anyone been on the Machu Picchu cruise tour?

[marjack]

We are tentatively planning on the the South American cruise in 2015 that starts in Santiago and ends in Los Angeles. Princess also offers a 6 nights land tour to Machu Picchu. It is expensive, but this has been on our "bucket list"for quite a few years and figured we should take advantage of it before we get too old (I'm in my 60th's and DH is in his 70"s). I wondered if anyone has taken this in the past and could give me some feedback. Any and all comments are appreciated. Thanks so much.

[CRUZGAL53]

We are tentatively planning on the the South American cruise in 2015 that starts in Santiago and ends in Los Angeles. Princess also offers a 6 nights land tour to Machu Picchu. It is expensive, but this has been on our "bucket list"for quite a few years and figured we should take advantage of it before we get too old (I'm in my 60th's and DH is in his 70"s). I wondered if anyone has taken this in the past and could give me some feedback. Any and all comments are appreciated. Thanks so much.

 

We took a 3 night overland tour with Princess to Machu a few years ago...we LOVED IT! Even though expensive, we had a wonderful time and thought it was worth every cent! I have not seen a 6 night land tour...that would be greatl! :)

[ssawjo]

We were on this particular cruise last March. We did not do the offered land tour of MP. Instead what we did was arrive in Peru about ten days early, do an extensive tour of MP and the Sacred Valley, and then head off to the wine country in Chile for two days before boarding. People who did do the Princess land tour were happy with it. But, they felt rushed. They stayed in very nice hotels but were there only a few hours before having to get up very early and leave to catch a flight or the train to MP. Our friends who did this said that we did it the right way and took our time at this marvelous place. Personally, I would suggest doing the same thing. It is up to you and that is my take on it. Have a great time, you will not regret it no matter what you decide.

 

Bill

[marjack]

Thanks so much for your input. I'll be researching -- only 16 months to go!!

[nna]

we went four days early, spent overnight in lima, then one night at cusco, then MP the next day,then off to santiago the next day. right in the rainy season..it was beautiful. those who signed for the ships tour of mp missed it due to fog and ship delay...so I would go on own before trip. it was cheaper that way..and not that hard to make reservations for train, etc on own.

[Mr_Astro]

We didn't do the PC excursion but talked to a few folks who did and they thoroughly enjoyed it. They had VERY early departures and VERY long days but the hotels they were put up in were first class and well appreciated at each days' end.

[Granny DI]

Awesome, Amazing.....worth every penny. We even did the Hiram Bingham train to Machu Picchu! Princess did an outstanding tour! Don't miss this one!

Read up on altitude sickness. My husband wasn't bothered but I had insomnia...small price to pay for this amazing tour.

[Di Princess]

We took a 3 night overland tour with Princess to Machu a few years ago. We LOVED IT! Even though expensive, we had a wonderful time and thought it was worth every cent! I have not seen a 6 night land tour. That would be greatl!

 

Strange because I am under the impression that there is only a 6-day tour to Machu Picchu. :confused:

Oh, now I see, it was just an Overland Tour.

 

In 2008, I was working at Princess in Customer Assistance doing call-outs. The cruise was different. I did the 16-day on the Star Princess, from Buenos Aires to Santiago and the Tour afterward. Not heavily advertised (or at all), the Hiram Bingham Train, that is $500 extra, is not-to-be-missed.

 

There were 2 buses (about 60 pax) on the Tour. We flew from Santiago to Lima, stayed in a hotel one night, and flew to Cusco the next day. I had obtained a script from my doctor for the Altitude Illness and started taking them 2 days before disembarkation (according to the instructions).

 

In Cusco, we stayed at the Hotel Liberator, which was an old palace and very beautiful. As soon as we arrived at the airport, residents ran up to the van with coca leaves in a sandwich bag for $1. So I stopped taking the Rx and put the leaves under my tongue. In the very large lobby of the Liberator, there was a huge pot of hot coca tea, 24 hours a day. I filled up a few coke bottles with it and drank it all day. Great breakfasts there.

