My wife and I have recently come back from our first trip in South America. The experience was generally good, but many itinerary details and planning could have gone better.
We decided to go to South America for our Honeymoon; we wanted something adventurous but also relaxing and comfortable. The itinerary was fifteen days total: eight in Peru and seven in Ecuador. All bookings including tours, flights, trains, and every other detail were in charge of SA Luxury Expeditions. At the beginning, it seemed like a reliable, responsible company. We ended up with a mixed review of this travel agency.

The first problem came up when we arrived at our Lima hotel. Our room was very noisy and not clean enough. We immediately requested a room change and the hotel staff agreed without questions. At the end of the day, we were paying for a 5-star, luxury room and we had explicitly told our “Destination Expert” that we wanted quiet rooms in all the cities we were visiting. This was the first of many setbacks, and the reason why we started doubting about the reliability of SA Luxury Expeditions the moment we actually begun our trip. It may seem like an exaggeration, but when a company can’t provide the very basics for a pleasant experience (i.e. giving you the room you clearly requested, and actually paid for), one starts to wonder if it’s a company that cares about customer satisfaction. Happily for us, the hotel was considerate with our request, understanding we were in the middle of our Honeymoon and we appreciate quietness.
In the morning, we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We had an exhausting day ahead. According to our itinerary, we would have a Lima city tour at 10 in the morning. Truth is we were waiting for the tour guide/company in the lobby since 9:20, and they never showed up. We tried to call SA Luxury Expeditions but had no response, maybe because it was a Sunday. Realizing nobody was coming for us, we decided to go out on our own, and went for some local shopping, which turned out to be a lovely experience. Upon returning to the hotel to have lunch, we saw a tour guide waiting for us. We asked for a small sandwich to go, and left in a rush for our tour. That went fine, but the tour guide insisted we were confused and the tour was supposed to be PM, not AM. When we made it back to the hotel, we looked at the itinerary again and it said AM. At any rate, it was a minor detail, but added up on top of the room setback it gave us an overall bad impression about SA’s planning efficiency.

Cusco was a mind-blowing site, and we had no major setbacks there, but there were some minor issues: most guides lacked good English; Machu Picchu tour was done with Blitz timing; and drivers were not that professional. When returning from Cusco we had to take a flight connection to Quito. In Lima, we had to pick up our luggage and check in with our international airline. When we made it to the counter, we were told they had no reservation for us. Fortunately, the agent was patient enough to look up for our reservations again. When she found them, our names had been misspelled and therefore we were asked to pay for a reissue fee or otherwise we wouldn’t be able to board the plane. After a long discussion, in which we obviously blamed the travel agency, we had to pay 75 US$ each (cashiers lines can be pretty slow).

Like I said before, none of these problems affected our overall experience in a dramatic way, mainly because we visited lovely places. And admittedly, sometime things go wrong in ways that can’t be controlled. For example, there was bad weather here and there, which caused flight delays, and that’s fine. However, the details I’ve mentioned are related to SA Luxury’s seeming inexperience and a moderate lack of care for their customers. True “experts” shouldn't make these mistakes.