Kicker Rock 360 Tour, San Cristobal [Rated + Reviewed]

Rating: 🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿

This rating covers all three snorkel sites (Bahia Rosa Blanca, Bahia Sardina, and Kicker Rock) collectively as one full-day experience.

No single stop alone earns five masks, but together, the Kicker Rock 360 tour is one of the most extraordinary days of snorkeling we have ever had.

And we’ve snorkeled 87+ sites around the world!

Galapagos Snorkeling Rating System

Every snorkel site I review gets rated the same way. Here is what the masks mean.

Book through Galapagos Xcursion as far in advance as possible. They fill up quickly and for good reason.

Our guide: I’m sure all guides are great, but we loved our guide Alejandro. He gets exceptional reviews and our experience confirmed every word of them.

Pickup: 6:30 to 7:00 AM from your hotel. We were picked up at 7 am from our amazing San Cristobal Airbnb.

Boat: Melito, two banquette seating areas inside for shade, bathroom on board, coffee and snacks throughout the day

Group size: 12 people maximum. This matters enormously for a snorkel tour. You never felt like a crowd.

What Galapagos Xcursion provides:

• Snorkel gear
• Shorty wetsuits (worth wearing for Kicker Rock, more on this below)
• Soap for mask defogging
• Life jackets for anyone who wants one
• GoPro footage, videos, and photos of the day (very impressed with Alejandro’s footage!)

Wetsuits? Kicker Rock can run cooler (it’s open ocean, deep water) than the shore snorkel sites. And if jellyfish are in the water, a wetsuit is your best friend.

I got fitted just in case and wore it over my rash guard only for the Kicker Rock site. Glad I did.

Snorkeling gear: Their equipment is high quality, including the same Scubapro GO fins I travel with personally. That tells you something because I’m really picky about gear.

We always bring our own snorkel gear regardless.

Here is everything I personally packed for snorkeling in the Galapagos, and what comes with me on every snorkeling trip I take.

• 6:30 – 7:00 AM: Pickup from hotel
• 7:20 AM: Load water taxi to Melito
• 9:00 AM: Stop 1: Bahia Rosa Blanca (snorkel)
• 11:40 AM: Stop 2: Punta Pitt (scenic)
• 12:15 PM: Stop 3: Bahia Sardina (lunch then snorkel ~1:30 PM)
• 2:20 PM: Stop 4: Cerro Brujo (scenic)
• 3:20 PM: Stop 5: Kicker Rock (snorkel)

We took a panga from the boat to hop off onto a beautiful white sand beach.

The water was crystal clear, and right away we spotted a baby eagle ray swimming along the shoreline, then watched it hurl itself up out of the water.

And this was not even the spot we were going to snorkel!

Shore entry with a nice ledge to hop off and on. A light walk along lava rock to reach it. Dive booties were the right call that morning. Spots to leave your gear before getting in.

After Alejandro walked the group around the cove and oriented everyone, we jumped in and snorkeled together, then he gave us free time to explore independently before calling everyone back.

That balance between guided and free is the mark of a great guide. You never felt herded.

What we saw:

• Four eagle rays swimming together in formation, plus two additional lone rays. Unlike eagle ray encounters I have had in the Maldives or Bonaire, where they bolt the moment they sense you, these rays were completely unbothered. They circled near us, stayed close, seemed almost curious. Unhurried and unafraid.
• One marble stingray
• One sea lion
• One sleeping whitetip reef shark and a few lobsters (had to dive down to see)
• One spotted snake-eel
• Too many turtles to count
• Sally Lightfoot Crabs on the rocks
• Pufferfish

The eagle rays at Rosa Blanca were one of the many memorable wildlife encounters of our 17-day trip. And this was just stop one!

A scenic pass-through around 11:40 AM, not a snorkel stop.

We saw Nazca boobies and blue-footed boobies on the rocks as the boat cruised by.

All three booby species found in the Galapagos can reportedly be spotted here, including red-footed boobies, but we did not see any red feet on our visit.

A brief but beautiful detour all the same.

Anchored in the calm bay around 12:15 PM for lunch: chicken, salad, rice, plantain chips, and beans. The kind of meal that hits perfectly when you have already been snorkeling for hours and have more ahead.

In the water around 1:30 PM. Hop off the boat entry, simple and fast.

What we saw:

• Sea lions actively chasing black-striped salemas. Chaotic, fast, and mesmerizing to watch from underwater.
• Galapagos sharks cruising slowly under the boats
• A few Mexican hogfish
• Parrotfish
• Pufferfish around the boats

Snorkel left (as you face the beach) along the rocks for the best action. Right side was quiet.

Cerro Brujo translates to Witch’s Hill, a dramatic volcanic rock formation that earns the name. Around 2:20 PM we stopped to look through a natural hole in the rock.

Kicker Rock appears perfectly framed in the background. A great photo if you are in the right position.

In the water at 3:20 PM. A little choppy on the day we went, but manageable.

