2-Day Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu Tour By Train

This was definitely the WORST and MOST DISORGANIZED tour experience of my life! I advise you to NOT book with Happy Gringo. Run!!! NOW! Let me tell you what happened. I originally booked for the 2-day Inca trail hike and the company changed it up on me the day before the tour, telling me they had a “system error” and lost my tickets, while blaming it on the Machu Picchu agency. That literally made no sense to me and I don’t know why I wasn’t given earlier notice. I did not have a choice but to switch to the two-day sacred valley and Machu Picchu tour by train. I switched to the new tour, and the guy at Happy Gringo DID NOT tell me I needed to bring my physical passport for Machu Picchu. How was I so sure? I had taken notes in my iPhone of the details such as meet up time and one of the things he did tell me to do was to send a photo of my passport (which I did). I attended the day 1 sacred valley tour, excited for the adventure and what the day had in store. It wasn’t until someone I met in the group mentioned physical passports that made my boyfriend and I leave the day 1 tour halfway through to taxi back and grab our passports in Cusco. I talked to the guy at the agency on the phone and he tried to tell me he had cameras in the office and mentioned multiple times that I had to bring my physical passport… EXCUSE ME… I took clear notes on my phone and could not believe he was taking zero accountability. I’m an attentive person and NOT one to forget details like that. He even tried to tell me I could print a photo of my passport when online resources specifically said photocopies are NOT permitted. We were not going to risk not getting into MP, so we lost half of our day 1 tour visiting the Inca sites. We made it to the train station after the trek back to grab the passports, and arrived in MP town around 6pm. We were told to get in line with hundreds of people waiting for an entrance ticket to MP for the next day (Wed). The ABSURD thing was that the agency was not able to reserve that ticket for us… After a long 2 hour wait on an empty stomach, we were told that they sold out of entrance tickets for Wed (1,000 tickets max) and we had to go sign up to go Thursday instead. This was awful news as it would’ve meant losing 6 hours on Wed to go back to Cusco, pack up our bags to check out of our Airbnb, head back to MP town, AND rebook our thurs flight back to Lima. Luckily, we got on the waitlist for Wed and the tour guides got us in to see MP but the tour was very short… 2 hours inside was NOT enough for a $400 tour. I mean if we would’ve known we weren’t hiking, we would’ve just gone to MP on the train on our own … The LEAST Happy Gringo could’ve done was told us that they couldn’t reserve an entrance ticket for us so that we could get that on our own and not go through all the stress and hassle of obtaining a ticket, in addition to all of the uncertainty of not knowing whether we’d get in or not. Overall, there was a lot of stress associated with the Happy Gringo tour due to their POOR COMMUNICATION. I am giving them two stars because we ended up getting into MP on Wed, didn’t have to change our itinerary, and the guides were very nice people (thanks Mauro and Ruben). However, this was NOT the MP experience I have been dreaming of and I will NEVER book with Happy Gringo again.

Happy Gringo organised us (the group of friends) the whole 12-days exploring trip to Peru, from Lima to Cusco and back, so we really felt safe during our exiting trip to Peru!

Highly recommended tour company in Peru. The only choice for your Machu Picchu adventure, hands down the best tour company and it made this vacation memorable, stress free and left us in awe. If you want to read the longer review, please continue… I wrote to 7 tour companies and I found that not only did Happy Gringo Tours have the best reviews but they were the only company to reply to me immediately. Here is how our trip looked. After a month or so of texting with Jamie from the company, we locked in the dates and the itinerary for this adventure. I had high expectations, as we all do, of Machu Picchu and because of Happy Gringo Tours they were exceeded. We arrived in Cusco in the late afternoon, Jamie came over and explained every detail of the next few dates and handed me every ticket that I needed. (YES they take care of EVERY single ticket you need, from train to bus to the sacred valley to Machu Picchu). The next day we were picked up in a private mini-van/bus (it was myself, my husband and my mother in law), we all had our own row in this comfortable bus. Our tour guide was Juan and let me tell you, I’ve been on a ton of tours and he was the top 2 I’ve ever been with. On the drive to sacred valley he explained not just the sites but the history of Cusco, Ikas and answered every question we had. He did it with intelligence and great humor. So day 1 was sacred valley and a few other sites, followed by a Peruvian Buffet lunch in a beautiful restaurant. Juan then made a phone call to a local restaurant so we could have some of the best guineapig in Peru, he made the reservation and everything. The next day Juan directed us to the travel station and we headed to Machu Picchu, he met us the second we got off the train and we then took the bus up to Machu. The pictures of course due this place no justice. The tour through Machu Picchu was breathtakingly beautiful and it was made better because Juan knew every single detail about every step of the grounds there. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also a kind person, so he knew exactly where we should take the pictures. Our final day there we were picked up at the hotel and drove to Rainbow Mountain but on the way Juan pulled over and we had a great breakfast at the base of a mountain with tea, fruit, bread and everything to fill us up for the hike. We got to Rainbow Mountain and he set up a horse to take my mother in law up and then hiked with us. Once again he took the best pictures and was incredible company. I know this post is long and detailed but I want to stress that the only decision we had to make on this trip was what hotel to choose. Every other detail and hurdle of travel was covered by Happy Gringo Tours. You don’t have to lift a finger to have this once in a lifetime trip. Every idea I had in my head for this trip was exceeded because of this company. I cannot recommend them any higher. Gracias Juan!