William
United States Of America
Customer
Rating
8
Customer Rating On return from their adventure we ask customers: “On a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the highest, how likely is it that you would recommend Swoop to a friend or colleague?”
William's Trip Date:
14th Dec - 18th Dec 2023
What was your most memorable moment?
Private cabin at the Cuernos mountains.
Which of the following best describes your adventure?
Great holiday
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend Swoop to a friend or colleague?
8 out of 10
On a scale of 0 to 10, how would you rate your trip: The Original Torres del Paine W Trek?
9 out of 10
Something Else?
Two main issues stood out to keep this trip from being perfect. 1, scheduling the glacier kayaking trip to happen 45 minutes after we finished a 6 mile hike was not good. We were very tired from multiple days of hiking, and starting kayaking after a full day of hiking was too exhausting. We were tired and did not enjoy the experience fully. It would have been better to schedule the kayak trip for the next morning. We were waiting around the refugio until 1:40 PM in the afternoon to get the boat anyway, so there was time to do a kayak trip in the morning, get back to the refugio and shower before leaving for the boat. 2. The lunches provided by the refugios were pretty bad. Chilean food is extremely meat-centric. I am not a vegetarian but I do not want to eat meat twice a day, every day. The sandwiches provided were huge sandwiches filled with meat from last night's dinner. The lunches were given to us at night, so these meat sandwiches were unrefrigerated overnight and throughout the next day getting hot inside my backpack. By lunch time, they smelled rancid and were not food safe. Everyone in my group was making sandwiches for themselves at breakfast time and throwing away the meat sandwiches every day. I wish I had requested the vegetarian option for the entire trip, although the vegetarian food left something to be desired as well. In Patagonia it seems that "vegetarian" is synonymous with "black bean burger." My wife ate a black bean or tofu burger for all 5 lunches and 4 of the 5 dinners. Veggie burgers are okay, but not very desirable for anyone, let alone trying to eat 9 of them in 5 days. There are some great ways to make vegetarian food very delicious and the refugios did not try any of them. The vegetarian options were always an afterthought in a meat-centric cuisine. In the future, I would recommend that Swoop recommends to anyone taking this trip to bring their own sandwich materials, and/or include a recommendation to request vegetarian lunches even if you are not a vegetarian, to avoid having to carry an unsafe, spoiled meat sandwich to the trash can at the next refugio each day of hiking. We were wishing we had bought a loaf of bread and peanut butter and jelly in town prior to coming on our trip so our lunch would have enough food.
Do you have any tips or advice for other people planning a trip to Patagonia?
Request the vegetarian option if you want to have edible lunch each day. Bring things to make yourself lunch each day because the provided lunches are bad.
Do you have any recommendations for Swoop, or feedback about the team?
1, scheduling the glacier kayaking trip to happen 45 minutes after we finished a 6 mile hike was not good. We were very tired from multiple days of hiking, and starting kayaking after a full day of hiking was too exhausting. We were tired and did not enjoy the experience fully. It would have been better to schedule the kayak trip for the next morning. We were waiting around the refugio until 1:40 PM in the afternoon to get the boat anyway, so there was time to do a kayak trip in the morning, get back to the refugio and shower before leaving for the boat. Modify your website to not request feedback about how swoop is doing every time someone navigates to a new window. I ended up clicking a bad review out of frustration with the pop-up so that I could review the website.