Hi Nick,
Just wanted to let you know we had a great holiday! And great pictures/movies.
Some highlights:
- hotel location Buenos Aires of Park Hyatt very good, and swimming pool very nice.
- Estancia in Valdes Peninsula friendly people. They made a cake for Luc's birthday. Nature is breath taking. Highly recommended!
- in Territorio hotel, when we can back from Palacido champagne and cakes were at the room.
- in Los Sauces, El Calafate, we stayed in La Casona, so not the Corner Room. Very luxurious. Service also very good, e.g. we had fresh breakfast-to-go on every early day tour. Great tours.
- in Córdoba I forgot my camera in the taxi when paying. Tourist information office and tourist Police (English speaking) helped a lot, and despite the fact we did not have the number of the cab, I got my camera back!!! Otherwise I would have lost all movies made in Peninsula Valdes....
- Cavas in Mendoza offers private tours which, compared to other tours I looked at, were very cost friendly (10-100 dollars) next to the fact it's convenient. Service of the hotel is excellent!
- Iguaza, followed your recommendation and booked private tour offered by the hotel. The bar in the hotel has excellent food if you don't want to dine after heavy lunch in Mendoza.
- the Rio tour guide was very good: he arranged my ticket of Christ Redeemer for my photo book and lunch location was top! Very knowledgeable and relaxed.
All transfers were perfect, and the tour operator in El Calafate even printed our boarding passes. That's what I call service.
Some suggestions/minor remarks:
- unfortunate room was not ready in Buenos Aires, but we spend our time well visiting the Cemetery (early open) and went back after our lunch in the Japanse Garden. Both worth visiting.
- it's an early and bit long trip to Peninsula Valdes, especially when you miss the direction to the Estancia. But unavoidable, anyway I was quite happy that we arrived at full daylight. Other guests arriving late also missed the sign and arrived in dark.
- Palacido in Puerto Madryn, okay, but not too special, I would go for the other restaurant you recommended. They told us they ordered a taxi, but taxi did not arrive? So we walked back to the hotel. Hotel is nice, but a bit far for from city center.
- Iguazu, one additional night would have been attractive. Now we only had one day and due to the annual marathon that ends in the Park it was very crowded and we had traffic jams when we went to visit the Argentinian side of the falls.
And the food in all domestic flights is very poor ;-) But in every location we visited, there were many good restaurants!! Some like the closed door one I Latina in Buenos Aires I booked upfront, was very nice, but indeed Los Sauces and Belmond a la carte restaurant are the best.
Thanks again for all your help,
Inez