Office Mamalluca Observatory — Attraction in Vicuña

The rigamarole to actually get your tickets is a complete fiasco - read on for details. However, everyone we dealt with both at the office and the Observatory were very friendly and helpful so the system is NOT their fault.

Posted hours online are a work of fiction but from reviews we gathered that they'd be open a little before the tours begin so we turned up just before the 6pm tour as we wanted to get our tickets for the 8:30 tour. Yes, you're reading this correctly. You don't actually get a ticket when you book online so you have to go to the office to do so, along with all the other people who booked so you get to stand in a nice long line to actually pay. Yes, you're reading this correctly. You cannot pay online. Sigh. Oh, and don't bother trying to get your 8:30 tickets around 6pm. You're reading this correctly. You have to queue up around 8pm with all the other people, etc. The bus to the actual Observatory costs an additional 7,000 clp, an absolute ripoff. Google maps works fine if you have your own transport, with one caveat: it says you are there about 50 yards short of the actual entrance gate. Show your ticket for entry to the parking lot. OK, so you've gone thru all the steps to get your ticket, and you've driven there, arriving at 8:30 on time for your tour. On the night we went, the tour didn't start until 9:20 but who knows on your night. Finally the tour: our guide was fantastic and the information he gave very interesting. Looking at the moon and stars...

Horrible system.

This place requires you to reserve tickets in advance, yet you have to go half an hour before your observatory tour starts to pick up your tickets, so far so good?

Nope, when you arrive there will be a queue of people and most of them won't have a reservation and the people who work there will take them anyways (in fear of being treated as mean for not taking customers with no reservation) which causes the people with a reservation to wait for around 40 minutes, when they could just sell you the tickets when you make the reservation...or have two queues...or sell them online...unlimited options!

We even had an older woman cutting the line twice, taking a very long time and when we had enough and told her to have some respect for other people's time she said "learn to live life...you are young" I guess if you know how to live, skip lines, and have no respect for others maybe go there and you will have a great experience for me it was not.

Also the observatory was cheap but you get what you paid for, very crowded and tired tour guides, we where lucky to join an English tour with a great guide but most experiences are...

We really enjoyed the tour. Got to see Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons and many constellations. The guide was very knowledgable and spoke very good English. We also listened to a few presentations which were mind-blowing. It cost CLP 20,000 for two of us including transfer to and from Vicuna. If you then need travel onwards by bus be aware that the tour gets you back between 21:00-21:30 and many of the last buses are at 21:30. We very nearly missed our last bus but asked the transfer to stop near the bus station for us and we just made the bus as it was exiting the station. You have to go to the ticket office that’s near the Torre Bauer in the afternoon to sign up for the tour later that evening. You then return to the office at 18:00 to confirm and pay, weather dependent. At around 18:30 you get the transfer and the tour starts just after 19:00 and finishes...