Looking for recommendations for a pre-cruise Stay in Santiago de Chile?

[farodeluzgirl]

We are looking a last minute sailing on HAL ship Oosterdam on December 6 from Chile to Buenos Aires. I am looking for pre-cruise recommendations.

Should we stay in Santiago de Chile prior to the cruise or Valparaiso?

Are there reliable buses that we can take from Santiago to the port in San Antonio? Or should we pay the transfer from the airport in Santiago de Chile to the port?

I was quoted $900 for a 2 night stay at the Sheraton in Santiago plus transfer for 2 nights by HAL; and that is too high.

[mcmarya]

Pre-pandemic buses were very reliable.  In terms of hotels,  usually US brand hotels are expensive and locally owned ones much more reasonable but still nice if chosen carefully.  When planning I read lots of tripadvisor reviews and have always been happy.

[TayanaLorna]

Cruise ship pre cruise hotel/transfer packages are always way more then one can do on their own.  In 2020 we did hotel (THE #1 B&B in all of South America), an all day private tour up into the Andes including lunch, an all day tour to Pablo Neruda's seaside home, a local lunch, winery visit/tasting with drop off at ship, all taxis to restaurants and all meals with drinks not included in tours for less then the ships 2 hotel nights with transfer to ship.

 

Unfortunately the B&B closed and the excellent couple who did the tours are no longer in business so I cannot recommend.  Covid casualties probably.  However i found everything through Trip Advisor thoroughly reading the reviews, descriptions and viewing photos.

 

Did not use Colchagua Transport who does transfers as well as tours/transfers because they did not go up into the Andes.  But they got rave reviews and are still in business.  

[rkacruiser]

21 hours ago, farodeluzgirl said:

I was quoted $900 for a 2 night stay at the Sheraton in Santiago plus transfer for 2 nights by HAL; and that is too high.

 

I do not remember what I paid, but, I used the HAL pre-cruise hotel and transfer package and the convenience of it was worth whatever I paid.  Luggage handling is included once one clears Customs/Immigration at the Santiago airport.  The airport was a chaotic mess with several international flights arriving close to the same time.  There was HAL ground staff available to help their guests.  

 

I stayed at the Sheraton and it is a very nice hotel with good restaurants, a lovely pool area, and very comfortable rooms.  Tours of the area can be arranged once one arrives.  A city tour that included watching the Changing of the Guard at the Presidential Palace was good.  A wine country/vineyward/tasting tour that included a lunch with local foods was my favorite tour.  

[mcmarya]

We actually used the metro while we were in Santiago and found it very modern and easy to use.  Santiago is not really a tourist town but we found many interesting things to do on our own--Cerro San Cristobal on the funicular, Santa Lucia Hill, Plaza de Armas with the museum and cathedral and chess players, the central market, etc.  It helped that my husband speaks Spanish.

[SClakeliving]

We are going in January with Princess. We are staying one night at the Hotel Cumbres Lastarria in the "old town" and very near all the historic sites. Then I reserved a private transfer to Valparaiso with VIATOR, and 8 other Roll Call people are joining us. 

[AryMay]

We did the HAL South America/Antarctica cruise in 2019 so my info is "pre-pandemic". 

 

We flew down several days before our cruise and stayed at the Hotel Plaza San Francisco in Santiago. The price was very reasonable, included a nice breakfast and was within walking distance of what we wanted to see (Plaza de Armas, Santa Lucia Hill, HOHO bus route, Mercado Central, etc.) Click HERE to read my blog post on the hotel. 

 

Also we chose to take the public bus from Santiago to San Antonio. We took a taxi from the hotel to get to the bus station. At the time there were frequent busses between the 2 cities and the cost was around $6/person. Click HERE to read the blog post.  

 

Besides the blog links I provided, there are a couple of other posts from our stay in Santiago plus daily posts from the cruise if you are interested. The cruise was probably our favorite of all we have done!

[Reina del Mar]

On 10/25/2022 at 6:23 PM, SClakeliving said:

We are going in January with Princess. We are staying one night at the Hotel Cumbres Lastarria in the "old town" and very near all the historic sites. Then I reserved a private transfer to Valparaiso with VIATOR, and 8 other Roll Call people are joining us. 

