Galapagos / Ecuador Travel Review: Amazon, Cruise, 10-Day Trip

Review by traveler

Betsy S.

4.1.2024

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

Galapagos / Ecuador

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

Overall, our trip was great. However, the communication we received from our Zicasso agent after we completed our booking was less than desirable. When the final payment was due, he gave us two days to get to the bank for the money order. A heads-up that the final payment was going to be due on this day would have been great so we could have changed our work schedule to accommodate getting to the bank before it closed.

When I asked him for a packing list, I received an email back from him stating they normally do not send that out until 10 days prior to your departure date. I need more time than that to order in what I would need for the trip.

Also, it would be helpful to know our domestic flight times and information prior to getting to the airport on the day of the flights. We received an itinerary, but nothing about flights your company made for us.

The guides and drivers he set up for us were fabulous.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

The Amazon trip (and the accommodations) and the cruise were the best parts of the trip! The cruise and crew on the ship were top-notch.

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

I would skip Quito. We felt there was a lot of travelling once we got there and it wasted almost two days of our trip. I would have preferred a seven-day cruise in the Galapagos. That was not even offered to us as an option, unfortunately.

Travel Company Comments:

Thank you Betsy for your review on Zicasso. It is really appreciated. I just wanted to respond to a couple of the points you made.

We request balance payments for trips 75 days before the start of the trip and in your case we sent out a couple of reminders around this time. It is not our policy to give deadlines for payments (as you mentioned), but communicate with the client to ensure that we receive payments in a timely manner. We are obliged to pay for services as set out in your trips, which we can only do once we have received your balance payment. If a client is unable to make a balance payment due to work commitments or another reason, then we ask that the client communicate this to us. We can then assess how we proceed considering the deadlines we need to meet for supplier payments guaranteeing your itinerary.

As standard practice, we send out our Final Travel Document package about 7-10 days prior to the trip. This includes a full summary of your trip & vouchers, general information about the destination, tipping, and packing advice. We understand that some clients prefer this information with more anticipation, and are happy to send it out in advance. I can confirm that in your case, we emailed this information 62 days and again 8 days prior to the start of your trip.

Galapagos and Amazon Jungle flights are purchased directly with the operator of the specific service. This is done for logistical purposes, and also to take advantage of the special pricing agreements they have. The operator purchases the flights as multi-group bookings, so the tickets detail other passengers' names and private data. In accordance with our privacy policy and to ensure that your personal details are kept secure, the operator doesn't share this ticketing information. We detail this clearly in our correspondence and final travel documentation. We provide only the basic flight details in advance, and the physical tickets are provided by the local rep on arrival at the airport.

We work hard to ensure that we communicate every detail of our trips with the client so that they are fully prepared for each trip. Should there be any information missing, or if the client has additional questions, we recommend reaching out to us for further clarification.

It is great to hear that you enjoyed your accommodations and the cruise and crew aboard the Ocean Spray, we will be sure to pass on your comments to them. Should you be travelling to Latin America in the future, please don't hesitate to reach out to us for planning assistance.