Hi Agustina,

Just to follow up on Jason's email - I agree completely. We were extremely pleased with Say Hueque's organization of our trip. The hotels were very comfortable, the staff was great, and we really appreciated the pick-ups and drop-offs. We would absolutely book with Say Hueque again, and would recommend the company to anyone travelling to Patagonia. I'll mention one thing in addition - we really liked the balance of planned time (e.g. Porito Moreno Glacier tour) and free time (a few days to hike in El Chalten with no set itinerary). Thanks very, very much!!

Cheers,

Katie

Hi Agustina,

Here is my blurb.

The tour was excellent. Each of the hotels chosen by Say Hueque were clean, convenient and well kept. There was always someone to meet us when we arrived at each location, and everyone was very friendly and helpful. They even checked us in for the flights! We loved the tour and would not hesitate to book with Say Hueque again.

As for anything that could be improved: On the second last day we traveled by bus from El Chalten to El Calafate and on the last day we flew from El Calafate to Buenos Aires.

It would have been preferable if the bus trip and the flight took place on the same day. There is not much to do in El Calafate for a half day as the glacier is too far away for a half day trip.

Thus, we could have either returned to Buenos Aires a day earlier or had an extra full day in El Chalten.

For instance, instead of:

Day 5: Half day in El Chalten and evening bus ride to El Calafate.
Day 6: Half day in El Calafate to Buenos Aires

I would have preferred:

Day 5: Another full day in El Chalten
Day 6: Morning bus ride to El Calafate and evening plane ride to Buenos Aires

or

Day 5: Morning bus ride to El Calafate and evening plane ride to Buenos Aires

Katie may have additional comments :)

Jason

Hi Carolina,

Thank you for this email. I apologize for the late response! We had an AWESOME time on our family trip. Thank you so so much to Say Hueque for helping us create and this special trip. Everything was seamless and it made our travel experience so pleasant.

To answer a few of your Qs:
Which hotel did you like the most? Aguas Arribas! But we wished we had more time at the one in El Calafate - we loved the pool and the cool restaurant and the spa was reasonably priced. We also had a great time at Hosteria las Torres - a great place for jumping off to all the hikes and the refugio (domos frances) was great! Basically all of them - but Aguas Arribas was charming and so special
What was the best of traveling with us? The ease of travel - transportation was seamless and all the hotels knew we were coming and where we were going next.
Is there anything you think could be improved? Nope!

Thank you so much, again. I have attached 2 pictures - one of our whole family at the glacier near Fitz Roy and one of my brother and I on the hike back from the torres base.

Hi Patty:

This was our dream trip and almost everything worked out perfectly. I’d say for hotels that Hotel Ilaia in Punta Arenas is at the top of our list. The Explora was, of course, magnificent, both in setting and architecture. The Hotel Sur Bella was a fantastic location in Buenos Aires with impeccable service and nice large rooms. But the Ilaia had something even better: a staff that treated us like long-lost family members. The location was nice, the room on the roof of the hotel had one of the nicest city views ever and the breakfast was perfect.

Our favorite excursion was the one I didn’t think we needed: a tour guide in Iguazu Park. Everything I’d read said that you could easily see the park on your own, that the trails were well marked and easy etc. Our guide, Ivan, was amazing though. He had reservations waiting for us for the jet boat tour (which was sold out both days we were there) on the off-chance that we’d like to do that. He had relevant comments about history (personal history as well as his family had lived in the area for generations: his grandfather had worked for the park decades prior). We had a full day with him and kept saying “those people don’t know all of the things that they’re missing just walking around”.

Our least favorite excursion was the tour of Buenos Aires. It was billed as a historical tour with video clips, visits to Evita’s balcony etc. Instead we used up two hours of the tour picking up other passengers and at least a third of the tour were stops at two “tourist locations” so we could pick up souvenirs. The tour guide was not engaged with the passengers (she talked to her friend when we were not anyplace of interest).

All of the people who provided transfers for your company were amazing! They were waiting for us as we emerged from the airports, showed up early at hotels (even on New Year’s Day in Buenos Aires at 7 AM!) The two representatives that I worked with , Pia and Silvia, were both very good. All of the arrangements that they made for us (with the exception of the BA tour) were exactly as described. One thing that might have been better would be to have dropped us an email or two between the time when we made reservations in early March and before we departed in December. I ended up contacting Pia in mid-November to arrange our final payments. Nothing serious, just might be good customer service to say “everything still looks good”.

And speaking of good, can’t say enough good things about your partner Steven Soto of Exito Travel. Great professional, on top of everything.

