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Machu Picchu post cruise tour recommendation


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We spent a week at Breckenridge. In Utah we spent most of our time at Wolf Creek and Alta.

 

Based on everyone's suggestions, we'll ask our physician to prescribe the meds and start taking them before we travel. We're heading to sea level (Galapagos) after Peru, then to Quito, Ecuador for a few days (over 9,000 ft above sea level). Wondering if I can safely switch between the altitude meds and the seasickness pills. Another questions for our doctor. Just to be safe, we'll also drink coca tea during our stay.

 

greatam-

We'll have to look for those bottle holders during our Peruvan travels. My friend and I will be shopping for alpaca scarves and gloves - is there anything we should look for to make sure the items are indeed alpaca? What is considered to be a reasonable retail price for those items? My friend's husband is great at haggling so we want an idea of what the target price should be.

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We recently returned from a South American land tour, which included a segment in Peru. We had 1 night in Lima, flew to Cusco, then 1 night in Sacred Valley, 1 night Aguas Calientes (the town below Machu Picchu), 2 nights Cusco, then flew back to Lima and after half a day there flew out again, to Santiago, on our way home to NZ. We were happy with the itinerary, except that we should have added a couple of nights in Lima on the end, as we did not get much of a look at Lima.

 

We caught the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (about 1 hour 45 minutes), then went straight to the shuttle and had about 4 hours in Machu Picchu, on a guided tour. It was long enough for us. We could have gone back up the next morning (as some of our group did) but instead we spent the morning exploring Aguas Calientes. Even though it was Christmas Day most of the markets and shops were still open. Some of our companions went back up to Machu Picchu to do one of the longer hikes which were available.

 

Personally I would not want to stay at the Sanctuary Lodge. Yes, it is at the gates of Machu Picchu, but there is nothing else there, and we enjoyed being able to wander around Aguas Calientes easily. The shuttle buses between Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu run regularly, and take about half an hour.

 

Machu Picchu is on a slope, and there are some climbs up to various viewpoints, but we did not find it very strenuous. (We are reasonably active and do lots of walking at home). As I said we did not do any of the 3 or 4 hour hikes you can do, just stayed in the main site. The altitude will not bother you in Machu Picchu. Cusco is much higher than MP, and you may notice it there - just take it a bit slowly. We just felt a bit "dry" in Cusco - not at all as bad as when we went to Tibet, where we had headaches and it was quite difficult to sleep at night. Our Peru itinerary was good in that we flew into the highest point of the journey (Cusco), and immediately went down into the Sacred Valley to stay the night. There is lots of interest in the Sacred Valley - llama farms, craft demos, Pisac market, Ollantaytambo village and archeological site, etc. Cusco is also worth some time, with lots of historical interest sites in the town or close by.

 

We only took an overnight bag on the train to Machu Picchu. Our main luggage was left at the Sacred Valley hotel, and was transported to our Cusco hotel to await our arrival there.

 

Hope this helps a little. Enjoy your trip! Machu Picchu is a great place to see.

Did you arrange this tour through a travel agent?

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2ashevillesailors -

Yes, we did book the tour through our travel agent (note we are in New Zealand). It was part of a Trafalgar tour. They have various South American tours which you can join together, if you want. The part I described above is one of their Peru tours. We added time in Brazil and Argentina onto this. We had a lot of Americans travelling with us who just did the Peru part - likewise many who just did the Brazil/Argentina section.

 

4774Papa -

sorry, I did not answer your question of 8 Feb specifically, but I could not give you the price we paid for our Peru tour. As explained above we joined it onto another tour to make a longer South American trip. But if you look at trafalgar.com and view their Peru tours you should be able to see the Highlights of Peru 8 day tour, which is what we did, and find an US$ price. Here the price I can see is NZ$3102 for 2014 tours. There are other Peru options, depending what you are interested in.

 

Peru was very interesting, and quite different to Brazil and Argentina, which are much more westernized.

