Argentina Travel Agent Review: Mendoza, Uspallata, Vineyards, Malbec Wine, Landscapes

I'm a little surprised that this travel company made it to the Zicasso list. I've used a few travel companies through Zicasso in the past (the Africa travel company being my favorite) and had better experience before. I chose this travel agency because Ezequiel is from Argentina but in the process of putting together an itinerary he seemed upset that we wanted changes to the itinerary he proposed. He had actually "strongly recommended" a cruise to Antarctica if we had more time but when we agreed to go to Antarctica, on the phone he said it would need a longer time to plan this. A brochure arrived at our home with an Antarctica cruise offer and my wife called him because she wanted to book it through him and the offer was limited so time was of the essence. During the conversation, he said that we can't call and keep changing the itinerary as he was busy and that he didn't know the company that gave the offer. My wife wrote him an apology about calling him and we still booked Mendoza through him since we had been working with him already. He seemed gracious enough on email but we had to keep asking him about some details and even while in Mendoza, the information the local agency had differed from what was sent on email. For example, lunch was supposed to be included but the local agency said it was not; eventually we got the lunch included but the one in Uspallata which was a grill had inedible burnt meat the fork wouldn't go through and one piece that was pure bone and fat which was surprising for Argentina. All in all, we had a good time in Mendoza and Ezequiel did arrange for the changes in flights as required when we were notified 5 weeks before that our charter flight time from Ushuaia to BA changed. The hotel he recommended was great as well as the driver, who picked us up in Buenos Aires from Mendoza. Pia, the destination host, arranged our dinner at the hotel as we were arriving quite late which we really appreciated. Overall, it was fine, just not up to Zicasso standards, I felt.