Wonders of Chile: City, Desert, Mountain Tour

Our trip started on November 7, 19 with our first stop at Santiago del Chile.  Our guide (from a local agency) spent two wonderful days with us. Even though our visit at Valparaiso had to be cancelled due to some street riots, the travel specialist has secured a visit at a winery in Casablanca Valley, as well as a winery where we had a tour, vine testing and a very good lunch.

Our next stop was at Puntas Arenas, from which a minivan had taken us to the Hotel in the Las Torres Del Paine .  The hotel and the staff were wonderful, very attentive and provided all services with big smiles.  Our first hike to Las Torres took us a whole day but what a view we did experience ... we will never forget the Las Torres view and excellent guides hotel had provided.

From Las Torres the minivan had taken us to El Calafate where next morning we were met by our guide - a wonderful lady, very experience and knowledgable tourist guide - we highly recommend her services. We spent a day visiting Glaciar Perito Moreno.  We spent two night at a Boutique Hotel, a very classy yet modern hotel.

From El Calafate we took a short flight to Ushuaia, where we stayed at a hotel.  Our trip to see the penguins and other water animals was very well organized (the captain of the boat could wear a more professional cloths but then he was a captain......).

From Ushuaia we traveled to Iguazu via Buenos Aires.  The Suites Hotel was spectacular; it was situated literary in the middle of jungle with lavish green vegetation in front of our balcony.  The Iquazu Falls are impossible to describe, one needs to see them from both Argentinian and Brazilian sides. Our private guide was superb - extremely intelligent, knowledgable, resourceful and very helpful - we highly recommend his services.

Our last stop was at Buenos Aires where we met our guide, a very educated city guide.  We had a wonderful time with her and  highly recommend her services as well.  The Tango Show was superb, not to mentioned a very tasteful meal.

We, Peter and I have planed this trip for a long time and with your help it was the trip we will never forget.

In Buenos Aires we met with our travel planner from this travel company; she was interested in our comments and suggestions with regards to provided itinerary. It is always better to provide more details rather than less or information which is  not quantifiable.  For example: "At appropriate time."..... rather than around 3 pm the van (it is important also to specify what van?) will pick you up from the airport.  This example is for the Puntas Arenas airport where nobody was waiting for us......

Overall, our trip was fantastic and we will always remember it.  Thank you for making it happen.

I have already reached out to your office for the itinerary for our next trip to Japan in September 2020. 

We had a marvelous, unforgettable trip overall, including visits to Santiago, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, Easter Island, Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile, and finally Antarctica. We experienced a great variety of Chile's vast geography and ecology, from the beautiful central valleys, to the northern desert, to the tropical Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), to the forests and mountains of Patagonia. The lodges and excursions they provided in each destination were well organized, with knowledgeable, English-speaking guides. We visited Antarctica and it was spectacular. The tour operator offers expedition travel for people who want to experience the polar regions firsthand. Our expedition, 14 days that went below the Antarctica Circle, featured expert guides who enjoyed sharing their considerable knowledge of geology, glaciers and ice (!), mammals, birds, and plants, to name just a portion, and excursions twice daily on zodiacs to sail among glaciers and whales and seals and walk among penguins and skuas. It was not a leisure cruise, but an expedition for folks who want to experience and appreciate the Antarctica up close. That said, the ship was extremely comfortable, with a remarkably hospitable staff and delicious, copious food.

Our travel company was excellent in helping us to conceptualize, plan, and organize our trip. They offered many useful suggestions about where to go, how much time to spend in each destination, and which options to consider for hotels/lodges and the Antarctica expedition. We greatly appreciated their advice and assistance in putting together our trip. All of the hotel and transit reservations were made, and that part of the trip went smoothly.

However, there was a persistent problem with our air travel in Chile that was unnecessary, and which caused us needless aggravation. For our internal flights (to/from Calama/Atacama, and to Puerto Natales), our travel company purchased the cheapest LAN tickets that did not include baggage allowance. I discovered this a month before we were set to travel, when I was carefully reviewing the reservations (and about 5 months after they purchased the tickets). When I informed the travel company in early January 2018, I said we of course had baggage (especially cold weather gear for Antarctica) and needed the 23 kg allowance. After I informed them of the problem, they did work to correct the problem, telling us they had purchased baggage allowances for those flights that didn't originally have them. We got a receipt from them for baggage for one of those flights (to Puerto Natales), and were told it was resolved for the Calama flights but LAN couldn't provide a receipt. When we did check in for those flights, the baggage allowance was covered, but our concern before each flight could have been avoided if they had bought the correct tickets. 

This problem became more apparent, and more aggravating when we were checking in to fly from Atacama to Santiago, and then on to Easter Island. We were told we could not check our bags all the way through to Easter Island because our tickets for the two flights that day were not on the same record. (This was due to the fact that two different priced tickets had been purchased. The Easter Island tickets were regular, economy tickets.) So we had to check in our bags to Santiago, retrieve them from baggage claim at Santiago Airport, and then return to the Departures area of the airport and check them in for the flight to Easter Island. Santiago Airport is a huge, crowded, messy airport, and this process of literally running around the airport took us 1.5 hours (of what was a 2 hour layover). We arrived at our gate for Easter Island just as people were boarding. This was not what we planned for or expected—and it could and should have been avoided if the travel company had bought the proper air tickets from the start.

