Being quiet and still in the French Valley, absorbing the sense of beautiful yet stark unforgiving nature surrounding us. Unfortunately we could not get all the way to the Mirador Britanico due to some guides not wanting to split up their groups, many people having trouble keeping up a fast enough pace to ensure we'd be down and into camp at an appropriate time. This was disappointing to more than 8 people in our 2 groups. I was told early on in our planning that a group would be able to split off (if there were at least 6 people, but this wasn't an option for us)

Great holiday

Surpassed the expectations. The Superior Domes were the way to go, with private bathroom! The showers were great, with hot water and great pressure! Food was absolutely amazing every meal! Highly recommend the EcoCamp! Excursions were also great! As stated earlier, Diego and Nadia were our most excellent guides, and I would go with them any day! Unfortunately, the guides from the other group did not want to split up the day we did French Valley, and we were unable to have a break-off group go ahead to the Mirador Britanico, which was sad for several of us. Also, the last day we did some hiking around the eastern lakes area, seeing guanaco mating and also defending territory, hearing and seeing many birds. The other group that was associated with us did not go hiking, instead they had a "van tour" and I know that several of them were quite disappointed in that, and they wished they had hiked (which is what they paid for)

Absolutely lived up to my expectations! Beautiful and inspiring, reminding us what is actually important in life.

Diego and Nadia were absolutely awesome, as people, as guides, and now as friends. I'm glad they were ambitious and got us going early in the mornings so we could get to the look outs (Torres, French Valley) sooner than other groups so we could enjoy the sites to ourselves. While we certainly could've done the hikes without a guide, it was so much more enjoyable and informative with them, and I wouldn't change that fact!

Overall satisfied with the service from Swoop. We received good basic information in preparation for our trip. Initial contact with Sydney, while brief, was quick, informative, and encouraging. One thing I didn't realize was that Swoop was able to assist with flight reservations (other people stated that Swoop did this for them?) and that might have been helpful, as dealing with SKY Airline wasn't always the smoothest. During the course of the year prior to our trip we received several emails that seemed randomly automated, for example telling us we needed to immediately let Swoop know of our in-country flight information, when we actually couldn't make in-flight reservations more that 10 months prior to our trip. When I inquired about it, I received an email stating that "these are randomly sent" and to just wait until closer to our trip to provide the info. Then why send automated messages that are meaningless to a client? The website needs some upgrading in terms of having updated information available once clients input their info. Up until the very time we left for our trip, my personal planner stated that I still owed money and that I was past due, even though we had all paid prior to the deadline. Also, the day prior to the start of our trip we never received confirmation of pick-up time in Puerto Natales, which is what I was told we were going to receive the night prior to our pick-up. I never received any email, my hotel never received any messages for me, and I had to have the receptionist at the hotel call the emergency number to try to figure out the time. Certainly I would not have expected to wait 2 hours in the window of "10 am - 12 noon" for a van to take us to the small Puerto Natales office. I realize that our trip was starting on Christmas Day, and that our contact people might be out of office and not checking emails (which was our case), but someone else should have been getting my messages. All I received was a bounce back message. And I still haven't received any message from Rachel acknowledging any receipt of my emails, or asking how our trip went. The personal attention and assistance seems to stop once the money is finally paid. But this is similar to what we've experienced with other tour group operators.

Having had extensive experience with hiking and trekking, I feel like our group was very prepared and we were totally excited about our trip. One group member was rather stressed about several situations, but that was a single personal trait and not representative of our group.

Yes

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No