Travel arrangements worked surprisingly well, despite airline strikes. Hike to Laguna de los Tres was probably the highlight, but all locations had there own highlights. In Ushuaia the boat trip on the Beagle Channel, with visit to Penguin Island was good, and hike in Tierra del Fuego was a good start/introduction to the mountain scenery. Loved the vibe in El Chalten, the two hikes we did, in fact could have done with another day there. Torres del Paine also had similar stunning scenery, we even saw a puma. Our one disappointment was the quality of the food in the expensive Hotel Torres, possibly the worst meals we had in Patagonia (Mi Rancho in EL Calafate was the best). Out times in the cities of BA and Santiago were not so interesting, but then not why we went.

Loved it, spectacular mountains, great hikes, El Chalten was probably favourite town.

No

The advice from Swoop was very helpful, and whilst we booked most of it directly ourselves, we broadly followed the proposed plan/route. We did book some things as we went, which meant that we could plan around the weather, and the two of us could do different things sometimes. I think this worked better than everything booked in advance. The costs between the Swoop quote and what we eventually paid were broadly similar, I think we may have saved a bit (maybe 5-6%) by booking independently, but I think it was the flexibility of booking tours, or doing our own hikes that was the main difference.

Our only booking was with Hotel los Torres. It was a great place to stay but see earlier comments about food. Booking process was easy with hotel, all staff were great

2 full days in Ushuaia is sufficient, needed at eats 3 full days in El Chalten (4 would be better), 1 day in El Calafate (to visit the glacier) is enough, 3 full days in Torres del Paine was about right. Make sure you leave enough for travel plans to change, ours didn't but we met lots of people who did have problems with flights