Martin Grant

Thank you Agustina,
Thank you for you e-mail. We enjoyed our trip. The scenary was great. The hotel we enjoyed a lot was Loi Hotel in Iguazu. We did not enjoy or like the hotel in Calafate. In general we think our trip was overpriced based on others we met on the tour. The best part was being met at the airports and driven to the airports. The food in Estancia Christina was not memorable. This is a trip that can be skipped. We did not realize that after a very difficult walk we will be so far from the glacier. it was in general a waste of a day. Perito Moreno on the other hand we felt we had the experience of a glacier.
Hope this helps
Astrid

Carolina:
Thanks so much- we just got back on Sunday and had an amazing time traveling through Argentina & Chile. Thank you for sharing some recipes for empanadas- I think we ate about 100 in two weeks - haha! I would love to provide you some feedback. Here are some answers to your questions, some general feedback and a couple photos. Our favorite photos of the two of us are from Perito Moreno and Torres del Paine.

Which hotel did you like the most? Senderos in El Chalten
What was the best of traveling with us? Is there anything you think could be improved? I liked that everything was handled ahead of time and that we knew our daily schedules before we arrived. Our favorite activity (by far) was the ice hiking on Perito Moreno. We had a blast that day! It was a little confusing that locally we had to contact different agencies. Huellas del Sur gave us some incorrect information on our transportation from El Chalten to El Calafate. We were supposed to go on a bus, but ended up getting a private transfer (not bad), but we only found out when we went to the bus station the day before and they didn't have our names on the reservation. Huelles del Sur was slow to respond to us to confirm the El Chalten to El Calafate transportation. Additionally, the packet we received from Huellas del Sur was in Spanish, so it was difficult to understand our instructions without help from someone who spoke both languages. Overall great experience and I would recommend Say Hueque to others traveling to this part of the world! The one thing I would caution to someone who is traveling here is to consider how much time you are traveling from one destination to another. I felt like half the time in Patagonia was spent transporting from one town to another. But when we got to each place, we felt it was really worth it! Could have spent one less day in El Chalten and one more day in either Torres Del Paine or in El Calafate (wished we had time to do a kayak excursion to Upsala or on Grey Glacier).

Hi Carolina

We hope you are well.
If you could send the email address that you have written to and that we could write to regarding the refund, we would appreciate it. Thank you for trying to get the refund on our behalf.

We enjoyed our trip very much. The tour guides in Mendoza and Eguazzu were both great. We liked them very much. Entre Cielos was great-- a wonderful place.
We enjoyed our two days exploring vineyards. We loved Vistalba and especially Mendel. The selection of wineries as nice but if we had only one day it would not be as good. At a couple of places we got the full tour and learned a lot about wine making and got to taste some good wines. On our second day we liked Pulenta a lot. Andeluna was a bit of a waste because we only were there to taste wines (no tour), and lunch at Casa de Uco was very good and the setting was nice, but it was only a lunch spot. On the second day we toured only one winery so the day didn't have a lot of substance to it. Iguazzu was fantastic and we are glad we saw it from both sides (Argentina and Brazil). The Sheraton was nothing fancy, which is what we expected and we liked staying in the park and would do it again, but the food at the Sheraton was pretty bad. We didn't expect it to be more than it was, but it was clearly institutional food and not anything to recommend -- but again, we would stay there again for the location.
The hotel in Rio was a bit of a disappointment. The staff was very mice and the breakfast buffet was delicious. The problem was the odor of sewage in the hotel lobby and sometimes in the restaurant and even up on the 12th floor where our room was. Our room was very small and unpacking was a challenge because we were there for 6 nights. There is a pool on the roof but it is small and there are not many chairs, so it's a competitive situation and most of the times we went to the roof there were no chairs available for us to sit in.

So, that's the good and less good. My only other suggestion is that in Eguazzu, the boat trip should be booked for the late afternoon. For us, it was booked for 11 AM, so after that, we had to spend the rest of the day completely drenched, which was uncomfortable. We enjoyed the boat trip but didn't realized that we would get 100% soaked -- we were expecting just a few splashes rather than going under the falls completely several times. It was nice that a reservation was made for us to take the boat trip but my suggestion is that reservations should be made for late in the afternoon.

Thank you again for your help and for meeting us at the airport

Mark and Jeff

Dear Karen,

It's wonderful experience to work with you and your company. The trip has been well organized, and executed. We enjoyed very much during the traveling. One thing to improve could be the visa process to across the board although the officers are very friendly. However, it's a government job that is very little your company can do. Hope to see you again when we visit Argentina next time. By the way, the wine is very good that we like very much. Thanks again!

Best Regards,

Linhua