Smartours Enchanting Peru.
 

I just signed up for Smartours Enchanting Peru. Any feedback or reviews on Smartours choice of airlines, single accomodation on hotels, optional dinners or tours, do's and dont's, spending money (US cash or local currency from ATM) for shopping and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Deep discounter similar to

www.gotmyfare.com usually better for CA/LA

not local subs everything out cheap price=cheap experience

ok if that is what you want...

www.travel.state.gov Peru www.insuremytrip.com always wise

www.capitalone.com Venture Visa no foreign fees works well

everywhere use ATMs at big banks only lots of counterfeit

and debit card "skimming" I never use debit cards there.

Carry back up USD $20 in my money belt new no tears

$50 $100 not taken too much counterfeit...

Wonderful country though... Have fun,

LALaw2011 - I took the Smartours Enchanting Peru tour last year with three book club girlfriends. We had a ball. The hotels are wonderful, the tour director was knowledgeable and the overall quality of the tour hard to beat for the price. Plus, there is enough free time for people like me who prefer independent travel to get away on my own. I didn't take any optional tours but one of my friends did in Cusco - the Sacsayhuaman tour. A couple of the girls also went on the optional folklore dinner tour while two of us independently went to see a performance at the Municipal Theater. They all liked the optional tours they took.

The only problem we had was that I was the only person bumped from our flight from Juliaca to Lima. One of my friends stayed behind with me and we met up with the group that night in Lima. That meant we had to stay in Juliaca all day waiting for the evening flight and missed the one night we had in Lima. The tour director stayed with us because he felt responsible and Juliaca is a frontier town in the worst sense of the word. In any case, it ended up being an adventure. When I returned home I complained in writing to Smartours who passed the complaint along to LAN Peru. LAN sent me a check - I think it was for $75 - hardly enough to make up for being bumped. Oh well, it was an adventure.

We were all very, very careful with money. We were aware going in and our tour director went out of his way to keep everyone aware of potential problems.

Restaurants in Cusco - Greens for great, cheap food and MAP for a delicious meal in a fabulous setting. I hope you have wonderful weather for your day at Machu Picchu.

If you have a good attitude and intend on having a good time, I'm sure you will. Our group was full of delightful, interesting people who were fun to travel with and there to experience as much of Peru as possible. Enjoy every minute.