Amazing trip overall to Chile! Would recommend entirely
Chile
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Mar 18 - Apr 3, 2023
We had an amazing trip overall to Chile (Valparaiso, Santiago, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Atacama desert and Patagonia). The trip was smooth, informative, had great guides overalls and very few hiccups.
The few elements I would propose to improve:
1. Our first night in Hotel Fundador was not good. We had a horribly tiny room that gave to the front of the hotel. We were on the 2nd floor and it was extremely noisy. I had never been in a hotel room that small. During our second stay at the hotel for the end of our trip, we told them this and they gave us their standard room which was much better
2. We weren't aware that we could fly directly to Puerto Natales (instead of flying to Punto Arenas which was 3 hours away via bus) - it would be good to have been told that a flight to Puerto Natales was preferred
3. Our tour operator in San Pedro de Atacama would give us intervals for pick-up (for example: between 4-4:30AM) - it would be preferred to have a shorter interval especially when the pick-up is that early
4. Our tour operator in San Pedro de Atacama sub-contracted a tour to the Tatio Geysers without telling us when the tour was meant to occur with them if there were at least 2 people. It was bad because they didn't warn us and the new tour operator had a different pick-up time: instead of 4-4:30AM, it was 4:30-5AM. We lost sleep because of this poor communication. We were very unhappy with this and it was hard to even get a "sorry, this was our mistake"
5. We originally had a rainbow valley tour in Atacama, but it was cancelled due to poor weather. This was fine, but the replacement tour was an "archeological tour". It was not a great tour - very little to see - very little information
6. Following my comment in #5, it would have been better that the tour operator rearrange our schedule to include the full day Pierras Rojas tour. We asked for them to suggest new tours, etc., but they were not helpful.
As you see, we have some feedback but I need to highlight how enjoyable Rapa Nui Tours (guide: Sabrina Tuki Pont), Patagonia Planet and CL Mundo were. Our tour operator in Atacama (Capricornio Expediciones) was disappointing overall such that our experience in Atacama was less enjoyable.
Ana was excellent. We would definitely work with Kimkim again.
Two other comments:
- Maybe include more restaurant suggestions in the given locations
- I would have preferred that the tours be English only, and not bilingual Spanish/English. We felt that we would get less information on bilingual tours than on English only tours.
Hotel Reviews
Our first stay, we had a terribly tiny room. We could not have our luggage open in the room.
Fantastic hotel with kind staff.
Activity Reviews
We did not need this activity given our hotel was 5 minutes away by foot. I would recommend another tour instead of this one for people staying in Vai Moana hotel.
We did not have this activity - it was an archeological tour. I would not recommend - it was not informative.
The tour ended up being great, but Capricornio Expediciones was very poor in communicating the time of pick-up (time changed so we lost 30 minutes sleep) and the fact that they sub-contracted the tour without telling us We were also meant to be dropped off at our hotel, but that didn't happen.
