Buenos Aires & Santiago Chile air questions

[mommykim]

Hi all,

I am looking at a cruise for 2008 and I have a few questions I hope you can help with. We would be cruising from Buenos Aires to Santiago Chile and I am wondering about flights. I assume I would fly into EZE but would we come back from SCL? When you did this when did you fly in to pick up your cruise? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Captain Cosmo]

Hi - we just did this cruise in reverse - Santiago to Buenos Aires, but the principle is the same. You would fly back home from Santiago, which is about 90 minutes drive from the port you'll disembark at, Valpairiso. There are shore excursions available on the day you disembark that would give you a tour of the Valpairiso area, then some wineries on the way to Santiago, and will finally drop you off at the Santiago airport. Most flights back to the US leave in the late evening so you'll have plenty of time for a last-day tour. We went from San Francisco to Atlanta to SCL and came back from EZE to Atlanta to San Francisco. As far as when to arrive, there are some who arrive the day of departure but I've noted that many of the posters here recommend going a day early - just in case your flight is cancelled (there's usually only a couple of flights a day to this part of the world out of the US). You also have the option of booking your air travel through Celebrity. Have a great trip!

[Marie-Claude]

We also just returned from a Buenos Aires to Valparaiso cruise on Princess.

We opted to take our flights with Princess as it was cheaper for us (one of the rare occasion...). Our flight to Buenos Aires (EZE) from Montreal was with AA through Miami. We opted to arrive 3 days earlier in BA and it was great. Our flight was actually delayed 9 hours in Miami so we missed most of day 1, but we had two more days to enjoy the city. Had we planned to arrive the day of the cruise, we would have miss it... So do plan to arrive at least one day ahead. Our pre-cruise package included a city tour and a full day tour in the Pampas on a Gaucho Ranch - we loved it! BA is a great city worth exploring a bit.

 

As for the return, we had a transfer from Valparaiso to Santiago through the cruiseline - winery tour, city tour, drop off at the airport at around 7pm for our 9pm flight with Air Canada.

 

MC