Seeking Easter Island Travel Advice

Considering meeting the moai.

Does anyone have a travel agency to recommend, preferably in So Cal?

Is it dramatically cheaper to go via Santiago, as opposed to Tahiti (which otherwise would be my preference)?

Is 3 days enough?

Mahalo.

We just went in January.

I booked it all myself piecemeal, so did not use travel agent - I'm no help there.
Wasn't hard to book it all yourself if you read a bit.

& not sure about flight cost because I used my airline miles.
I will say that LAN airlines is god-awful in service. With LAN, the customer is ALWAYS WRONG.
Worst airline experience in my life.

So, I guess I'm not much help on what you are looking for.

EXCEPT that 3 days is NOT nearly enough!!!! Minimum 5 days.
We were there for 5 & still would have liked more time.

Have Fun!

5 days minimum!!

You don't need a travel agent to book your accommodation - just haggle with the locals when they meet you at the airport and stay in a residencial. Hire a 4WD, have a good guidebook and do it all yourself.

Here's some pics and tips from my trip:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=20792&forum=16

I also went via Tahiti but I was coming from Australia so it made sense. Papeete was damn expensive and not that great, but if you have the opportunity to go out to one of the outer islands like Moorea, Bora Bora then I hear its unbelievable out there.

cheers,
harro.

On 2008-03-14 04:47, harro wrote:

I also went via Tahiti but I was coming from Australia so it made sense. Papeete was damn expensive and not that great, but if you have the opportunity to go out to one of the outer islands like Moorea, Bora Bora then I hear its unbelievable out there.

Oh yeah - forgot to comment on Tahiti.
We went through there 1-way as a couple day stop over (our trip was Miami-Santiago-Rapa Nui-Tahiti & Moorea-Rarotonga-New Zealand-LAX).
Tahiti is an expensive, dirty city, with the least friendly people we met the entire trip. No advantage to going through there. I'd be happy to never return, though would return to Rarotonga & Rapa Nui & New Zealand, for sure!!

On the other hand, if you go through Santiago, you can stop in at the Bali Hai restaurant, which is very cool!!!

If you do end up going through Tahiti, Moorea is indeed beautiful. We didn't hit BoraBora, so can't speak to that one.

On the other hand, if you go through Santiago, you can stop in at the Bali Hai restaurant, which is very cool!!!

Did you go to the Bali Hai this January? I thought it had closed.

This is a great thread - thanks for the info!

I just booked flights from new york to rapa nui for December on line. We are going through Santiago. My wife and I try to plan a "big" trip every other year and we never use travel agents. All the information you need is out there on the internet and guidebooks. Unless you really know the agent as a person, they can be influenced by the varying "commissions" they get for booking you with different guides, rental agencies, whatever. Frankly, I think you can find just as much (or more) Easter Island experience to draw on here on TC than you could from an agent.

I have purchased as many Easter Island books as I could and many of them are fantastic and none are very long. I don't have them with me here at work so I can't list them, but let me know if interested and I will provide my list and thoughts about the books I have read. I feel very comfortable that we will be able to get around and see everything.

The trip is going to be 2 weeks total, with 6 days on rapa nui and I can't wait.

All that being said, I have really not done a lick of reading about Santiago or Chile and I need to start. That comment about Bali Hai caught my attention - what is that - tiki in Chile? That would be great.

Anyway, back to work....

There are several threads here on TC about other members Rapa Nui travel experiences.

Look 'em up.

The Bali Hai in Santiago was reported on in the original Tiki Road Trip (2003), but was reported as closed in Tiki Road Trip 2 (2007) - although the address and some info is still included - and has apparently re-opened. I went there in 2000 and it is worth a visit if you're in Santiago.

The very detailed account of my first (of two) Rapa Nui adventures (including a fair bit on Santiago) is here:

http://www.tydirium.net/writings/movies.html

The Bali Hai is a restaurant with an interesting floor show, dinner, drinks, etc. Definitely worth checking out!

