Suggestions for Private Tours - Buenos Aires to Valparaiso

[CruzPal]

Jerwick, we arrive in Santiago at 6:30 a.m. and taking the Golden Princess cruise that day. We are looking for others to join a Port Compass tour - Santiago city, Winery and Valparaiso. With at least 4 I think the price is $99/pp. Have you already booked? Would you be interested? What time do you get in?

 

 

 

I just received an email from victor at enaturchile.com for 2-24-07 and he quoted $180 for two ,Santiago to Valpariso. This does include a stop at a winery and a tour of Valpariso. This rate is double that you mentioned.

Did your quote include the winery and tour?

Jerry

[dileep]

Jerwick, we arrive in Santiago at 6:30 a.m. and taking the Golden Princess cruise that day. We are looking for others to join a Port Compass tour - Santiago city, Winery and Valparaiso. With at least 4 I think the price is $99/pp. Have you already booked? Would you be interested? What time do you get in?

 

 

Try the Roll Call for your cruise too!

[JoanVA]

Dileep,

Which company did you use for the Concha y Toro tour?

[dileep]

Dileep,

Which company did you use for the Concha y Toro tour?

 

The guides were provided by http://www.adsmundo.com and transportation by http://www.turistour.com but we booked everything with Ceci Salas - http://www.latintrip.com [ceci@latintrip.com]. Read my detailed report elsewhere on this board.

 

They picked up people at several different hotels. You can probably make arrangements with your hotel concierge.

[phillipahain]

Please ignore all previous good reports etc about Whales Patagonia

 

We used them on Jan/feb 07 Golden Princess Antartica sailing and the state of their vehicles was totally deploarable and basically unsafe

Thankfully we made it back to the ship OK but it would have been a nightmare if we had broken down so far from the ship

[markindayton2]

If you like king crab, in Punta Arenas go to Sotitos. It's about 3 blocks from the dock.

 

http://www.chileaustral.com/sotitos/index.shtml

 

 

 

I ate at "Sotitos Restaurante Touristico" (I'm not kidding, that is how their sign reads after reading about it on Cruise Critic. I love King Crab and the meal was delicious as others have described. But after I gave the waiter my credit card it took a long time for him to come back with it. He also made me sign two slips. When I got home I saw that he had charged me twice and also called my card number around to local shops I never visited, where small purchases were charged to my account totalling almost three hundred dollars. AmEx was great about writing off all of these charges. They said credit card fraud is rampant in South America and this kind of thing happens to tourists all the time. If you must go to Sotitos, which to me was the ultimate tourist trap, I suggest you pay in cash!

[willis]

In January, 2010, my Dad and I hired a marvelous guide/planner for our Buenos Aires 4 night pre-cruise stay, and our half day post-cruise tour. Her name is Madi Lang. She can be reached at http://www.baculturalconcierge.com.

 

Here is a link to my review of our wonderful time in Buenos Aires with Madi:

http://www.fodors.com/community/south-america/trip-reportbuenos-aires-fun-city-lovely-hotel-wonderful-guide.cfm

 

There is another nice review of Madi (from another Bill) here on the CC South America board, and many nice reviews of her on Tripadvisor (search her business "BA Cultural Concierge").

 

I highly recommend her!

 

Have a nice trip!

 

Bill

[bradshore13]

In 2009 i used http://www.gvtours.com in Puerto Montt and http://www.winetoursvalparaiso.cl for our transfer to Santiago airport with vineyard stops along the way.

[jmfdr]

In 2009 i used www.gvtours.com in Puerto Montt and www.winetoursvalparaiso.cl for our transfer to Santiago airport with vineyard stops along the way.

 

I would not use Michael at windtoursvalpariaso. Our experience with his wine tour/transfer was very disappointing. Pick-up, tour of Valpariso and airport drop off was just fine. However, for the price we paid we expected a very nice lunch/wine pairing experience. Just awful---at Morande the food was poor, the service terrible and so slow that we were unable to make the winery tour scheduled to follow the lunch. Most importantly, no one, not even Michael, provided any comments about the wines, varieties and why paired with the courses.

[ship101]

We disembarked the Star Princess on January 7 and had hired Michael, Valparaiso Winetours http://www.valparaisowinetours.com. Michael, originally from England now leaving in Valparaiso, is a great guide. He is knowledgeable and interesting. We had a full day with him. We started at 08:30 and visited Vina del Mar and Valparaiso in the morning (including a ride in the "ascensores" of Valparaiso). Then after we continued with the visit of the vinewards. Three tastings in very nice locations. All three vinewards in the Casablanca region. At the second stop we had a gastronomic lunch, it was absolutely delicious, the presentation was great and the wine pairing excellent. Michael left us at our hotel around 18:15. It was a great day, very comfortable van and a leasury pace. We truly enjoyed the tour and we recommend Michael without any restriction. The price for the tour, only the two of us was about $410 (little variation may happen as we paid in chilian pesos) including the tasting and the superb lunch.

Enjoy your trip, this is a great itinerary.