Dear Pia and Mariano,

Now that we are back home from our amazing holiday in Argentina, I would like to thank you and your colleagues for the excellent organisation of every detail within our trip. We had a great time since everything was organised to perfection, making our holiday in Argentina a memorable one! I will be recommending your service to friends and family who may decide to travel to Argentina.

Kindly send our appreciation to Vanesa (as I do not have her email address in hand) who assisted us during our holiday.

Kind regards,
Louiselle and Stephen

Great service, everything went smoothly. I was very impressed that a representative met with me at my hotel in Igauzu to see if I needed anything. She gave me some highlights to see outside of the booked tours.

Some imperfections requiring improvement:

1) According to the itinerary given prior to my money payment, a certain activity on a certain day was included. Yet, I was told later that it was not. Series of emails were exchanged. Your company insisted all along that the activity was not included and I had not been charged for that until finally after your double check, you admitted you were wrong and I am right. I finally got a refund of that day's tour fee.

2) Better have at least one staff working on night shift so that any enquiry/booking from people of great time zone difference with Argentina can be responded quickly. My experience is that I (of Asia country) made an enquiry by email on, say, Monday daytime. I could only see your reply on Tuesday daytime. I made a further follow-up enquiry immediately. I could then see your feedback on Wedsnesday daytime. Even worst is that your staff will be absolutely off (online or else) during Saturdays and Sundays. With such pattern, it is so difficult and inefficient to conclude a deal or any matter. I finally lost patience and had to wake up in midnight, checked your emails, immediately raised any further queries so that your staff could answer me shortly before I went to bed again.

3) Not each and every itemized queries of mine was responded in your emails. It's even worse if the queries were contained in 2 consecutive emails from me. Due to the problem in (2) above, I gave up some queries at the end

The above are the imperfections. The followings are the things I particularly appreciate:

A) All money was paid in advance by credit card in my own country before the trip. So I don't have to carry much cash with me in South America. This removes one of my greatest worries for a trip to South America.

B) Check-in for most flights, though not all, had been done by your company for me in advance with the boarding pass passed to me at the delivery to airport

C) I am very satisfied with the seat assigned during each flight (always window seat. It's a single seat on the left hand side in the very front during the flight to Iguazu Falls such that I could overview the stunning Falls from my plane). I don't think it's just a matter of coincidence but it is the result of your intentional choice of best seating for me exclusively.

D) The choice of accommodations is good. A mixed of hotels and inns/lodges. Quality good and location wise. My choice is the cheapest class and it's already so good.

E) I am used to be a female sole traveller. If I was not afraid of the safety issue in South America, I would have travelled on my own. Free time is quite important to me, such a free style person. I am so glad that the activity or itinerary is not tight at all. Sometimes even activity free for a whole day or half day. So I was allowed to explore on my own or otherwise take a nap. Overall, I could enjoy both advantages of being alone on one hand and travelling around safely with the advice of some experts and most importantly all door to door transport delivery on the other hand.

I am a top contributor at tripadvisor.com. I have written a lot of reviews on hotels/scenic spots during my trip with your company (trip in October 2014 and wrote reviews in Nov). You may check it at:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/MissHK2009

Hi Carolina,

We're now back in the US and have downloaded our pictures and reliving the great memories of our trip. By the way, thank you for your empanada recipe. We had many great empanada's while we were in Argentina. And also thank you for the wine list.

As for comments regarding our experience with Say Hueque, besides the issue with Cauquenes de Nimez we didn't have too many other issues. Only thing would be the shuttle issue from El Chalten back to El Calafate. I wish there was more flexibility in taking an early shuttle back to El Calafate. Our shuttle didn't leave until 7pm and by the time we got to our hotel it was 11pm. Then we had to wake up really early the next morning to catch the shuttle to Torres Del Paine. But I understand that these shuttles are pre-paid and reserved in advance and the company has limited departures. When I initially made the reservations, I was told there was only a 7pm departure from El Chalten to El Calafate. Apparently I learned that this was not true and that there was another company who offered an early departure (1pm) from El Chalten to El Calafate. I wish I had know about that, because I would have requested an earlier time instead of the 7pm.

I had a good experience with your agency. Vera, Patricio, and you were very helpful and provided timely follow up to my questions. I also liked that you have an initial itinerary in which I can then customize what I would like to do. For instance, I added an additional day in Torres Del Paine, which was nice as the second day weather was better than the first. I enjoyed that Say Hueque booked all the hotel and transportation arrangements and all were timely and reliable. I spoke to some other independent travellers who had trouble figuring out transportation connections and making hotel bookings, who wish they went thru an agency. I like that Say Hueque is an expert of the region and was able to coordinate days and time for our travels. Although the tour was a little more expensive; I think the extra expense saved us the headache of trying to make the reservations and booking ourselves. Overall, a well coordinated trip by Say Hueque.

Last recommendation, is that I wish I had dealt with less people at Say Hueque. I first made contact with Vera, then she went on vacation for a month, and so I was talking with Patricio. Then Vera came back from vacation and then I was dealing with her. Then right before the trip I was working with you. Confusing. I would have preferred to have initially worked with you from the start of the trip planning process to the actual trip.

Kevin

We have just returned from Argentina from a Patagonia tour with Say hueque. The coordination and planning was outstanding given that we travelled 5 destinations, 7 flight legs and 4 hotels! The tour operators, the airport transfers, and hotel accommodations worked out like clock work. The Argentinean people are warm and friendly and all we saw was beaming faces. We plan to use say hueque again as we plan an encore visit in a few years. The pretrip email coordination with Tamara, Yuna and Cutrin was awesome and they provided all the vouchers. Enjoy your trip with say hueque.