 

On the H-B train, we had a 6-course breakfast, including champagne with orange juice. Coming home, it was a 6-course dinner with unlimited wines and cocktails. It is a 3-hour trip up the mountain. Gorgeous scenery. Being on the train, 5 of us had a private tour guide. A small Inca lady, she looked about 25 but said she was in her 40's with perfect English. :D

 

Being the sacred place, the Llamas were very friendly. At the end of the day, our guide looked up at the sky and said, "It looks like rain. It is time for us to go. On the bus going down the mountain to get back to the train station, we saw a double rainbow. Such good luck.

 

Yes, I would definitely go for the Princess Tour. Our 2 guides were just marvelous and, being a Single Lady, I felt extra care from both. I tipped them each $50. GO with PRINCESS. U will only do it once, and you will love it! ;)

[caribill]

I did what others say they have done.

 

Before we boarded the ship in Valpariso we took a five day tour to Machu Picchu. It was a private tour with five people.

 

This trip from Cusco to MP and back was fantastic, covered much more than the Princess Tour did and cost less than the shorter Princess tour.

 

That said, those on the ship who did the Princess tour loved it and were glad they did it.

 

One complication for the Princess tour on our cruise was that the ship was delayed by fog for five hours in entering the Port for Lima where they disembarked for the MP trip. They were unable to fly out of Lima that day and thus their overall tour was shortened. But they did make it to MP and, as I said, they loved it.

[marjack]

Thanks for all the info. My TA called princess today to book our tour cruise, and they told her that it is not available. Very strange, since it is available at the web site. I will have to do more research on this.

[Duane T]

Check the Princess website periodically. I noticed it will say it's closed or sold out and then reopen again a few hours/days later, sometimes with different promotions/pricing/airfare. I'm on the December 15 2013 Machu Picchu pre-cruse tour (on Golden Princess) and I've been planning this since late 2011. The biggest price savings (flying from Honolulu Hawaii) was in airfare which varied from $1300 per person to $3200 per person. Princess EZAir had the best airfare price "one weekday"...so I locked it in and we leave in 30 days going to Lima two days early to adjust to timezones. We're doing this trip for similar reasons as you...we don't want to wait much longer as travelling is a getting a littler more of a challenge every year.

 

Good Luck and enjoy your trip!

[Noodles84]

Hi Jack and Marsie, Just wondering what you decided re the cruise tour to M.P.?We are in the same age group as you and decided to do the tour through Princess as it was a 6 day, instead of the usual 3 day ones that I had seen offered elsewhere. It is expensive, but at our ages, we'd rather leave the worry and organization to someone else, and others that have done it have seemed to be happy with that tour. Hope to see you there! Dave and Nicole

[Di Princess]

Hi Jack and Marsie, Just wondering what you decided re the cruise tour to M.P.?We are in the same age group as you and decided to do the tour through Princess as it was a 6 day, instead of the usual 3 day ones that I had seen offered elsewhere. It is expensive, but at our ages, we'd rather leave the worry and organization to someone else, and others that have done it have seemed to be happy with that tour. Hope to see you there! Dave and Nicole

 

Hi, Dave & Nicole: You Made the right decision. You will not be sorry because you will not do better. Did you ask about the Hiriam Bingham Orient Express Train? ;)

[boone2]

We were going to do the MP tour as part of our 29 day SA cruise on the Star this year. I was very worried about acclimatisation to altitude in such a short period and it's alot of money if you get sick. I then started researching and found we could book return airfares and hotel accommodations in the Sacred valley for 6 days for the price of the tour which is what we did. We made it a separate vacation and we had a fantastic time, one of our best vacations to date. Yes we had to pay extra for the site entrance food and train but it was all very affordable and we could absorb the culture and other Inca sites in that time, and no we didn't get sick, I just got very short of breath on stairs - and there's alot of climbing in the sacred valley. Whichever way you decide to do it you will have the most wonderful experience

Terry

[Noodles84]

Hi, Dave & Nicole: You Made the right decision. You will not be sorry because you will not do better. Did you ask about the Hiriam Bingham Orient Express Train? ;)

Hi! That's good to hear. We do a Vistadome train (1.5 hrs.) from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, then later a return on a "narrow track train along the Urumbamba River". Other than that, its all on a coach. Nicole

