Private tours South America

[no fuss travel]

I know I saw this somewhere in the forum before but I can't seem to find a search function.

 

We are looking to arrange for private tours in the following ports.

Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Laguna San Rafael, Chile

Punta Arenas, Chile

Lishuala, Argentian,

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands,

Sao Paulo, Brazil

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for private guides? We are not sailing until February 2012, but I am interested in having everything booked as far in advance as I can.

I do have tours booked for the other ports thanks to reading this board and taking up on suggestions received.

 

I do have another question though. Has anyone ever gone to the Winner's Parade at the end of Mardi Gras? Do you have to buy tickets? Do you have to stay for the whole function? I don't think I could last from 9 pm to 3:30 am and then disembark at 8 am the next day and go on a tour.

[MightyQuinn]

We are looking to arrange for private tours in the following ports <snip>

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

Does anyone have any recommendations for private guides?

It's not too early to book a tour with Patrick Watts to visit Volunteer Point on Falklands. In fact, he is immensely popular and often books up well in advance. We went to Volunteer Point with him in March '09 and it was a highlight of our SA cruise.

 

Volunteer Point is a premium penguin destination on Falklands & the only reliable place to see impressive numbers of King Penguins, as well as Gentoos & Magellanics. It’s a 2-hr trip from Stanley by 4x4 over bumpy boggy terrain to get to the beaches & bluffs of Volunteer Point. The ride itself is a hoot and Patrick talks non-stop about life on the Island. The ultimate reward is 2 hr with the penguins before returning to Stanley. This all-day excursion was literally ½ price of an identical trip thru the ship. You need a minimum port call of at least 7-8 hours to do it. Timing is extremely important and Patrick will not do the tour unless the ship stays in port long enough.

 

E-mail at pwatts@horizon.co.fk or click http://www.falklandislands.com/contents/view/74 for some juicy tidbits about him.

 

There are other penguin options but Volunteer Point has it all! Here’s a fantastic site for everything Falklands, including info about penguins & touring options for cruisers. http://www.falklandislands.com/sections/cruises

[PaulMCO]

Good luck on getting to the Falklands. Most ships will cancel this stop due to rough seas or weather. Oceania is no exception.

 

For Puerto Chacabuco, Chile -- there is not much to see except the beautiful countryside. We booked with -- http://enpatagoniatours.cl/index.html

 

She ran an excellent tour where the Oceania tour buses do not go. You can see the pics on their Web page.

 

For Puerto Arenas -- everyone does the Ottway tour. Do a private one - but insist you go there first. Most of the big buses (and there are lots of them) do the city first and then head to the Penguins. We counted 8 big buses as we were leaving from Oceania and Princess. Far too many people.

[Mura]

That's interesting about Puerto Chacabuco, Paul, because I was about to post that I doubted you could find any guides or agencies there. We were there 9 years ago but I remember a VERY small fishing town that didn't seem to have anything in it! We did a ship's tour which was quite good and we enjoyed ourselves, but I don't doubt that you saw much more than we did!

 

This was the one time where we were glad we were on a ship's tour, however, because our bus broke down at the last stop where they were serving us munchies and wine. It took an hour and a half for a replacement bus to get there, so they just kept on serving.

 

Had we been on a private tour the ship would have sailed long before we got back.

[stunnedinva]

I know I saw this somewhere in the forum before but I can't seem to find a search function.

 

We are looking to arrange for private tours in the following ports.

Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Laguna San Rafael, Chile

Punta Arenas, Chile

Lishuala, Argentian,

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands,

Sao Paulo, Brazil

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for private guides? We are not sailing until February 2012, but I am interested in having everything booked as far in advance as I can.

I do have tours booked for the other ports thanks to reading this board and taking up on suggestions received.

 

I do have another question though. Has anyone ever gone to the Winner's Parade at the end of Mardi Gras? Do you have to buy tickets? Do you have to stay for the whole function? I don't think I could last from 9 pm to 3:30 am and then disembark at 8 am the next day and go on a tour.

 

I can recommend Latitud Ushuaia. The owner of the agency (Silvana Ponce) is bilingual and can discuss tours with you in both English and Spanish. Plus her responses are lightning-fast. Her website is in Spanish but has a tiny Union Jack at the top which should yield an English translation. http://www.latitudushuaia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=72&lang=en

Our tour guide was Oscar. FABulous! :)

[no fuss travel]

Paul, can you give me a recommendation for a tour guide for Punta Arenas? You said you did a private tour but with who? I have managed to get an email off to Anne and her tour looks fascinating.

 

Thanks to everyone for their advice. I am still looking for recommendations for Sao Paulo. That is the last port to find a tour for.

[PaulMCO]

Paul, can you give me a recommendation for a tour guide for Punta Arenas? You said you did a private tour but with who? I have managed to get an email off to Anne and her tour looks fascinating.

 

Thanks to everyone for their advice. I am still looking for recommendations for Sao Paulo. That is the last port to find a tour for.

 

 

Here is the tour company we used. The tour was customized and we had about 10 in our party.

 

http://patagoniashorex.com/about_us.html