&, yes, it is open again - we did go when we were there in January - I think I posted something to that effect in the Bali Hai Santiago thread here on TC.

I got my tickets today! Wooooo!

I'll be going in early October. I'm also booking everything separately; it took a while to figure out the best dates to get the best flight schedule, but I finally got it set. Booked directly with Lan on the US website. I'm already pretty much out of patience with them; the site acted up on me a bit during all my researching, and then the credit card payment didn't go through when I tried to purchase my flights. I searched around online and it sounds like that's fairly common. It will book the flights and give a reservation code, but the online payments don't always go through. You need to have the CC holder call and verify all the info before the tickets will actually be issued. They say they'll call you to do that, but...it'll be a lot quicker if you call them yourself (after 2 days we got tired of waiting.) On the plus side, it sounded like we wouldn't be able to get seat assignments until 48 hours prior to each flight, but I was able to go in online and choose & confirm seats once my reservation was held (even before it was actually ticketed). Hopefully they won't disappear (I'll be checking obsessively for the next 6 months.)

I will also have 6 full days on Easter Island and am really excited. I was hoping to add on another destination since I'm going all that way, but there just isn't enough Vacation time from work. I decided I'd rather have more time actually on Easter Island rather than have to cut that short and try to squeeze something else in. We're just doing a quick one-night stopover in Santiago on the way down, and then a full day there on the way back. I'm hoping that with the stopovers built in, there won't be as much of a chance for problems making flight connections if (when!) there are delays. Now I need to research Santiago hotels & sights more. And practice my Espanol - and Rapanui!

Great to hear, Balalamalu! Very exciting!

For Santiago, be sure to go to the Bali Hai restaurant. You're best off making reservations in advance & being there in time for the dinner show. We only had 1 night in Santiago, and our plane got in late enough that we could not make the Dinner show. So, we got there as soon as we could & had to beg our way in the door for drinks only. Was great to be there & had much fun - very worthwhile - I posted a few pictures over in the Bali Hai, Santiago thread, if you want to check those out.

Have a GREAT time!!!!

Thanks! I'm excited, I'm sure it's going to be great.

A trip to Bali Hai in Santiago is definitely in the plans! I remember reading about that several years ago when I first saw the (very extensive!) trip report that tikibars wrote. Thanks for the tip on making reservations. We'll actually have 2 nights in Santiago on the way back, so it should be easy enough to make that happen. I'm still working on finalizing the hotel reservations on Easter Island, then I'll get Santiago set. I know there's plenty of time, but I'm still gonna be antsy until I get everything confirmed.

Thanks to everyone who has posted tips & pictures in all the various Easter Island/Bali Hai threads; they're both helpful and inspiring!

Oh - christiki - when I was researching flights it didn't seem that going via Tahiti was more expensive, but it did add a lot of time connecting through there. If you were going to stop in both directions it wouldn't be as big a deal, of course. I went with Santiago since I wasn't able to add the number of days I'd want for the Tahiti route to feel worthwhile this time.

[ Edited by: bamalamalu 2008-04-09 11:03 ]

While on our honeymoon cruise my wife and I found an interesting way to get to Easter Island.

At dinner every night we sat with a couple that worked for princess cruise lines and told us about an unadvertised cruise princess does once a year.

In august of every year they move a ship from Fiji to Ft. Lauderdale. The trip takes 24 days and at one point you are at sea for 10 days straight. It stops at Easter IslanD, Lima peru, cartagena columbia, thru the panama canal, to costa rica, mexico, and the standard Caribbean stops before porting in Ft. Lauderdale. $2400 a person/double. Since we are in Orlando it is just a short bus ride home after retuning.

We are going to use our skymiles to get to Hawaii, then fly Hawaiian Airlines to Tahiti to catch the ship. Total cost will be a little over 6k, but that is not bad for the amount of ground we are going to cover.