[marjack]

Hi Jack and Marsie, Just wondering what you decided re the cruise tour to M.P.?We are in the same age group as you and decided to do the tour through Princess as it was a 6 day, instead of the usual 3 day ones that I had seen offered elsewhere. It is expensive, but at our ages, we'd rather leave the worry and organization to someone else, and others that have done it have seemed to be happy with that tour. Hope to see you there! Dave and Nicole

 

Dave & Nicole - We are all confirmed with our TA. As others have said, I will continue to check the prices to see if they come down. We will also be booking our air through Princess. In the past, we have always booked our own airfare, but decided to let Princess do it all this time. I know we have to wait a few more months until it opens up for airfare. This is the most expensive vacation we have ever taken, but as DH says "What are we saving it for -- our old age?" I appreciate all the wonderful comments. I know it will be an unforgetable cruise -- only 16 months to go.

[Noodles84]

Hi, I'm so sorry that I keep misspelling your name Marcie, not Marsie!:rolleyes:

[windsor26]

Thanks so much for your input. I'll be researching -- only 16 months to go!!

 

If you decide to go it yourself before or after the cruise I thoroughly recommend patagoniashorex dot com with whom we did a 5 day side trip during our SA cruise last March Jamie will give you the best time ever and take care of everything. To confirm this try tripadvisor for his company

[snoopymi]

Duane T

 

We are on the Machu Pichuu Cruisetour on January 12. Princess says the Lima hotel is a new contract and that don't know the name yet. They have also cancelled our Lima city tour before our flight at the end of the to Santiago to start the cruise due to its conflict with our flights. We would like to book a Lima city tour on own own, since we will arrive a day early in Lima, but cannot book until we know where we are staying. Did you have either of these problems? What Lima hotel are you staying in? Thanks in advance for any information you can give us. Reply here or to sally603 at gmail dot com.

[Duane T]

Duane T

 

We are on the Machu Pichuu Cruisetour on January 12. Princess says the Lima hotel is a new contract and that don't know the name yet. They have also cancelled our Lima city tour before our flight at the end of the to Santiago to start the cruise due to its conflict with our flights. We would like to book a Lima city tour on own own, since we will arrive a day early in Lima, but cannot book until we know where we are staying. Did you have either of these problems? What Lima hotel are you staying in? Thanks in advance for any information you can give us. Reply here or to sally603 at gmail dot com.

 

Hi Sally. I noticed the Itinerary in Lima did not quite match up to the flight schedules. I actually sent an email to the Lima Tour operator who indicated they had selected Lima hotel as the Casa Andina Private Collection (Av La PAz 463 in Miraflores district). Princess finally sent me an updated Itinerary that had the same information about a month later. So you might want to contact Lima Tours and see if they have finalized the hotel for your particular cruisetour date.

 

Our revised Itinerary from Princess still says we have a Lima Tour on the day we fly to Santiago but the flight schedules don't match it...i.e. we're catching the flight from Cusco to Lima to Santiago the whole day from 8:10 AM til arrival in Chile at 5:30 PM (2 hour layover in Lima...too little time to leave the airport).

 

So we're planning the extra day that we have in Lima before hand to go see the sights in Lima.

 

Have a nice trip. If I see any problems, I'll try to post them on cruise critic when we start our cruise tour in Lima this Saturday.

[marjack]

Duane T

 

We are on the Machu Pichuu Cruisetour on January 12. Princess says the Lima hotel is a new contract and that don't know the name yet. They have also cancelled our Lima city tour before our flight at the end of the to Santiago to start the cruise due to its conflict with our flights. We would like to book a Lima city tour on own own, since we will arrive a day early in Lima, but cannot book until we know where we are staying. Did you have either of these problems? What Lima hotel are you staying in? Thanks in advance for any information you can give us. Reply here or to sally603 at gmail dot com.

 

Hi Snoopy. Our Cruisetour is not until March 2015, so I imagine that it could change quite a bit until then We are planning on booking it all through Princess, including airfare and will probably just let them plan it all. I guess we are getting lazy in our old age. Your adventure starts soon. I will look forward to your comments/review after the cruise. I had gone on the boards, and the general consensus is that while it is expensive, Princess does a great job.

