather than a courtesy: park rules require a certified naturalist guide at protected visitor sites, and the two-metre distance applies to sea lions in the water as much as to birds on a trail. Drones are banned throughout the park and the marine reserve. All three sit in the park's published visitor rules.
The conservation angle, and whether it means anything
The operator's registered name carries the words travel and conservation, which on its own proves nothing. What is real is the setting the tour works in: the Hermandad Marine Reserve was created on 14 January 2022, adding 60,000 km² and taking the protected marine area around the archipelago to 198,000 km². Day boats out of San Cristóbal operate inside that protection, under park slot limits and guide requirements that constrain how many people reach any site on a given day.
The visitor economy is growing regardless: 290,404 people came in 2025, up 4% on the year before, and 79% of them stayed land-based rather than cruising. That shift is why day boats like this one exist in the numbers they do. If picking operators on their environmental practice matters to you, our eco tours guide works through what the labels do and do not tell you.
Honest pros and cons
What works
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours before, rare among Kicker Rock boats.
- A published $260 price rather than a figure hidden in the booking flow.
- Hotel pickup and drop-off included at both ends of the day.
- Wetsuits, gear, towel, lunch, fruit and drinks all itemised.
- Seven hours rather than nine, so the afternoon is not written off.
What to weigh
- Only 34 reviews, a thin sample by any normal standard.
- The day-before office check-in is an extra errand on your previous afternoon.
- The channel is deep open water, so weak swimmers should think hard.
- Shorter than the 360 circuit, so less coastline covered.
- No photos or video package, which the rival listing does include.
The direct alternative is the nine-hour San Cristóbal 360, which costs $270, circles the whole island and includes crew photos, but is strictly non-refundable. If you would rather snorkel from a sheltered bay before tackling an open-water channel, the Santa Cruz bay tour is the gentler warm-up on the neighbouring island.
Who checked this listing
Oleg Galeev has been to the Galapagos three times, including a land-based island-hopping trip in 2021. He has not taken this tour, and this page reports what the listing says rather than what a day aboard felt like.
Price, duration, start time, both meeting arrangements, the nine included items and the cancellation policy all come from the operator's live GetYourGuide page. Marine reserve figures and visitor numbers come from the park directorate and published conservation sources, not from operator marketing.
We earn a commission if you book through our links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we write about a tour. How this works.
Where the rock is
Northwest of San Cristóbal, in open water. The boat ride out is part of the experience rather than a transfer.
Playa Mann, where the operator's office sits, is a short walk north along the waterfront from the pier.
Kicker Rock full day: common questions
How much is the Kicker Rock full day?
$260 per person, published openly on the GetYourGuide listing. San Cristóbal day tours run $149 to $320 across the platforms, so this sits mid-range while including wetsuits, lunch, fees and hotel pickup that some cheaper listings leave out.
Do I really have to visit the office the day before?
The listing says so: check in at their office on the way to Playa Mann the day before, then meet at the aquarium pier on the morning itself. It is a short walk from the centre of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, but plan your previous afternoon around it rather than assuming you can skip it.
Is the wetsuit included?
Yes, wetsuits and snorkel equipment are both on the included list. That matters from June to November, when the water drops to 19 to 22°C and the channel feels colder still because of the depth and the shade from the rock walls.
Can I cancel?
Yes, free up to 24 hours before departure for a full refund. Among the Kicker Rock full days that is unusual, and it is the strongest practical reason to book this one early in a busy month.
Which beach does the tour stop at?
The listing sells the beach as part of the day, the más playa in its name, without naming the site. Ask the operator when you check in at their office if the specific beach matters to you. We would rather tell you the listing is silent than guess at a name.