Aug 3, 2024
Viña del Mar and Valparaiso - Excellent attention from Christian guide, very friendly and with great experience. Highly recommended from start to finish. 10/10
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jan 14, 2024
Was very good - Incredible visits. Very interesting places. But the best of the whole experience was traveling with guide Isabel. Very polite, kind, and with great knowledge of her work. It deserves a 10. It was great traveling with her. Represents the company very well.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Dec 30, 2023
Acknowledgment - Passing by to thank you for the incredible experience that this family trip was with our guide in Chile, Mr. NANO. Excellent person with incredible knowledge! It made our day more special. Thanks
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Oct 15, 2023
Vina del Mar d Valparaiso with Nano Guide! - We took the tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaíso!! Beautiful tour, very worth it. Our guide was the best we had here in Chile! Guide Nano, very friendly, responsible and explains in detail about the places we visited. Thank you very much Nano!!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Feb 23, 2023
Giovanni is a champ - Giovanni is a wonderful guide and an excellent addition to any visit to the coast of Chile. He was good natured, knowledgeable, and extremely flexible. We took an off-the-cuff boat tour of the bay, saw amazing graffiti, walked on the beach, and had Giovanni pick us up in Santiago and then drop us off at a bar around the corner from our cooking class for maximum convenience. A++, would tour again!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Feb 20, 2023
Would do it again - Not quite fair for me to rate this. Our ship arrived in port ridiculously late, so we actually only got a narrated drive to Santiago and an abbreviated tour of Santiago, but it was still worth it for the cost. Would have loved the whole tour, but it wasn’t their fault and our guide did his best with what time he had. They even dropped us off at our hotel. Only complaint was that they didn’t park with the other tour buses and it took forever to find them. Plus we had to drag ou luggage a fair distance to the bus. Even so, the guide did an awesome job.
Review provided by Viator
Mar 20, 2023
Beware - read the reviews!! - Listen to the reviews! Did not receive this tour - put on a bus with over 30 people for a city tour of Santiago. Gave 2 stars because we did go to a winery and the guide Gonzalo, but he said it was MTO’s fault. BEWARE - MTO doesn’t offer the Valparaiso/Vina del Mar tour.
Review provided by Viator
Apr 1, 2023
Overcharged taxi service - Our tour was cancelled and changed to just a taxi drive from Santiago to Valparaiso. We were told we would receive a refund down to the taxi cost. We only received a $117 dollar refund off of a total tour cost of $580. There is no way a taxi would have cost $463. We asked people on our cruise and they said at most $200. I was taken advantage of by this company and to some extent Trip Advisor.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Mar 21, 2023
Do Not even consider this tour - The tour was completely different that what was booked. Our group was suppose to be max of 8 people and we were to visit Valparaiso Vina del Mar and Casablanca Winery before being dropped off at our hotel i. Santiago.....instead we travelled with 28 people did not see either Valparaiso or Vina del Mar. we did visit an alternate winery which was the only positive part of the tour. I would not recommend this tour to anyone
Review provided by Viator
Feb 23, 2023
WORST TOUR EVER!! Unprofessional company & rude tour guide!! - Anyone traveling to Santiago do NOT use MTO Tours!! They falsely advertise themselves. They can be found through Tripadvisor and Viator as well as they have a Facebook page. We thought we did our research before booking the Small Group Pre-Post Cruise Vina del Mar, Valparaiso and Casablanca Wine Tour with 8 or less people, in which they had good reviews at the time of booking but it was the WORST tour we have ever been on!!!
They sent us a confirmation email, like every other tour we have booked. However, they had no directions such as time, meeting place, who to look for, etc.
So both my mom & I reached out to them for clarification through email and WhatsApp.We only got a response through Whatsapp, that they would contact us first thing in the morning. When we hadn’t heard from them by 8am we reached out to them again through Whatsapp. The response we got was “Driver is in port, No More Calls”.
We waited an hour with several other people who booked different excursions with MTO at the Port of San Antonio before one person wandered a few blocks away and found the tour bus. If anyone has gone through the port of San Antonio, the neighborhood surrounding it is pretty sketchy for foreigners. Finally, the guide followed her back to the port with a sign that had several parties listed on it that totalled 32 individuals. They had combined several small groups into one large tour group and gave us an option of going with them or staying at the port, with no refund or other alternatives being offered. Because of having 32 people on the tour, our luggage had to follow us in a separate vehicle.
