Journeys: Inca Explorer National Geographic Journeys

Customer Reviews

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  Lawrence

  · April 3rd, 2020
  Great tour, but unfortunately cut short because of COVID 19 pandemic. G Adventures staff members were extremely helpful in arranging accommodations and flights out of Peru for stranded American and Canadian tour guests. Many thanks for their extraordinary efforts!
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  Trip date: March 2020
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  Opal

  · November 27th, 2019
  It was all good to excellent, until the bed bugs.
  Trip date: November 2019
• EI

  Elaine

  · October 31st, 2019
  While I loved Peru, and Yur our guide was excellent, the accommodations were of poor quality in sketchy and often inconvenient locations.
  Trip date: October 2019
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  Marie Sheryl

  · October 14th, 2019
  An excellent experience for my very first group tour. Rudy, our CEO, is very much informed and shared a lot about his country. He always go out of his way to help and guide all of us in the group. He is very much patient to everyone. Kudos GAdventures and NatGeo for a very well organised and efficient itinerary! One for the books experience indeed!
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  Trip date: September 2019
• SD

  Sally

  · October 11th, 2019
  The tour did what we wanted but there were too many bus rides meaning we lost two full days. We had a coo but he was there just to heard onto a bus, we had guides at each stop which we then had to tip on top. Meaning the cost went up and we had little flexibility.
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  Trip date: September 2019
• LI

  LEONARD

  · September 26th, 2019
  The hotels were average, for me the worst one was the hotel in Cusco (this hotel has 2 type of rooms - the updates ones are nice, the non updated rooms are really below average). For this type of tour I would have prefer to take a flight from Cusco to Puno, instead of spending over 9 hrs in the bus. Also, i would have preferred an earlier flight from Puno to Lima. Getting back to Lima after 4.00 PM was a little late.
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  Trip date: August 2019
• DA

  Donna

  · September 21st, 2019
  Jubar was our CEO and he was an absolute delight, definitely a 5-star rating from me! He did all he could to make our days work well and to help everyone with any big or small issues that cropped up. He really did treat us like we were his family. I knew we were going to cover a lot of ground, but the 2 long days in the bus were hard to take in such huge chunks of time. I'm not sure how else we could've gotten from A to B, but perhaps if there were music played, or some kind of option to stop a little more frequently for a photo or 2 (not just "El Bano" stops) it might have made the days pass more pleasantly? Also, having paid upfront, in full, for the tour, all of the "nickel and diming" every single day for every single extra person (driver/guide/porter etc., etc., etc.) really wore most of us out, embarrassed a lot of us, frustrated a lot of us, as most of us never seemed to have enough sole to cover all these extras that we felt were NOT optional (what other way could you feel when envelopes kept being passed around into which your portion was to be placed?), so my suggestion here is to (1) either see that these people are paid a bit more by charging a bit more for the tours upfront (2) Collect a one time fee at the beginning of the tour, and have the amount stated in the tour information and then never mentioned again or (3) stop this practice altogether and leave it entirely up to each individual IF they felt that a person deserved a tip or not. Now, the sites seen and the places we visited were absolutely spectacular and they all receive a f-star rating from me. I am more than happy to have made this, my first time "South of The Border" to Peru. Machu Picchu shall remain one special place to me. Thank God the Spanish never found this magical place and destroyed it! The Nazca Lines are a wonderful mystery to contemplate and Lake Titicaca, although our particular visit didn't go entirely to plan, I found surprising for its sheer size. I am unsure how much longer the Uros people are going to be willing to continue their rather harsh life "just so us tourists can take photos", as I would hate to think of them being "stuck" there as a Disneyland exhibit. But I found them lovely and kind and funny. In fact, I found the people of Peru to be very warm and loving in general, and very optimistic and forward thinking about their future.And the children are to-die-for cute! As far as the included food: breakfast, by nature, is a limited meal to have a huge variety presented, but by trip's end, I vowed it would be awhile before I ate ham again! Also, a little more time would've been nice to have to eat, rather than gulp and go, as many times a bare 1/2 hour between the time the places opened and the time we had to leave was the window of eating opportunity. Also, really, would it have been so bad to have organized a farewell dinner to be included at tour's end? It felt, after spending 14 days together, that it all just fizzled out once we returned to Lima.
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  Trip date: July 2019
• BF

  Beverly

  · July 24th, 2019
  The itinerary was excellent and we very much enjoyed the changes of location. The pace was good and we were able to get enough rest to continue every day. The guide was excellent and without his help in various situations we would have been at a loss. Additionally, he was always happy!
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  Trip date: July 2019
• MS

