Ultimate South America with Brazil's Amazon & Galapagos Cruise Reviews

What an amazing adventure from starting in the Amazon to finishing in the Galápagos Islands it all went as smooth as. Our tour manager knew her stuff and ensured a seamless trip with all the flights and hotels. The local guides were very good, friendly and knowledgeable with lots to see and do every day. I highly recommend Global Journeys and will ...read more use them again and will do another Cosmos adventure.

The Cosmos Ultimate South America Tour was a wonderful way to see the highlights of South America. But be warned that to do this you will have to fly a lot, especially if you include the Galapagos and Amazon. The Tour guide helped make the flights easier though perhaps up to a quarter of your time may be used in the flights. Accommodation and food was ...read more very good, as were included excursions.

There could have been more information however on the optional excursions, which were a bit pricey for what you got. For instance the Sugar Loaf Tour in Rio at about US$70 per person was done by us for US$17 (half price lift ticket for 65 plus) and US$34 by walking 30 minutes from our hotel at Copacabana to the cable car station, and we went early in the morning and massively beat the tourist congestion.

One limitation on the Cosmos support was that after we left our main guide in Lima, the replacement guides in Quito and Guayaquil were quite poor. The Galapagos Cruise was extremely good including service and facilities as well as sights. Globus support in planning the trip was great, but Qantas made a lot of changes to our flights which caused some problems.

We had a wonderful time. The tour was excellent, we met some lovely people and saw everything that we wanted to see. My tour favourites were Iguassu Falls, ( better than Niagara more impressive and with a beautiful natural setting). Macchu Picchu in Peru was magical, everything that we had heard it would be, we were so lucky as the weather was perfect, ...read more (it rains much of the time there apparently!) The tour guide was great gave us lots of detailed information about the Incas, and the building and setting of Macchu Picchu. We also loved the Galapagos Islands, it was great to see the marine and land iguanas, swim with the sea lions and see the sea lion pups who were so cute!!! The blue footed and red footed boobies were so unusual, completely different from any other bird!! The wildlife was amazing!!! The giant tortoises were great, I especially liked Diego (130years old) in the Charles Darwin Centre on Santa Cruz island. The cruise ship was excellent, the food and accommodation were great and they looked after us really well. All in all an excellent tour one that will leave memories that will stay with us for ever. Not so much a holiday but a real life changing adventure.