Colchagua Valley

We had a personal guide and driver. We visited two wineries and lunch at another. They also took us at our request into Santa Cruz town where there was a wine festival. Very good driver and guide and car. Very well worthwhile.

Two days before our tour we were notified by Trip and Tour Turismo that they no longer work with Expedia. We had booked the tour thru Chase Travel (via Expedia), and T&TT were to cancel the reservation so we would pay again after the tour. Little did we know that we would be overcharged for the experience because the Chase Travel rate is higher than the direct Trip and Tour Turismo rate listed on their site. We requested a refund for the difference weeks ago and this has still not been resolved. As for the tour itself, unfortunately our guide had to cancel on us the day of due to issues arising from the demonstrations in Santiago. However we still went on our Colchagua Valley trip with the T&TT driver. The driver was very courteous, but spoke limited English. So there was no tour to speak of from T&TT except for being driven to Colchagua and taken to 3 vineyards, and one vineyard tour which we had to pay out of pocket for. Instead of paying the very high price for this tour, I would recommend that you rent a car from Santiago and drive to Santa Cruz yourself. You can also take one of several buses that go to the Colchagua Valley which are very reasonably priced. In Santa Cruz you should be able to use Uber or hire a taxi to the vineyards.

We had been to Santiago a couple of years ago and this time wanted to visit some wineries in the Colchagua valley. I contacted several companies, some who months later have not bothered to reply, along with a few that would not accommodate my preferred wineries. I reached out to Trip and Tour Turismo and Daniela answered all my questions and we arranged our tour to the Colchagua Valley. As we were disambarking from a cruise ship in San Antonio the prior day, I also arranged for a private transfer to the hotel with a stop at a winery (and left it to them) along with a lunch stop and requested we be at the hotel around 3 p.m.. We left the ship and our guide Viviana was waiting for us at the appointed time. After a stop at Concho Y Toro and lunch we arrived at the hotel at precisely 3 p.m. I still am amazed at how they timed that so perfectly. The next day we were picked up at 9, again the lovely Viviana was to be our guide, and visited 3 wineries as requested. Our driver Andy was very safe and courteous. Finally, after not hearing back from another company that I had made a tenative reservation to take us to the airport 2 days later, I again contacted Daniela who was able to arrange our airport transportation. By reading thru Trip Advisor you will see there are a lot of companies that offer wine tasting tours. Some apparently are not interested in one's business since they don't respond, others want to fit you in their predefined format. I highly recommend Trip and Tour Turismo - they are a small, responsive company that provides excellent service and at a very competative price point. The next time we are in Santiago I will not need to spend any time researching tour companies as it would be hard to beat this one!