Zaandam S. America Antarctica

[solosport]

Has anyone been to cruise ports like puerto Montt or Ushuaia and did your tour pick you up or wait for you or are there various starting times? Ushuaia we arrive at noon and booking a viator tour to national park. The tours down there aren’t communicating the tour pickup information times. Holland America doesn’t have the tour we want so using outside tours

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[0bnxshs]

Welcome to CC! You might get more responses if you post this in the ports board and your roll call. However, I've been to Ushuaia and our private tour was waiting at the head of the pier when we docked and walked off the ship. We had arranged a tour with an operator who did not require a deposit in case we weren't able to dock there. We did find that email with the operator was sort of hit and miss between the language differences and their internet connectivity and their being busy guiding other tours. As far as Puerto Montt, we all did different HAL tours there so can't comment on what private operators did.

 

Hope this helps you.

[TiogaCruiser]

Antarctica.......You are in for a treat!

 

I’ve done SA twice and never made it in to PMontt due to weather, and only once to Ush. We booked both times with Edgardo (tourguidesushuaia.com) and our guide was waiting for us. On the cruise when we couldn’t make port due to high winds, he was waiting and emailing me up to the time we got canceled. Actually, he knew we were canceled before we got the announcement. It was a great tour.

[old mike]

We did SA last fall. Most of the SA ports are commercial operations and not cruise ship terminals, Some allow tour buses to get within walking distance of the vessel but others will entail a shuttle from the the dock to a parking area. I don't remember the specifics of each port and we only took HAL EXC tours so not much help to you I'm afraid. As per above try asking on the port specific area of CC. Enjoy, we are repeating the cruise next year we enjoyed it so much.

[SusieKIslandGirl]

Sign up for the roll call for your specific cruise. Our January, 2019 cruise roll call has a lot of information on various tours-yours probably will too. As was previously mentioned, check out the South America board and also the board for your ship.

[solosport]

Antarctica.......You are in for a treat!

 

I’ve done SA twice and never made it in to PMontt due to weather, and only once to Ush. We booked both times with Edgardo (tourguidesushuaia.com) and our guide was waiting for us. On the cruise when we couldn’t make port due to high winds, he was waiting and emailing me up to the time we got canceled. Actually, he knew we were canceled before we got the announcement. It was a great tour.

 

Thanks. I signed up with Edgar at Tourguideushuaia.com because no other tour company would pick us up in Puerto Montt and Ushauia they will wait for a late arrival of noon on Christmas Day so that was nice. And I notice if the ship is cancelled in a port due to weather you can get mostly refunded. I just worried about his sliding scale depending on number of passengers but I figure with Holland America Zaandams medium size of ship there should be at least 10 people on the tour right?

[kazu]

Thanks. I signed up with Edgar at Tourguideushuaia.com because no other tour company would pick us up in Puerto Montt and Ushauia they will wait for a late arrival of noon on Christmas Day so that was nice. And I notice if the ship is cancelled in a port due to weather you can get mostly refunded. I just worried about his sliding scale depending on number of passengers but I figure with Holland America Zaandams medium size of ship there should be at least 10 people on the tour right?

 

Why don't you let your roll call know about it and hopefully be assured of other signing up that you may even know?

 

Not necessarily everyone does private tours. So let your roll call know about it and you might have some partners on a tour :)

[solosport]

Yes. I posted details about tour guides in Puerto Montt and Ushuaia on that area finally. This website is confusing so I finally found out about my particular ship. thanks

[rkacruiser]

Having sailed your itinerary, you are in for a treat! All of my tours were through HAL and I was pleased with all of them. Given the hassles at Buenos Aires terminal after disembarking from the cruise and the chaotic airport arrival at Santiago, I was glad I was a HAL hotel/transfer guest.

[TiogaCruiser]

Thanks. I signed up with Edgar at Tourguideushuaia.com because no other tour company would pick us up in Puerto Montt and Ushauia they will wait for a late arrival of noon on Christmas Day so that was nice. And I notice if the ship is cancelled in a port due to weather you can get mostly refunded. I just worried about his sliding scale depending on number of passengers but I figure with Holland America Zaandams medium size of ship there should be at least 10 people on the tour right?

 

Maybe I need to clarify- I only booked with Edgardo in Ushuaia, twice, and it was a good experience. I can’t imagine it not being good in PM.

 

Having said that, we had a not-so-good experience with a totally different operator (GVTours) in Punto Arenas. They never showed. There were a total of 5 people who were expecting them, and they did not have the courtesy to contact any of us, nor respond to my phone calls and text messages as we waited for them.