The individuals with whom we worked at the travel company were very nice and responsive and it is overall a good and reputable provider who could stand to learn a few things. All sub-providers were prompt and waiting for us without a hitch. We found all guides and drivers to be extremely friendly and personable, and for the most part well-organized.

The provider in the Atacama, was highly educated and experienced in touring. He helped arrange early check-in at the hotel in San Pedro which was very helpful

We only have a few "teachable" items to report:

1. The 2:50 a.m. pickup at the hotel in Valparaiso was absolutely brutal. The hotel said that they would have something for breakfast while we waited for our guide to pick us up. We arrived downstairs and there were a few stale cookies out from the prior evening and no coffee. The young man working the night shift scrambled to get some coffee together for us, but unfortunately we had to wait until we got to the airport in Santiago for the trip to Calama to get a meaningful meal (at our expense). Our guide, however, stayed with us to efficiently navigate domestic check-in, and even arranged for a little known way to get discounted checked baggage handling with the airlines that saved us quite a bit of money.

As we later discovered, there is a hotel at SCL airport where we feel it would have been better to stay instead of overnight in Valparaiso, as due to the early wakeup we were not going to take advantage of the night-life there. Logistically, we would have liked a little better advice in this regard as the recovery from the early wakeup was tedious. We felt like overall using a booking agent was worthwhile, as we probably could not have had such good coverage with the limited amount of time we had to spend planning.

2. HUGE discrepancy in Patagonia itinerary led us to initially believe we were flying in to Puerto Natales (1 1/2 hours to Torres del Paine), but it turns out we were actually booked to Punta Arenas (4 1/2 hour drive to Torres del Paine). Much to our displeasure, the hotel had sent a small vehicle for transit to the Park and we were crammed very uncomfortably into the backseat for the entire ride minus the stops. It was late in the game when the travel company had to change these arrangements (they did not notice the discrepancy until I called a trip planner and pointed it out), and the hotel said all their larger vehicles were in use at the time. NOT HAPPY with the error on the itinerary nor the transit from Punta Arenas to the park! The return to Punta Arenas was much more accommodating.

3. Given that we did a pay a premium for the travel company to arrange logistics, we would have hoped for a recommendation for the star-gazing tour in the Atacama. This is one of the top attractions of the desert. We feel that we just told them what we wanted to do and they did what they could to accommodate our requests without much additional creativity or forethought to some of the itinerary and logistics.

At the last minute the  weather in the Atacama Desert made it necessary to cancel the three days of our trip scheduled there. Our travel specialist from this travel company was able to change our itinerary at the last minute to the Lakes region of Chile. Flights were rescheduled...last minute reservations at hotels made and excursions with some very good tour guides arranged. I trusted her to make all the arrangements.She did a spectacular job!

Overall, the trip was exceptional and the travel company was very good.Working initially with my agent via email, we arranged a custom-made, month-long itinerary including roughly 10 days in Argentina, 10 days in Chile and then 5 days on Easter Island. The travel company impressed me throughout the process by offering various options appealing to our travel interests, including some experiences that other companies didn’t think of.Any trip of this size is bound to have some hiccups along the way. Most items were handled very well by this company, especially once we had their local operator, working on our behalf. There were some areas though where I thought the service could be improved:- The flight from Punta Arenas could not connect with the one to Calama. They are two different airlines, so we had to retrieve our bags from Sky Airlines in Santiago, exit the airport entirely, and then come back in through baggage check, security, etc. to connect to the next flight on Latam. Granted, this is a truly ridiculous system and entirely the fault of the Santiago airport. However, it is the responsibility of the Agency to know that going from Sky to Latam in Santiago will result in such a problem. The travel company should have noticed this in the booking (they arranged all the local flights) and chosen 2 Latam flights instead. Such flights did exist, as there were other tourists doing exactly the same route as us going Latam to Latam with no problem.- I was very clear with my agent when arranging the itinerary that I would be fine with small group tours, but I definitely did not want giant bus tours. Our day trip to Valparaiso was a giant bus, completely full. We did not follow the itinerary for some reason, and it was the weakest experience of the trip. I know that small tours of 4-8 people existed because we saw them, right alongside us! The local tour company was also terrible. They picked us up from our hotel, drove around for 30 minutes through Santiago in rush hour, only to return to our own hotel and pick up another couple! What a huge waste of time! Then our small van brought us to a centralized point where we all offloaded and stood in a parking lot for another 30 minutes in total chaos. Nobody was clear on what we were to do or where we should go. Other passengers were also confused. 3-4 buses sat there empty for the whole time period while the guides sorted it all out. No signs, no clear direction. Eventually, I began going bus-by-bus, going into each vehicle, and asking where it was going. Eventually I figured it out with zero help from any of the guides or drivers. By then, we were the last to board, and were actually made fun of by the guide! Unbelievable! We didn’t mention this one until now because once we realised it was a giant bus tour, it was already too late. There is nothing this company could have done to change it, so we made the best of our day. It simply should not have been booked to start.The local tour company and our travel company were helpful in working with our hotel to fix the incorrect charge for the “astronomy excursion”. They also helped us smooth out small problems in a few places throughout the trip, such as when the driver dropped us at the wrong hotel in Santiago, and small things like that.