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  • 2 months later...
Has anyone done the climb to watch the sun rise?? If so, any details to how you did it and was it worth it?

 

 

Yes. When we went to Machu Picchu in December, we visited during the mid-morning and stayed at the Sumaq Machu Picchu Hotel in Aquas Calientes. The next morning, we got up early to be the first group back up and entered. However, unlike the sunny day before, we had overcast skies. It was nice to walk through the ruins with no crowds.

 

 

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well i booked our hotels @ cheap hotel websites. did my research first and booked the sumaq hotel (very nice but a bit pricey)in aguas calientes for 2 nights and the sonesta in urabamba (was ok for the money)for 2 nights. booked my own flights as well. then i booked cusco transport to pick us up from the airport, drive us down to the sacred valley to get the train at ollytambro(thats as far as you can be driven) i with the help of the driver purchased my train tickets. cusco transport also purchased our MP entrance tickets and provided a private guide for MP that met with us the 1st night and took the 2 of us around MP very slowly, since my DH has trouble walking. he was very helpful, knowledgeable, friendly and very good english. cusco transport then picked us up from the train 2 days later and drove us to our hotel in urabamba. the next day they took us around(driver and guide) for the day to many ruins and tourists areas. the last morning they picked us up and drove us to the airport. all on time and very professional and very reasonable:)

 

left big luggage at the lima airport storage. planned to not stay in cusco again because of altitude and drank lots of coca tea, so had no problems.

 

also ate alpacha at the sumaq hotel, it was wonderful. so tender and mild, kind of like veal, yum!!never got around to trying the guinea pig although HD wanted to... martha

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Glad to see you enjoyed your trip Martha.

 

We leave for Cusco on Thursday and will be in MP on Saturday. Another CC post said that the authorities were planning to institute a rule requiring everyone to be led by an official tour guide in MP. During your recent stay, was that rule in place yet?

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We recently got off a cruise ship and did a tour to MP. We used Kuoda Tavel who were excellent!! We had a knowledgeable tour guide (Pilar) who kept us at an easy pace. We did not take altitude pills as we were told that the side effects can be harsh. the dr told us to take it very easy on Day 1 and drink lots of water. We did not stay in Cusco but lower down.

 

The head of the company, Mery, took the time to meet us when we arrived at Cusco before our tour and again, after the tour, to get our feedback. They put us into the Sumaq hotel in Aguascalientes and we were not disappointed. The food was good.....including the alpaca tartare!

 

As to the question about tour guides in MP, we had a tour in the morning and were told we could go back in the afternoon on our own and wander around. Maybe the govt intends to insist on a tour guide but, as of last week, this was not the case.

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Agree, thanks for the info. Dying to go to MP and looking at S America cruises for 2016, so starting my research now. :rolleyes:

 

Us too , booked Hawaii for next February so now looking at 2016 for either Panama Canal or South America with Princess then MP on our own to cut costs as the cruisetour is expensive with Princess.

We would have to look to go from Santiago as that is where the cruise starts then arrange a tour from Cuzco for 5 days or so , so much to research ...........

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We did the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu on our own a few years back, flying into Cusco after visiting other areas of South America. Very easy to do. Lots of accommodation choices in Sacred Valley closer to MP, lovely area, easy to do day trip to Machu Picchu by train from Sacred Valley (e.g. Ollantaytambo). I recommend to finish off in Cusco (highest elevation in the Sacred Valley) after adjusting to elevation before heading home. Details of our trip and my planning notes, can be found by following the link in my signature to my sharesite and then selecting the tab along top or link along right side for South America.

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Agree, thanks for the info. Dying to go to MP and looking at S America cruises for 2016, so starting my research now. :rolleyes:

Talking about research :

Plenty of hotels on cheap hotel websites , Llamapath tours do sacred valley tours $20 8.30 - 6 pm , cusco city tour 2 - 6 pm $15 , Taxis from airport to cusco hotels $9 or even less with shared transport and Viator , and you can book the train yourself with perurail , choice of expedition , vistadome or the luxury Hiram Bingham train (part of the orient express group I beleive)

Seems totally doable on our own at a fraction of the cost of tours groups and you can book your own hotels too

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got back a few days ago.

