Overall, Zicasso’s travel company did an excellent job with our vacation. One of the most important factors that we value about an agency is how well it executes the trip logistics.
This vacation ranks as one of our top three when it comes to complexity and difficulty of coordination, as this trip involved 10 separate plane rides (with several being limited in availability), multiple overland transfers to and from different airports (some of them hours long), and transportation that was dependent on close synchronization with the hotels themselves. The execution was simply flawless. We made every flight with time to spare, all of our drivers were punctual to early, and we reached every destination safely and in comfort. Even more impressive was the fact that, despite all this, we never felt rushed at any point and we always had time to get three square meals (sometimes more) a day.
The travel company always checked in during each segment of the trip, and all the necessary documents and information for each transfer were uploaded early. It was a zero-hassle trip that was perfectly implemented and that, by itself, makes this travel company one of the best of the best that we have ever worked with.
With all that said, the trip wasn't entirely flawless. Of the five major hotels that we stayed at, only one truly lived up to its five-star reputation and paid value. The other hotels, unfortunately, all had various flaws that ranged from safety issues to service mishaps and, while the details of these flaws are beyond the scope of this review, they did detract a bit from the overall enjoyment of the experience. Certainly, one can argue that these are first-world complaints; however, a five-star rating with five-star prices (not to mention the numerous advertised awards) are naturally held to more exceptional standards and, as a whole, our hotels, unfortunately, fell somewhat short.
Another aspect where we had issues arise was related to our excursions. Prior to the beginning of the trip, we had inquired about pre-scheduling the excursions for each of our destinations. We were told that, while the hotels would discuss and schedule the excursions with us on arrival, they did accept and try to accommodate excursion requests that were made ahead of time. Consequently, we spent a good amount of time reading the list of excursions from each hotel, discussing the best choices for the family as a whole, and then sending our list of preferred excursions to the travel company, which then reported forwarding our requests to the hotels. However, we came to find out that all that work was a huge waste of time and effort. None of the hotels even knew that we had pre-requested excursions and we wound up having to re-pick which excursions we wanted to go on. This was initially not an issue (as we ended up either getting what we originally wanted or going with something better), until we reached Patagonia.
Because of how far each airport was from the hotel in the Lake District and Patagonia, we wound up arriving at our hotel in Patagonia after midnight. Not only did we miss the entire excursion orientation, but because the hotel never knew about our pre-requests, we were told there were only two excursions left that we could choose from and neither of them had been one of our initial choices.
The next morning was somewhat of a disaster, as we were not only late for the excursion (since we never received information about the excursion etiquette in Patagonia), but the excursion we chose wound up being a hike that half of the family was ill-prepared for. Luckily for us, once the excursion guides heard our story of what happened the night before, they bent over backwards to get us into the excursions that we initially wanted and we were able to salvage and enjoy our Patagonia portion. With that said, the initial fiasco was obviously stressful and upsetting, and while it's difficult to pinpoint who made the mistake, the point here is that the ball was dropped, so to speak.
Additionally, our day excursion to Valparaiso was, unfortunately, one of the worst trip segments we have ever had in the history of our family vacations. The chosen guide was just horrendous. Our guide provided little information about the parts of Valparaiso that we were able to visit, spent most of the time trying to hawk local products to purchase, and in the four hours we were there, it felt like all we did was look at numerous street art and graffiti. We saw nothing of value during our outing and the experience ultimately left a sour taste in our mouths. It sadly became just a huge waste of our time and money, which is tragic given what the city reportedly has to offer.
Additionally, this day is going to be a big “what if” for us for another reason. During our initial review, we thought the winery tour that was included was in Valparaiso itself and that we would stay the whole day in the city sampling its local cuisine. Unfortunately, the winery was actually back in the Casablanca Valley and we had to leave the city completely. Now, we were already staying at a winery hotel in the region, which made this winery tour and lunch completely extraneous and unnecessary. Overall, we felt this was a poorly arranged day that would have benefited from additional discussion and editing in the planning stages.
All things considered, however, we would still give this travel company the highest rating because, for us, a strike on an activity or hotel choice does not make or break an agency. It's whether or not they got the logistics right and if we were able to get to where we needed to go and see what we needed to see stress-free and without any issues. It's also whether or not the agency is available for assistance in case of an emergency. In this regard, the travel company delivered in spades and they undoubtedly succeeded in giving us a trip of a lifetime. We would, without hesitation, be happy to use them again if we get a chance to return to Chile.
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