Chimu Adventures Reviews 

I have travelled with Chimu Adventures on 4 occasions over the past 5 years - Patagonia, Antarctica, Peru and just recently to the Arctic. All 4 trips have been amazing and my contact with Chimu in Australia has been great. Their knowledge of the destinations is very good and their recommendations are always spot on with all of my trips running seamlessly.
I can't speak highly enough of Chimu and when next I travel to South America or the Polar regions, I'll definitely be using them again.

Extremely poor service from Chimu for our 11-day trip to Antarctica (& supposedly the Falkland’s) included the following;
- change of itinerary without warning. Itinerary changed by the ship 15 months prior to departure, Chimu were notified, however, Chimu failed to notify passengers whom had paid. Eventually they did notify us, conveniently 2 weeks prior to trip departure at which stage it was too late for us too make alternative arrangements
-We paid for a fly/cruise/fly expedition to the Falklands and Antarctic. The Falklands visit was deleted without warning or reason. Now we were required to complete a double crossing of Drake’s Passage, the very thing we paid to avoid.
-Change to trip departure point with adequate communication requiring last minute changes to flights had to be made by us.
- 24 hour support line couldn’t be reached when hotel booking was inaccurately made on the part of Chimu. Messages left were answered 4 days later as “there were some public holiday, and no one answers the phone then’.
-I was so disappointing on the service provided and the fact that Chimu would take no responsibility that I pursues Legal action and won from the retailer selling me their product. However I have to wonder how a company can exist when they refuse to see their own mistakes and act on them.

We used Jason at Chimu to organise our cruise in Antartica and trekking in Patagonia in February 2019.
Chimu also arranged all our flights. The airfares they quoted were very competitive and it was convenient to have them all coordinated by one office rather than for me to spend hours double checking connections and prices etc. The cruise on the Sea Spirit was fabulous and the staff were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. Rooms on board were comfortable and food was great. Chimu were also helpful in assisting us to select an eco camp in Patagonia and arranging the booking and transfers. There was a minor glitch in a pick up point at one of the airports but the driver was very concerned re our wellbeing and wasn’t going to leave until he found us! Without local roaming on our phones it was a bit tricky ....maybe when traveling it’s handy to get some local mobile coverage for the main contact in the group so you can be contacted by the local tour company at pick up points in case there is an issue? I organised my own accommodation in Santiago and Buenos Aires and didn’t bother asking Chimu to arrange any land tours as we generally like do our own thing where possible. Chimu were ok with this arrangement. Jason was always prompt in answering queries and very knowledgeable on the region. If you don’t want to waste time organising all the intricacies of your own trip I would recommend Chimu for your Sth American holiday.

I recently returned from a wonderful trip to the Antarctic with Chimu Adventures. There were many highlights aboard the trip, and I found the Sea Spirit to be a fantastic expedition vessel. We saw whales, more penguins that I dare count as well as had insightful lectures from the expedition crew about Antarctica, her history, wildlife and biology. I would not hesitate to use Chimu again.