 

Many 'guides for-hire" at the entrance of MP. Luckily the rule of enforcing visitors to be with a guide has not yet been implemented. It's so much nicer to explore the site at our own pace.

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Got back a few days ago.

 

Many 'guides for-hire" at the entrance of MP. Luckily the rule of enforcing visitors to be with a guide has not yet been implemented. It's so much nicer to explore the site at our own pace.

We hired a guide at the entrance on arrival at MP and were glad we did. He was very informative and gave us great info for the couple hours that we hired him for. He pointed out a lot that we would have missed even with my guide books in hand and all the research that I had done ahead of time. He went at whatever pace we wanted. You can hire the guides for any length of time that you wish and they will negotiate price. Then we spent another few hours wandering around on our own and taking hundreds more pictures.

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We did the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu on our own a few years back, flying into Cusco after visiting other areas of South America. Very easy to do. Lots of accommodation choices in Sacred Valley closer to MP, lovely area, easy to do day trip to Machu Picchu by train from Sacred Valley (e.g. Ollantaytambo). I recommend to finish off in Cusco (highest elevation in the Sacred Valley) after adjusting to elevation before heading home. Details of our trip and my planning notes, can be found by following the link in my signature to my sharesite and then selecting the tab along top or link along right side for South America.

 

Thank you so much for sharing your pictures! Planning our trip with Princess, a cruise tour 12/2015

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Thank you so much for sharing your pictures! Planning our trip with Princess, a cruise tour 12/2015

Most welcome Carole. You will have a fabulous time! We are heading back to South America in January, this time to Ecuador including Galapagos and Amazon. I have really loved what I have already seen of South America and looking forward to more.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have to second an earlier poster's choice of Escaped to Latin America. We are sitting in the Mexico City airport on our way back from a 6 night stay in Cusco and the Sacred Valley. I worked with Jean O'halloran and she was wonderful. I had been to Peru once before but this time was going with my DW and another couple so I had an idea of what I thought they should see. They contract through Condor Travel and we couldn't have been more pleased with the service we got. We were comng off an amazon cruise so didn't arrive into Cusco until late afternoon, otherwise I would agree with previous posters that you should go immediately to the Saced Valley to acclimate. We toured the SV the next day with our guide Raul who I can highly recommend. One of the highlight of the day was a visit to a local corn/dairy farm followed by a wonderful lunch with the family. The 2 sons were both educated in the US and very interesting to talk too. This is the main reason I booked through them as they were the only one out of the numerous tour companies who offered this option and we all agreed that it was one of the top 5 highlights of the trip. We then took the train to Aquas Calientes and spent two nights at the Casa del Sol which I highly recommend if you want to treat yourself. A little pricey but it includes dinner which was excellent. But do ask for a riverview room. We had a wonderful time and couldn't more pleased with our trip and the arrangements.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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  • 1 month later...

I was given Jaime details jaimeliebrecht@gmail.com http://www.patagoniashorex.com from a lady who had traveled to Machu Picchu with him.

How lucky was I,when ever I contacted Jaime all of his responses we very very prompt.I once asked him if he ever slept & his response was only with one eye.

He also has a great sense of humour.

 

We chose to come home from our traveling on the Dawn Princess which was sailing from Southampton to Sydney in July 2014 so we could do Machu Picchu.

I chose to take a group of eleven, some we had sailed with before & some who contacted me from our roll call on Cruise Critic a great site for cruisers.

 

We left the ship in Mantra on the 3/8/14 and took taxies ( US$15 )per taxi to the airport for a quick flight to Quito.Jaime had checked us all in on line & emailed me the boarding passes.He did this for all flights except Quito to Lima which was an international flight.

