South America information

[lovetocruise16]

My husband and I are looking to book Marina's "Incas & the Andes" cruise in Jan. of 2017. Does anyone have information regarding ports of call in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador? Any local tour agents that proved reliable? Would appreciate any travel tips. Thanks!

[janecambridge]

Hi.I am sure there will lots of help for you,but a start will be to go Roll Calls for your particular trip and see if there is already a roll call or start one.This can lead to invaluable information from others and also the possibility of grouping together for private tours.

There is also a section on cruise critic for most of the ports visited by cruise ships...

Is this your first Oceania cruise? We have our first in August and really looking forward to it...

[no fuss travel]

Go to the Port discussion area in Cruise Critic as well as Trip Advisor and look for tour guides. We found an excellent one for Chile, but I can't remember his name. We have dealt with too many tour guides since we were in Chile. I found all of my tour guides through Trip Advisor and was very pleased with them all except for one in Montevideo.

[ORV]

Hi.I am sure there will lots of help for you,but a start will be to go Roll Calls for your particular trip and see if there is already a roll call or start one.This can lead to invaluable information from others and also the possibility of grouping together for private tours.

There is also a section on cruise critic for most of the ports visited by cruise ships...

Is this your first Oceania cruise? We have our first in August and really looking forward to it...

 

There is a Roll Call for that cruise, but I think other than me there is only maybe one other person on it. There is no information there yet.

[Mura]

Last April/May we did the Lima-NYC cruise which had some of your ports and so I do have some suggestions for guides. It's unfortunate, though, that you only have one day for Machu Picchu ... we were three couples on a six day pre-cruise visit which was wonderful. (Of course if you have already been to MP this won't be so crucial for you.)

 

We were in Valpo in February 2000 and used a private guide (not licensed) who had been recommended to us by someone on the Yahoo Renaissance list; he was wonderful but it's so long ago I have no idea if he is still available. Email me if you'd like to try to contact him.

 

Salaverry. We used reservations@trujillodelperu.com. I did not set this one up myself -- friends who had intended on taking this cruise had to cancel and so I picked up the slack. We had a wonderful tour to Huacas del Sol and La Luna, then a visit to town, then Chan Chan and ending up in a fishing village. This was an 8:30am to 3pm tour; we were 14 people so the cost was $65pp. Warning: the walk up to La Luna can be difficult for people! I managed, but one of the women appreciated my waiting for her half way up. This was no sacrifice on my part since I wanted to rest anyway!

 

But we were very pleased with this tour.

 

 

Manta. I set this one up with Narwell Ecotours. Again, an excellent tour. We chose the Cerro Jaboncilla/Montecristi – $75pp. An excellent day. (We were 12 people.)

 

As I recall people who wanted to do the first half of the tour were able to return to the ship but it would have taken a private cab. I don't recall that any of our group did so.

 

Note: They tend not to book tours more than 6 months in advance, so you would need to make a note to check with them later.

 

That's about it. We did have a tour in Puerto Limon but because Noro was on board and my husband was ill, we didn't bother. Roatan seemed to be mostly snorkeling, so we also just hung around the docks.

 

Hope this helps you.

 

Mura