Kicker Rock is two large volcanic rock formations rising out of the ocean. You start by snorkeling between them, then snorkel along the wall toward the outer edge.

The wall is covered in vivid orange coral formations unlike anything we saw at the shore snorkel sites. Striking and beautiful.

The sea lions were cruising and diving deep along the wall.

My husband watched one pick up a shell, drop it, dive down, and catch it before it hit the bottom, and then do it again. Playing fetch with itself!

The hammerheads. This was the moment.

Far below us in the deep blue, shapes started to emerge. Unmistakable. Multiple silhouettes gliding through the water in formation.

My heart rate spiked before my brain even finished processing what I was looking at. Alejandro confirmed it instantly. I counted at least 10 at one point.

They were deep. The sighting lasted seconds, not minutes. You could make out the outlines, not the full detail of each shark. But none of that mattered.

This is exactly what you came to the Galapagos for!

If we had not seen a single hammerhead that day, this would still have been one of the best snorkel tours we have been on. That is how strong the rest of the experience is.

But we did see them. And I would do the entire day again just for those thirty seconds.

Also spotted at Kicker Rock:

• Three turtles right when we jumped in
• One small turtle in the channel between the rocks
• Whitetip reef sharks
• Yellowtail surgeonfish

Alejandro deserves his own section.

He kept the group together without suffocating everyone. There was enough structure to stay safe and enough breathing room to actually explore.

If you have ever been on a tour where the group is packed so tightly that you spend the session getting hit in the face with someone else’s fins, you know exactly why this matters.

That balance is rare and it defines the quality of the experience.

One small but brilliant detail: Alejandro wore two differently colored fins, one light blue and one black.

In open water with potentially other tour groups nearby, being able to instantly spot your guide is genuinely important.

Nobody else I have ever snorkeled with has done this. Simple and effective.

A lot of people debate this. Stop debating.

The 360 tour gives you multiple snorkel locations around San Cristobal, each completely different from the last.

If Kicker Rock is having a quiet day wildlife-wise, Rosa Blanca and Sardina compensate. You are getting a full day of extraordinary ocean experiences, not just one site.

Do the 360. Every time.

I had no idea different Kicker Rock schedules even existed until we were already on the tour and found out quickly that we were not starting with Kicker Rock.

Before you book, ask this one question: which schedule runs on your date?

Here is why it matters.

Boats on San Cristobal alternate their route daily. Some days they start at Kicker Rock, other days they end there. The same tour company, the same boat, different schedules on different days.

This rotation is governed by Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism to manage environmental impact. You cannot request a specific route. But you can ask which schedule runs on your date before confirming.

I have heard, though I cannot personally vouch for it, that hammerhead sightings may be more likely in the morning at Kicker Rock.

This is secondhand information, not something I confirmed myself, so take it with a grain of salt.

We ended at Kicker Rock with a 3:20 PM snorkel start and still saw multiple hammerheads, so clearly afternoon sightings happen too.

But here is the honest tradeoff. Had we started at Kicker Rock instead, I am not sure we would have had those magical conditions at Rosa Blanca and Sardina later in the morning, when the water was calm and the eagle rays and turtles were so plentiful.

There may genuinely be a best-of-both-worlds tension here that no single booking can solve.

If I were doing this again, I would book the Kicker Rock 360 tour twice. Once starting at Kicker Rock, once ending there. This tour is genuinely that good.

If you saw hammerheads while snorkeling at Kicker Rock, please let me know in the comments below whether it was morning or afternoon. I would truly love to know to have more data points!

• Book Galapagos Xcursion far in advance. They fill up quickly.
• Wear the provided shorty wetsuit. Kicker Rock runs cooler and jellyfish happen.
• Bring your own snorkel gear if you have it. Their gear is excellent but your own fits better. Here’s the snorkel masks I have tested and loved after snorkeling at 87+ sites.
• Wear dive booties for the lava rock entry at Rosa Blanca.
• Bring your GoPro in addition to whatever the guide captures. You will want your own footage. We are avid snorkelers, so if you need more convincing, here’s my full GoPro review.
• Snorkel left at Bahia Sardina along the rocks for the bait ball and sea lion action.
• Keep your head on a swivel at Kicker Rock. Hammerheads appear in the deep water. Watch below you.
• Have diluted baby shampoo for your mask. They also have soap but I love this for defogging.

Three completely different snorkel environments in one day. Eagle rays that stay. Sea lions playing fetch with shells. Bait balls with sharks circling underneath the boats. Vivid orange coral walls.

And then, in the deep blue at Kicker Rock, the silhouettes of hammerheads moving through open water far below.

Wow, welcome to the Galapagos!

Book Galapagos Xcursion, ask about the route schedule, and go.

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Questions about our snorkeling experience on the Kicker Rock 360 Tour?

Did you see hammerheads? If so, in the morning or afternoon?

Let me know in the comments below!