All flights were with Avianca Airlines except the short fight Manta to Quito which was with Tame. All our flights were on time unlike the some of the flights (Tame) that were used by the ships tours & some private tours delayed by 5 hours to Lima.

 

Jaime was in Lima to meet us 9.20pm on the 3/8 a few hours sleep at the SM Hotel & Business this hotel was a fifteen minute drive to the airport.We arrived in Cusco at 7.30am to be meet by our wonderful guide Luis Ccori who is an archaeologist.

We stayed at Palacio del Inka http://www.hoteleslibertador.com.pe

Everyone had time to rest & a few of us did get some altitude sickness (bad headache) but there was oxygen at hand when you needed it & lots of cocoa tea.

One couple did start medication for altitude sickness a couple of days before leaving the ship they had no issues with the altitude & If I was to go to Cusco again I would defiantly take altitude medication.(it does contain Aspirin so no good for those who are allergic to Aspirin)

 

We all loved the Palacio Del Inka Hotel amazing.

After a lovely lunch in the hotel we left for our tour around Cusco.

It's was an amazing day & we did get to see so much,Luis is so knowledgeable & passionate we felt very privileged to have him with us.

Jaime took us for drinks to his friends family house great view over Cusco,and then dinner at the hotel.

 

Next morning after a lovely breakfast we left to explore the Sacred Valley on route we stopped see Llamas,and how there wool is spun & dyed.There were products you could buy & people in local costume very colourful. We spent some time at the town of Pisaq with a lovely market.

We stopped for lunch Tunupa Vally,then headed for Ollantaytambo.

This was another amazing town again we were so lucky to have Luis explaining so much of what was surrounding us.

This is where we boarded the train around 7 pm to Aguas Calientes

 

We arrived in to the town of Aguas Calientes in the dark, the train goes through the centra of town with the river running along quite lovely. We were staying at El Mapi Hotel http://www.elmapi.com

There were porters from the hotel to take our luggage to the hotel for us,this was really great.We all kept our luggage to one small case each.

Once we arrived at the hotel in the middle of town,we were given our rooms with a voucher for a free Pisco Sours drink with dinner.

Dinner was included in the price & was very good.

Next morning up early and after a good breakfast we checked out.

The hotel kept our luggage while we went up to Machu Picchu ,and would delivered the cases back to us at the station for our return trip to Cusco.

 

After a very short walk we joined the very long queue for the bus.

There had been a land slide on the road going up to Machu Picchu over night.

But it was all good fun & we spoke to different people along the way & took photos.

The bus ride is about 20 minuets up to Machu Picchu great views along the way.

We arrived just after eight o'clock and after a quick toilet stop (there are no toilet on the site)then join the small queue to enter the site.

There are two ways to go left or right,we took the left turn which is a steeper climb.

This works out so much better as you arrive at the top & can then work your way around the site in decline. The climb is not hard we had varying ages 50 to 80 we all made it with encouragement from Jaime & Luis.

We had clouds early on then bright sun shine,this made for some amazing photos.

 

This is truly a once in a life time experience we had an amazing guide with Luis who explained the different areas of the site.

We spent about four hours on the site and everyone loved every minute of it.

Once down Jaime made sure we had our passports stamped with Machu Picchu .

We had a great lunch at The Sanctuary with a local group who played music,very colourful. It felt so very good to relax knowing we had explored this amazing site.

It was then on to the bus back down the Mountain to the train station.

 

Our luggage was waiting for us at the railway station, and this is were we had to say good bye to our amazing guide Luis who we will be forever grateful for his wonderful knowledge of this amazing part of the world.

At 3.30am we caught the Vistadome train back to Poroy.

This was a lovely trip, with great views & we were all seated in the same area of the train.

We were served food & a drink and once that was over the staff then changed to model all the wonderful clothes made from lama wool,which you can purchase.

When we arrived at Poroy station we boarded our coach for Cusco.

We stayed again at the wonderful Palacio del Inka hotel,

After our last dinner together we retired for a great nights sleep.