 

Please check..thought Princess now sailing from San Antonio ??????

[mcmarya]

Loved reading your blog.  We did a post cruise stay in Santiago and immensely enjoyed it.

[SClakeliving]

17 hours ago, Reina del Mar said:

 

Please check..thought Princess now sailing from San Antonio ??????

We got an email a couple of weeks ago from Princess saying They changed the port from San Antonio to Valparaiso for our cruise because of heavy cargo traffic at port that day. 

[Reina del Mar]

1 hour ago, SClakeliving said:

We got an email a couple of weeks ago from Princess saying They changed the port from San Antonio to Valparaiso for our cruise because of heavy cargo traffic at port that day. 

Oh OK..was just trying to be helpful…we have booked (not Princess) transfers to San Antonio for next Spring, so hope they don’t change ours. 🥹

 

Have a great cruise and look forward to hearing all about it.

[rkacruiser]

7 hours ago, Reina del Mar said:

Oh OK..was just trying to be helpful…we have booked (not Princess) transfers to San Antonio for next Spring, so hope they don’t change ours. 🥹

 

When I sailed on the Zaandam, the port change from Valparaiso to San Antonio was made because of labor problems at Valparaiso.  Dock worker issues with slowdowns, etc,  The problems must have been resolved.  

[SClakeliving]

18 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

When I sailed on the Zaandam, the port change from Valparaiso to San Antonio was made because of labor problems at Valparaiso.  Dock worker issues with slowdowns, etc,  The problems must have been resolved.  

Hmmmm…Guess we just have to be flexible… port changes seem to happen a lot in Chile!! 

[Mary loves to travel]

on our upcoming Jan 2024 Antarctica cruise, Princess has included transportation from the airport to the port at no extra charge.    We plan to come into Santiago a few days early, then I'm thinking we should go to the airport and take the Princess transportation to the port.

Has anyone else done this?

 

Mary

[NCruiser2012]

54 minutes ago, Mary loves to travel said:

on our upcoming Jan 2024 Antarctica cruise, Princess has included transportation from the airport to the port at no extra charge.    We plan to come into Santiago a few days early, then I'm thinking we should go to the airport and take the Princess transportation to the port.

Has anyone else done this?

 

Mary

I had a travel agent tell me to just go back to the airport to pick up the ship's transportation. So we are planning to take a taxi from the airport to downtown Santiago for a couple days. Then we are planning on returning to the airport to get the NCL bus to San Antonio. I am a little nervous about this, but the ship is departing on New Year's Day, so I wanted guaranteed transportation. It wasn't too much extra and since the San Antonio is a good drive from Santiago, I decided this may be a better way to go. I am anxious to see how the transfer is worded and where we meet.

[Traveling Library]

In Feb 2020 we stayed at the Santiago airport Holiday Inn for 1 night (nice hotel for just 1 night). We then walked to the terminal to get the ship transfer to San Antonio. There were men outside of the terminal who kept trying to take our suitcase and telling us that the bus had already left or that it would get to the port too late so we needed to take their taxi/transport.  It's a scam! Hold onto your suitcase, say "no thank you" and go directly into the terminal to meet up with the ship transfer people. Sadly, we met a couple on our ship who was taken in by the scam and had to pay $200 cash when they arrived in San Antonio.  Not the way anyone should start their vacation.

[rkacruiser]

22 hours ago, Traveling Library said:

There were men outside of the terminal who kept trying to take our suitcase and telling us that the bus had already left or that it would get to the port too late so we needed to take their taxi/transport. 

 

This information my statements about the chaotic Santiago airport.  I am going to very strongly recommend that any cruiser arriving at Santiago and departing on a cruise from Chile consider very seriously booking a seamless cruise line airport-hotel-port transfer and not attempt to do a DIY transfers.  Doing so, there will be cruise line representatives at the airport and at the hotel that will assist when one becomes overwhelmed with the chaos that exists at the airport.