I booked with Chimu Adventures for an Antarctica cruise over a year ago and whilst the cruise by G Adventures was truly lovely, I would like to share some comments about their ticketing of flights which marred my holiday. I now know that although the ATOL certificate is provided by Chimu Adventures, they actually use a discount ticketing company to book all flight tickets and SOP is to always book the absolutely cheapest and heavily restricted 'corporate' economy fare and resell at 'normal' costs. When confirmed, only the e-ticket number is provided i.e. no other details, restrictions, fare basis, etc. Whilst this may be OK most of the time, if you then wish to upgrade to say Premium Economy or Business Class for any reason, you will then find it is either not possible or the additional upgrade cost will be almost equivalent to buying a full fare ticket. In my case, not surprisingly, Chimu do not dispute this and say it is not their fault as the airline always has the final say. I contend that a more professional and customer focused company would ensure the actual corporate fare cost, all travel restrictions, fare basis, cost of changes, upgrades, etc must be fully disclosed on a transparent basis BEFORE the customer for the booking to be made. An "all-in" total price is totally unhelpful and is frankly insulting as there is no way to ensure the flight costs, restrictions, fare basis, etc are truly fair and reasonable. No one disputes the value of travel agency businesses who must earn fees commensurate with the level of service provided e.g. arranging transfers, etc and it would be better if these fees are agreed separately instead of being bundled up in an "all-in" total fee. In my case, the total cost of upgrading (including messages and calls back to the UK as the local office could not help at all) seems to exceed the cost of a Business Class fare in the first place quite significantly and there is clearly no justice why this should be so. Any trip to Antarctica is never going to be low cost and combining a very low cost heavily restricted flight ticket without full and transparent disclosure prior to booking is very surprising, in my view. Having looked at other Internet comments about airline ticketing and upgrades, the SOP by travel agents is always to blame the airlines when customers complain. In my view, they should take some responsibility and ensure they are as transparent as possible to their customers, always disclose actual cost, travel restrictions, fare basis, etc before booking and agree their fees separately. This is now SOP in the financial and investment sectors and it is about time travel agents do the same. I have also found out that some other truly professional and truly customer focused travel agencies do this but Chimu is clearly, in my view, not in the same league. No goodwill offer was made, however nominal, and the defence is "we have done nothing wrong and it is the airline who is unhelpful" is not my idea of a truly professional and truly customer focused agency business. BTW, Chimu will claim that they have local Chimu offices to help their customers and I can report that this is not case in Buenos Aires, it is an independent local agency who did not have access to my booking with Chimu UK and when I tried to book an optional add-on excursion on the Trip Summary provided, the local agency did/could not do this and booked me on an expensive "private excursion" instead. It was only when I realised it was truly expensive and said I would be complaining that this was cancelled and the cost refunded.

I was looking thoroughly around the internet for travel companies that specialise in South America. I came across a few companies and Chimu was the first one I contacted since it appeared to be more established, and have a longer history than most other boutique agencies. I had high hopes but boy was I completely wrong.

My first contact was through calling the Sydney office number but then I was automatically routed to someone in Queensland when I specifically asked for someone in Sydney because I live in Sydney and would prefer to have someone local if I needed to drop into the office.

After waiting for someone from the Sydney office to contact me, they got me in touch with one of the Team Leaders. Yep, a Team Leader. He was not particularly polite and some would say quite curt. I explained my requirements and then wrote them down in an email. He acknowledged my email and asked a couple of questions to clarify my requirements.

Almost 4 weeks later now I still never heard back from this Team Leader regarding any quote. There was no update to say, hey, this may take a bit longer etc. Such an awfully poor experience. One of the methods I use to select a company is how they talk to me, how they treat me and especially how they deal with queries and requests during the sales phase. If they are already doing a very poor job at the sales phase when they are supposed to be making a sale and pitching their company, imagine how they would treat you AFTER the sale, and when there are problems during your travels?

I've been travelling for 10 years now, have gone on 15 organised tours and a string of independent day trips and most travel agencies go MIA and stop talking to you and following up for you after they take your money. If a 'Team Leader' can't even be bothered to manage a customer relationship and leave them waiting and hanging for almost 4 weeks' after they last made contact (with a specific expectation stated upfront that I wanted a quote), and can't even be bothered to drop an email to tell me what's going on, well there is absolutely no way I would give my business to this company.

I got responses from Tempo Holidays (a much larger and more established company so it means they are more busier with many more customers) and a boutique agency (Adventure World) in a matter of a few days. Speaks volumes. Stay away.

Chimu is a travel agency specializing on South America, which prides itself on "flying under the radar". It's almost impossible to find independent reviews of their travel services and where there are a few reviews it is their own agents who write them (i.e. Chimu Chad). Invariably this inefficient company will make mistakes on your travel arrangements, then cover up, hold back your funds and even abuse you for having the courage to ask a few questions. Avoid Chimu at all costs.

RESPONDING TO THE CHIMU COMMENT;
It is quite amazing that it takes Chimu 20 months to respond to a serious review. Either they are just lazy and incompetent, or they don’t take Trustpilot too seriously! Plenty of time for them to clear out any incriminating evidence and hide the comments of chimuchad and all his co-workers who infest such places as Tripadvisor. Chimu deliberately “fly under the radar” and attack any mildly negative reviews on secondary sites (like here) while they ensure that all the reviews ON THEIR WEBSITE agree with them. Astonishing really. "The reviews on OUR website are VERIFIED by US at CHIMU and 95% of US agree that WE are good". Laughable, but dishonest, but that is Chimu.