We waited over an hour on the bus before they started the “tour”. Our guide immediately blamed us for starting late, which was not even remotely the case. It was clearly MTO’s fault because of very poor communication prior to the start of the tour. He said because some of our group was late that they would have to skip part of the tour.
Once we started the tour, our guide off-handedly explained that they are not set up for tours like this, that they typically only provide transportation for people to the cruise ports, hotels & airport. This tour was something new whey started a couple of weeks prior and it had not been going well, but to please leave a good review so the company can keep trying to make it better.
They were really vague about what locations we were stopping by or what we would be doing along the way. By the time we got to the first stop, which was a view from the top of the hill in Valparaiso, most of us had been on the bus for over 4 hours. At this point several people started to inquire about bathrooms. The guide told us there were no restrooms in the area set up to accommodate 32 of us and there was nothing he could do. After push back from pretty much everyone, he was able to locate a restroom for us.
From there we stopped at Vina Del Mar to see the garden clock for 10 minutes, then we were bused to lunch where they gave us 2 hours. This seemed like too much time considering what the tour was really offering, but in hindsight, we were glad we had a chance to eat. Shortly after we left the lunch spot, the guide told us the van carrying our luggage had broken down. He made it sound like another van would be right there to pick up our luggage and catch up with us at the next stop.
By the time we got to the winery in Casablanca (which is what our party had signed up for) we were only given 30 minutes for a tour & tasting, which is clearly not enough time. Two of our party paid for a tasting they were unable to do because our guide rushed us back on the bus.
We were then told the plan was to tour Santiago, drop off the parties who had hotels, then go to the airport to drop off the passengers flying out that evening. That’s when we discovered that our luggage was far from us. The guide kept saying it was only 45 minutes out and that he was in contact with the driver, but then the story changed. He didn’t know who the driver was and only had information about him through his manager. He said we just needed to move on and our luggage would arrive at our hotels later (not sure how that would be the case as none of our luggage was marked for which hotel). One of the parties said they were going to be far too late to the airport if they stayed on for the tour and asked that they be dropped off at the airport first. The guide said they would, but that would mean the rest of us would not be able to have the tour of Santiago. Everyone on the bus agreed to this plan, no problem. But then the guide said they would leave them at the airport and the luggage would have to catch up to them later. Because they would have to wait for their luggage, they could not go through security and would have to wait.
At this point no one on the bus had any trust in the guide and no one was getting calls or messages through to the MTO manager, they were just being hung up on. By the time we got to the airport, we collectively refused to leave the bus or airport without our luggage, but our guide said it was not his problem and he and the driver needed to get home for dinner with their families. Absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! The guide played a message from his manager, supposedly, who was just saying to trust them and they would get us our luggage. Trust wasn’t going to happen after a whole day of lies from them and lack of compassion or respect for any of us! A couple of us had trackers in our luggage and were able to get a better ETA of our bags and they were nearly 2 hours out! And this after we had been led on with 45 minute promises for several hours!
The guide continued to be a complete jerk and told us we have to move on, that they needed to start their weekend. If we wanted to wait for our luggage we could stay at the airport or if we refused to get off the bus then we could spend the night on the bus.
One of the ladies in another party went into the airport and came back with security. While they weren’t able to do anything directly, their presence stopped the guide from arguing with us about waiting for the luggage or getting us to our hotels once it showed up. After 3 hours of sitting at the airport on the bus, our luggage finally arrived. It was the only way all of us would have gotten our luggage back.
We were finally able to check into our hotel around 11:30 PM, after being on the bus from 9am - 14½ hours for a tour that was supposed to be a small group and last only 7-8 hours! There were a few others still on the bus needing to be dropped off at their hotel after we were dropped off. We later learned that the driver & guide started drinking beers and didn’t get the last person to their hotel, which was only a couple blocks from ours, until 12:30 AM.
This company shouldn’t be in business nor should this guide be allowed to give tours.
Review provided by Tripadvisor