Trip Report-Oceania's Samba Rhythms

[aneka]

On Dec 9th we boarded Insignia for the Samba Rhythms cruise from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires. Here are my thoughts on this cruise.

 

1. RIO-we started in Rio and used Renata Hein as a guide for the two of us. She is excellent, prompt, knowledgeable and speaks perfect english. She was a delight to spend time with. Rio is a beautiful city and we enjoyed it very much. We toured with her on our own. Others from our cruise used Pedro Novak for a pickup from the airport. He arrived with a dirty car which kept stalling out. They canceled their tours with him and their transfer to the ship with him. He is bragged about on CC, but they were not sure why.

 

2. Sao Paulo-we used Claudio Saalfeld and he was an acceptable guide and a nice man. However, it takes about 1.5 hr. to get to Sao Paulo and back. It is a huge city, and not enough to see in the timeframe available. Traffic is horrible and it made the tour long and boring. We would not bother with it again. We would explore Santos in more depth. There is a nice looking beach in Santos.

 

3. Uruguay-Discover Uruguay did a very nice job with our two tours of Punta del Este and Montevideo. We had Raquel as a guide and she is an intelligent young woman who impressed the 10 of us on this tour. In Punta we went to Casa Pueblo the home of artist Carlos Paez Vilaro. It was a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean. We enjoyed her tours.

 

4. Iguazu Falls- We went with another couple on our own when we arrived in Buenos Aires. We booked flights and the Sheraton through Expedia about 6 weeks ahead of time. We used Oliver Daizi as our guide. He was great and we had a great time with him. Iguazu Falls was the highlight of the whole trip. It is an amazing spot and the waterfalls are gorgeous. They just go on and on forever. We also did the Zodiac boat trip which was great fun, but be prepared you will get drenched totally! Because we had the Brazilian Visa already we went to see both sides of the falls and I'm really glad we did. The views are very different from each side. The Sheraton is right in the park and you could easily do the Argentine side on your own from the hotel. The trails lead right down from the hotel. A site not to be missed. Do it on your own, people from O were complaining about the O trip. It's price and the time at the falls and the time they got back to the ship seemed to at issue. We had a great time on our own and would go back if we get the chance.

 

5. Buenos Aires-We had reservations for pickups to the domestic airport, to the hotel from the ship, for a tour and a tango show and transfer to the international airport to go home with Carlos from Private Tours, Argentina. They did not show up for the transfer to the domestic airport and we ended up taking a taxi from the port, which cost us $15. Private tours was going to charge us $40. Then we called them when they also failed to show up for the ship to hotel transfer and they said we did not show up for the domestic airport transfer so they canceled all our other tours. We told them we were there waiting for them for half and hour before we took a taxi but Carlos (private tours) insisted there we there and we were not. All their services were overpriced and we were able to do everything we had planned to do with them on our own with the help of the Marriott, BA concierge (who was great). The Marriott has a great location and their staff was very helpful. We would stay there again. Don't use Private Tours Argentina. Carlos lied to us and would have overcharged us by about double.

 

6. Other stops: We did not use a guide for Buzios, Ihla Grande, Porto Bello, Santos. We just wandered around on our own. Others who did a tour of Porto Bello did enjoy the cable car ride.

 

Overall, it was a great trip. We enjoyed the cities of Rio and Buenos Aires. Iguazu Falls is magnificent. Food and accommodations on O were great as usual. We did not think the entertainment was too good on this ship. It was better on Nautica. We had great weather and it was nice to miss out of some of our winter. ( We live in Wisconsin!)

 

If anyone would information on any of our guides please email me at aneka0925@aol.com.