 

It is too far out to book our flights, but I believe that we can fly in a day early through Princess to have that extra day cushion and see some of the sights on our own.

 

And, Snoopy, I notice you live in Grand Blanc, MI. While I live in Dallas, TX now with my hubby (who is a native texan), I am originally from Detroit MI (way back when == grew up in the 50's and 60's).

Edited December 13, 2013 by marjack

[Duane T]

Hi Sally. I noticed the Itinerary in Lima did not quite match up to the flight schedules. I actually sent an email to the Lima Tour operator who indicated they had selected Lima hotel as the Casa Andina Private Collection (Av La PAz 463 in Miraflores district). Princess finally sent me an updated Itinerary that had the same information about a month later. So you might want to contact Lima Tours and see if they have finalized the hotel for your particular cruisetour date.

 

Our revised Itinerary from Princess still says we have a Lima Tour on the day we fly to Santiago but the flight schedules don't match it...i.e. we're catching the flight from Cusco to Lima to Santiago the whole day from 8:10 AM til arrival in Chile at 5:30 PM (2 hour layover in Lima...too little time to leave the airport).

 

So we're planning the extra day that we have in Lima before hand to go see the sights in Lima.

 

Have a nice trip. If I see any problems, I'll try to post them on cruise critic when we start our cruise tour in Lima this Saturday.

Just got off the phone again with Princess Cruises rep. She admitted she and the land tour staff had no idea that there was no time for a Lima city tour. The Princess Land tour group staff actually told her to tell me that there will be some sort of land tour even though there was no conceivable way we could fly from cusco to lima (2 hour layover in Lima) and then connect on to Santiago Chile. I was then referred to customer service...which apparently never answered the forwarded call. We'll see what they say when I land in Lima tomorrow morning.

[snoopymi]

Duane.....interesting .....I always thought Princess would be much better organized. Besides the tour we are supposed to have "lunch in a restaurant or private home" in that two hour time period. We will need the whole two hours in the airport--we don't even have seat assignments to speed things up. This is not something new for Princess, so why are they so clueless.

 

Have a good flight and enjoy! Hope it all works out for you.

 

Sally

[Duane T]

12/13/2013-12/14/2013 -

After being in the air/intransit for the past 22 hours, we arrived at Lima on a LAN flight from LAX at around 10:30 AM today. Although we were prepared for the worst (flight delays, lost luggage, questionable service on LAN per Yelp! and Tripadvisor reports), everything went extremely well. We had nice checkin/flight attendant service on both our American Airlines and LAN flights. We breezed through customs in Lima and Lima Tours was waiting for just outside the Customs gates using their Ipads to flash our name in bright colors so we could see them in the crowd (cleverly done).

 

Lima Tours' airport's rep (Johan Diaz) spoke excellent english and gave us a great briefing of Lima, climate, food, tips that we took notes on, expecially the food and places to eat near the hotel (Casa Andina Private Collection - Miraflores). He gave us a packet with maps and the updated Machu Picchu Cruisetour itinerary which actually had more details to questions that we could not get answered by the Princess teleophone reps. While we drove through the city, he pointed out places to shop, get groceries and suggested 2 restaurants to get us started on Peruvian cuisine which we hit one of the two so far....excellent Cebiche!

 

Johan walked us thru the Hotel checkin, asked the hotel staff to make copies of our passport AND the Peruvian Andean Migration Card for us to carry around and emphasized we need to present thee Peruvian Andean Migration Card at the other hotels that we will stay at during the Cruisetour and present when we fly to Santiago, Chile.

 

So far, Lima Tours has ensured this trip got off to the right start and we appreciated the details they provided on the rest of the cruisetour, Lima, and Peruvian customs.

 

Hopefully the rest of the trip goes this well.

[marjack]

Duane,

 

Thanks for the update on your Cruisetour. So glad it is going well. We look forward to ours in 2015. -- only 15 more months to go!! Hope you are able to post more updates on your adventure.

 

One question -- Did you book your air through Princess?

Edited December 15, 2013 by marjack