The tour was well organized. We loved that we would get a guided tour of city or park and then have time on our own to either organize another tour or in our case, explore on our own. Good balance visiting multiple spots in Patagonia. Found we had too much time in Calafate and not enough time in Ushuaia.
Service was excellent with one exception which is remarkable given the number of connections we had. In one instance, our flight was changed to a flight 4 hours later yet we were not notified and taken to the airport for the original flight. We could have had that time in Buenos Aires, but instead we were stuck sitting in an airport. Drivers and guides were excellent and good accomodations. Overall, pretty flawless service.

We had good time.Wish to have it again.

Vanessa,
How did you know that we wanted a great empanada recipe, so we can make them the holidays. Again, thanks so much to you and Val for accompanying Brittany and ourselves to the the airport on our departure from Buenos Aires on our last day, a very special touch!

Yes, i will give you feedback as promised, all in all the trip was fantastic and we do have so many memories for the rest of our lifetime. Say Hueque deserves high marks for their advice and detailed planning, great job!
On another note we did leave some pictures and possibly some clothing at Las Yamanas, if you could send to us we would appreciate and we will reimburse you.

In Summary, we know that our schedule was aggressive and would not suit for all, but it did meet our expectations of being a totally comprehensive experience!

Buenos Aires:
Hotel Bobo was perfect, great little hotel in a very nice location. Staff was out standing and restaurant was very nice. We really love the restaurant Don Julio that is down the street!
Our BA tour guide for BA Maximiliano was so enthusiastic and a great initial ambassador for Argentina; the Tango show was really good!

El Calafate:
This may have been our favorite place in many ways. The estancia Kau Yatun was a wonderful experience, especially the night when there was a barbecue, experiencing the sheep culture and all the aspects of ranching in Argentina. The glaciers were beyond words and the little town was so much fun! I already miss they great Kau Yatun blankets as it is very cold here in NorthCarolina, ha ha !

Ushuaia:
We really liked Los Yamanas , we each had a delightful and enormous suites. What is there to say about our experiences in Ushuaia: unique, a great outdoors venue, we loved the boat excursion and trip to Isla de Bridges. The second day our guide Gabriel was so attentive and informative. Rafting and lunch prepared by Dario in the park was so much fun.

The 4WD drive with Dario was just the “wild” experience we were looking for. The lunch was again on the mark as a great experience. The dining experience at Reinamora, at the los Cauquenes Hotel was our #1 restaurant . Our server was named German. Our driver to the airport the last day here did forget us, and we had to call; he was most apologetic as we were left off of his pick-up list. Ushuaia is very special and for those who really appreciate being outdoors. Ed and Brittany did have a great and unique tennis experience that they will always remember.

Iguazu:
The falls are the most magnificent natural landscapes that we have ever seen. Delores and Marvel were great, and Marvel’s knowledge of the park and all the plants and animals was on the great level of Gabriel’s in Ushuaia. As to the Aldea de la Selva, it is a beautiful natural experience in many ways. The staff seemed minimal for the size of the place. All the staff seemed very tired and over worked and more obsessed with tour groups from France that engaging with us and our needs. I felt our accommodations were a bit worn, and the bathroom was not that clean, the tile grout had black mold) and there was a bad sewage odor that should not have been there.

As you know our luggage was lost and we did not get in till the final morning upon leaving. Our luggage had been sitting in the office for a full day, and the front desk staff did not seem to know this. We were having to wear only the clothes we left in from Ushuaia. On Sunday morning when I went to check on the baggage again, the reception manager Cecil said that our luggage had been there a full day and he had left notes telling the next shift of workers. In the mean time Delores was also trying very hard to find our luggage and I am sure our situation caused her anxiety.

For Sunday we asked for a later check out and was denied. They did finally give us an extra hour, and at 11 am there was two security guards at our door to make sure that we vacated the room. We spent the day at the pool area , and no groups or people seemed to arrive all day, leaving us to question why we had to leave our room so soon. In addition, not having clean clothes we chose not to go into town to eat, and decided to eat at the restaurant there at the main lodge. Reception questioned us about this and did nor recommend that we try the restaurant at their own lodge. Actually, the meals were quite good and our table servers were excellent.

I am giving you all these details as Aldea del la Selva is a very unique and beautiful place, but we simply did not find the staff to be as warm attentive, and helpful as the other places, there were almost aloof. The mis-communications on our luggage could possibly be overlooked, but the from desk area was not that large and several should have seen that our luggage was there. In all places globally where we have traveled our delayed luggage was taken to our rooms as soon as it arrived at the hotel whether we were present or not. I am hoping for your company that there are better places to stay as I would not want to return to Aldea de la Selva, sorry.

I do not want to end this message on a negative as the trip was so wonderful in many ways and just what we needed. We are appreciative of all the great ambassadors that we met who represented Say Hueque, the outstanding drivers, and the knowledgeable tour guides, particularly, Maxmilliano, Gabriel, and Marvel.

I will also go to the link and comment. Ann, Ed and Brittany may send you their comments as well.
Vanessa, thanks you so very much! We will come back to Argentina; for now we have so many envious friends, and we will recommend Say Hueque as the navigator for fun and great experiences in Argentina. Ed is responsible for enabling this trip for all of us and it was his suggestion to go to Patagonia.

With very best regards and happy holidays!
Cliff