Rapa Nui and the Atacama Desert area
Chile
|
Sep 17 - Oct 3, 2024
Rapa Nui was everything and more than expected. Guides were good and gave good information. Numbers in the groups were not too large.
Atacama Desert trips were generally good. Some of the guides were better than others. Phillipe on the Geyser trip was exceptional.
I thought the flamingo portion of the trip to Red Rocks should be put in with the trip to the salt flats and swimming day as it makes the day very long and does not add to the Red Rock portion.
The Valley of the Moon tour was excellent as it gave a totally different perspective to the concept of desert.
I cannot thank the Kim Kim travel staff who helped change the itinerary after my husband got ill - combination of cold and high elevation. They were there for me to help get him to a lower elevation which is what we needed to do.
The only negative was the hotel in Santiago - it met the needs of sleeping but it was really very basic.
Hotel Reviews
The hotel was not great - basic but not close to anything and walking around was difficult. I think it would have been better to have been able to stay closer to the downtown core if possible.
This place was really great. Room good, staff helpful, breakfast excellent, good location to walk into town, pickups for tours was easy. I would recommend this to anyone.
This hotel had a very relaxed feeling despite people coming an going at all hours. Room was good size and the bathroom was spacious enough for two people. Location was relatively good - 10 minutes to town centre. It was clean and well maintained. Staff were really helpful.
Activity Reviews
All the Moai sites were interesting. Anakena was a bit disappointing because of all the people. Moai were good.
Guide was excellent and knew his history
Guide was a fill in but was very good. Very opinionated but he got his message across.
If you have snorkeled anywhere in the South Pacific or in the Galapagos this is really a waste of time. There are few fish - I maybe saw a total of 100 - and the variety is poor. I did it to say I had snorkeled at Easter Island but it was not very good. I was the only one in the group so had the leader to myself.
We got picked up at the time and dropped off.
Despite the early start this was worth it. The guide was awesome. I think perhaps the best one we had the whole trip.
The scenery was out of this world. The concept of salt mining took on a whole new meaning - I am not sure how they did it. The guide took us up a the long way first - great idea as it was not so steep.
This is a long day to start with so moving the viewing of the flamingos to the the Laguna Cejar day would have made this less strenuous. There is a lot of driving involved so one way to shorten it would be to change the flamingo viewing.
I thought this was good. It was very basic and so anyone who knew anything about stars and the Milky Way might have found this boring.
I love birds so that part was great. Swimming in the salt sea - well floating - was very tightly controlled. Not an issue with the guide but definitely with the Parks lady.
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback. Your review means a lot to us, myself, Riwal, and the Kimkim team, since it allows us to improve our services and draw the attention of our providers to the areas where they can do better. I am grateful for all the positive points you mentioned and rest assured that we will convey that to our guides, especially Phillipe. We would've loved for you and Peter to enjoy the Bolivia part of your trip, but hopefully soon we can plan further... Read more