Cruise Port Guide · 57 cruises visit Manta (Quito) →
The bucket-list things to do — and who runs each one.
Here’s the bucket list for your day ashore: the most extraordinary thing to do at each stop, who runs it, and how to book it direct — so you can weigh it against your ship’s excursion and pick what suits you.
Venture into the Pacoche Coastal Wildlife Refuge — a cloud-kissed rainforest 30 min from port — where howler monkeys, toucans, and exotic orchids reveal themselves on a private guided walk. A bucket-list encounter with Ecuador's Pacific coast wilderness.
Visit the hilltop village of Montecristi — the true birthplace of the 'Panama' hat — and sit with a master weaver as fingers fly over toquilla straw creating a superfino that takes months to complete. The rarest hat-making encounter on earth.
Explore a working cacao and coffee hacienda in Manabí's lush hinterland, tasting Ecuador's prized Fino de Aroma chocolate from bean to bar — arguably the world's finest cacao origin. A private farm-to-palate journey unlike any chocolate tour you've taken.
Stride the sweep of Manta's iconic Malecón Escénico, dive into the legendary fish market where the morning tuna catch is auctioned by the tonne, then learn to prepare Ecuador's silkiest ceviche beside a local chef. Pure Pacific coast culture, unfiltered.
Combine Pacoche Rainforest, a Montecristi master weaver's atelier, and a long table lunch of traditional Manabí cuisine into one sweeping private day — Ecuador's coastal highlands in a single, unhurried arc. The definitive Manta day for the curious luxury traveller.
Unlock Manta's 5,000-year-old Manteño civilisation at the Banco Central Museum — home to extraordinary pre-Columbian ceramics, gold work, and navigation charts — then trace the city's modernist seafront on a private cultural walk. Ecuador's coastal history, beautifully curated.
You know what to do on the day. Here is the trip it belongs to — each one opens as a whole plan, not a list: where to fly in, every port, what it runs.
Not sure when yet? Tell us the days you can get away and we will only show what fits.
⚓ Your bucket-list concierge
Tell us your sailing and we'll send the bucket list for every port — the most extraordinary thing to do at each, and the operator who runs it.
We send the plan to your account’s own address — never to one typed into a box. Free, and Google works.