 

Jamie traveled with us to the airport for our flight at 7.30 am to Lima.

After a half day tour of Lima we had to say good bye to Jaime as he delivered us to the ship. Every one on this tour were so very happy with every thing & that we had a tour operator that stay with us on this amazing trip.

 

We had an amazing four months holiday but the the highlight of this trip was our five days with Jaime.

This man is all about customer service and he delivered so much,he joined us in Lima & stayed with us for throughout this amazing journey.

We will all be for ever grateful to him for all his work to make this dream come true.

When we plan our trip to South America it will be with Jaime.

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  • 11 months later...

roaming kiwi58 and the others have basically said it all. Here's my 2 cents.

 

I highly recommend using Kuoda Travel. They are based out of Cusco. I have used them twice, 2 years ago for a 12 day tour and again this past April. Ask for Jesus.

 

For April. I coordinated 3 groups for tours after a cruise. There were 13, 4 and 8 in the groups and they spent 3, 4 and 5 nights in the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Cusco area. We started in Sacred Valley and then spent a night at Machu Picchu before taking the train to Cusco. We liked Cusco, especially watching the Plaza from an upper balcony of a restaurant and so we had 2 nights there. It is possible to spend one night after the train ride, tour the next day and then fly to Lima for an international flight home. Those flights tend to be quite late at night.

 

Our prices ranged from $1800 to $2500, for 4 and 5 star hotels. I wouldn't recommend any lower as their hotels may be rated differently than what we are use to in North America. I would also recommend booking at least 6 months out as the hotels are smaller and book up faster.

 

If you want to talk to me directly, email dksmithtravel at gmail dot com

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  • 1 year later...
We recently returned from a South American land tour, which included a segment in Peru. We had 1 night in Lima, flew to Cusco, then 1 night in Sacred Valley, 1 night Aguas Calientes (the town below Machu Picchu), 2 nights Cusco, then flew back to Lima and after half a day there flew out again, to Santiago, on our way home to NZ. We were happy with the itinerary, except that we should have added a couple of nights in Lima on the end, as we did not get much of a look at Lima.

 

We caught the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (about 1 hour 45 minutes), then went straight to the shuttle and had about 4 hours in Machu Picchu, on a guided tour. It was long enough for us. We could have gone back up the next morning (as some of our group did) but instead we spent the morning exploring Aguas Calientes. Even though it was Christmas Day most of the markets and shops were still open. Some of our companions went back up to Machu Picchu to do one of the longer hikes which were available.

 

Personally I would not want to stay at the Sanctuary Lodge. Yes, it is at the gates of Machu Picchu, but there is nothing else there, and we enjoyed being able to wander around Aguas Calientes easily. The shuttle buses between Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu run regularly, and take about half an hour.

 

Machu Picchu is on a slope, and there are some climbs up to various viewpoints, but we did not find it very strenuous. (We are reasonably active and do lots of walking at home). As I said we did not do any of the 3 or 4 hour hikes you can do, just stayed in the main site. The altitude will not bother you in Machu Picchu. Cusco is much higher than MP, and you may notice it there - just take it a bit slowly. We just felt a bit "dry" in Cusco - not at all as bad as when we went to Tibet, where we had headaches and it was quite difficult to sleep at night. Our Peru itinerary was good in that we flew into the highest point of the journey (Cusco), and immediately went down into the Sacred Valley to stay the night. There is lots of interest in the Sacred Valley - llama farms, craft demos, Pisac market, Ollantaytambo village and archeological site, etc. Cusco is also worth some time, with lots of historical interest sites in the town or close by.

 

We only took an overnight bag on the train to Machu Picchu. Our main luggage was left at the Sacred Valley hotel, and was transported to our Cusco hotel to await our arrival there.

 

Hope this helps a little. Enjoy your trip! Machu Picchu is a great place to see.

 

how did you arrange to have your luggage sent to Cusco from the Sacred Valley hotel? I have been trying to figure out how to do that.

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  • 11 months later...

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