  Marina

  · June 27th, 2019
  The contents of the itinerary was good, but some parts need to be changed due to a strike happening during our trip in Peru. Also, a dinner originally included in the description was not provided on the trip. The tour members were great, and we had a lot of fun.
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  Trip date: May 2019
• SS

  Steven

  · May 3rd, 2019
  The sites, activities, and food on this tour are excellent. If you enjoy history and visiting archeological sites you will have a great vacation. Unfortunately, our guide was less than average on our tour. Things that he should or should not have done include the following: -He never gave us his phone number. -He didn’t give us his room number in any of the hotels. -He didn’t create a WhatApp group chat so if you missed dinner you missed important information concerning the following day. -He never took any group photos. -He didn’t help with the bags from the roof of the van and instead watched from 15 feet away as the guys on the tour helped the driver lower the bags to the ground. -He was always the first through security and first on the planes at the airports. He should have been the last one to ensure all of us had no problems at security or getting on the plane. What is someone wasn’t feeling well and was in the bathroom during boarding? -During an 11 hour bus trip he barely spoke except to inform us about the next rest stop. One member of the group approached him about our concerns during this trip and he got very defensive and said there was nothing of interest during this bus ride. The common impression from the group was that our guide has been doing his job for over 20 years and has lost his enthusiasm and is just going through the motions at this point in his career. He’s a very nice guy and seems to mean well but wasn’t nearly as good at the other CEOs I’ve had on previous G Adventures tours. One member of our tour group sent G Adventures an email after the 1st week to complain about his performance. He was slightly better the 2nd week but still below average. On day 2 the itinerary doesn’t list certain activities you might want to do. Paracas is a small town but you can lie on the beach, rent kayaks, or rent jet skis. The hotel in this town was the worst on our tour but to be fair there were very few hotels so G Adventures has limited options. The “Polynesian meal of burying a variety of delicious treats wrapped in banana leaves and slow-cooking them with pre-heated rocks buried in the ground” was interesting to see but the food itself was awful. The atmosphere was even worse. It was like we were taken to an abandoned hotel and ate in the courtyard. Except for the staff preparing the meal we did not see a single person. At least they could have put on music to liven the place up. Our guide also didn’t tell us they would not have wine and only have one type of beer to purchase. That way we could have brought our own. On day 6 the itinerary states, “Dig into Arequipa’s renowned regional cuisine with a cooking class led by a chef at a traditional “picantería” restaurant.” There is no “cooking class.” It is a 5 minute presentation on how they make the rocoto relleno. I ordered the ¼ of a cuy (guinea pig) and it was basically fried skin. There may have been one piece of meat on the guinea pig. I never saw cuy served as a ¼ in any other restaurant. It was always served whole. It seems as though the included lunches and dinners were bare bones and often left the group hungry. This isn’t a great way to treat customers who have paid thousands of dollars for a vacation. If you want a bottle of water during the included lunches and dinners you will be paying for it. The day 8 visit to the Potato Park was a waste of time. Almost the whole group left the presentation and went outside to take pictures with the llamas. There are only so many types of potatoes that you can look at. The only reason some stayed for the presentation was to be polite. For Day 9 the itinerary states, “Please bear in mind that the town has several amenities, but is also geographically remote meaning services are sometimes more basic than one would assume. As the only option for travelers visiting Machu Picchu, the development of infrastructure has happened quite quickly, much without proper planning, and the focus on providing quality service may not be up to the standards experienced in other parts of the country.” This is not accurate. The services and infrastructure are fine. It seems as though the itinerary hasn’t been updated in over 10 years. The Machu Picchu Guided Tour states, “Rise and shine – the best time to see the Lost City of the Incas is in the early morning light.” According to the local guides and other G Adventures guides, this is not correct. Apparently 60-70% of the time it is extremely cloudy in the early mornings at Machu Picchu. This makes sense since it’s in the cloud forest. The vast majority of the group was very upset when we arrived at Machu Picchu and could not see a thing. They were even angrier when they found out that it is commonly cloudy in the mornings. The crowds may be smaller in the early mornings but the weather is better in the early afternoon. Many of us felt we should have had the included visit to Machu Picchu on the afternoon of Day 9 and had the optional visit the morning of Day 10. The “planetarium” on Day 11 was inside a large hut. While they gave us blankets during the hour long presentation it was still extremely cold and uncomfortable. It was cloudy so we were unable to see the night sky with the telescopes. The flight on day 14 from Puno to Lima departed at around 1:30pm. This meant that we arrived at our hotel at around 4:30. I would have preferred an early wake up so that the day wasn’t a complete waste. With a CEO who is engaged with the group and a few minor tweaks, this tour could easily be 5 stars.
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  Trip date: April 2019