Santiago Ways — Local services in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

We chose SW for the Camino Frances & booked 40 nights (35 walking days & 5 rest days) & paid a premium 6783 Euros for hotels, luggage transport, no insurance. We're very experienced travelers who often book on our own but we gave them the task so we could concentrate on walking. We had problems from the beginning. Difficult quotes to understand, they did not book Pamplona which was a highlight for us - we had to pay out of pocket $450 for 1 night. They claimed they could not book it. What kind of leverage do they have or not? & have they not been doing this for years? Their website states prices increase dramatically during that festival. The hotels were sub par on many nights - no A/C not uncommon but not even fans in the sweltering heat of the summer (July-Aug)& the flies since we had to keep the windows open or faint. Often they book you outside of town causing you to walk even more after walking all day - simply incomprehensible. I needed medical treatment along the route & we asked to cancel 3 nights in very small hamlets & transfer the funds to a bigger city hotel where I could go to the hospital. They refused & even wanted to charge us a 40 Euro per night "administrative fee"! We refused! So again, we paid out of pocket for 4 nights in Leon. Not once did they call to see if I was well - so much for caring for your clients who spent a premium. After this investment we were stunned at how often they would not answer the phone or return e-mails - you're basically hostages - they have your $ and your luggage, what can you do? We tried to contact the manager, Christina Ostariz & were told our protocol is you cannot ever talk to a manager! Really! I ran a successful company with 100 employees for 30 years - managers often get involved to settle disputes - she was nowhere to be found - terribly managed company. To make matters even worse they charged us 700 EUROS FOR OVERWEIGHT LUGGAGE which we fought down to 595! If you read reviews on TripAdvisor or Trustpilot you will see a pattern of complaints - on this site too mixed in with the shorter routes (5 days) who experienced less problems & spent much less. This is a trip that can be done easily with info from the web. Hotels & transport companies are plentiful and cheap (12 Euros dinner, 6 Euros breakfast, 10 Euros for luggage). Paying that hefty premium & receiving such poor unprofessional service is why we are warning you to reconsider booking with Santiago Ways. They do not live up to the standards of other professional agencies we have used & certainly do not deliver. As an update - no issue was addressed or resolved while we were on the Camino for 40 days but Christina Ostariz, the Manager after reading our review on Trip Advisor called me to apologize for the terrible service but her main concern was "these negative reviews really hurt our business, I would like to offer you $200 to remove or edit your negative review". I told her absolutely not - these reviews are the only recourse since no one responded to us so we are warning others - SPEND YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE, AVOID, AVOID, AVOID SANTIAGO WAYS. And these sites should take notice that companies are violating the rules by asking travelers to alter their negative reviews - I/We are trying to save you aggravation and more importantly save your $. Do it yourself or hire another company, they are...

We chose Santiago Ways (SW) to book our “Camino Portugues” to start the last week of September 2022 from Tui in 7 stages (7days 8nights). Overall, the arrangements for luggage transfers and the accommodations selected for us, met our expectation as well as the “preferences” that we opted for in the “package” as well as the schedule we had planned, to experience the Camino by ourselves for the first time. For example we opted to have all SW services, Hotels and “Casas Rurales”, all breakfasts and dinners included so as not to “treasure hunt” food to start or end each day. The luggage was always transferred/delivered in good conditions to the next stop before we arrived (thus, the luggage transfer service was totally transparent to us), all we needed to do was to assure we dropped the luggage by the lobby each morning by 8am. The only contact we had with SW was only with the person that prepared and customized our schedule and payment instructions, ie, Maria A.V. This process was promptly managed by her within the day or next business day (95% mainly via email) and modifications made to our liking. Confirmation and subsequent documentation was quickly sent to us. We initiated the process two weeks before the day we decided that we wanted to start the camino and Santiago Ways was able to expeditiously deliver a schedule, replied to our queries and also with that short notice, coordinated the lodging for us. We had no complaints whatsoever in any of the stops or locations we were booked for each night. The staff in all of them were very customer orientated to satisfy the customers needs, a couple of them much more than expected. For examples: the hotel in Lestrove had to redirect us for dinner at a different hotel close by (Hotel Monumento Pazo Lestrove) where we enjoyed the dinner and the waiter was one of the best we encountered (Isabel). Another hotel rebooked us at a different hotel in Brion to Hotel Gastronómico Casa Rosalina where we were greeted and hosted marvelously by Mari Carmen and dinner was beyond exquisite. In summary, those rearrangements were made to an equivalent or perhaps upgraded, with which we were very satisfied.

One area I’d recommend looking at is that several of the lodging locations don’t have an elevator or lift, thus, it was very difficult if not unsafe, at least for us in elderly years, to climb up stairs, one, two or three floors high, with the luggage after a very long and exhausting day of walking at “el Camino”. We helped other elderly people in similar circumstances either arriving or departing.

This could be considered a service provided by the lodging locations where the rooms are upstairs and there is no elevator or lift.

We are very grateful to the Pension Rua Nova, for the concierge (Jose), who arranged for our luggage to be delivered to the third floor to our assigned room prior to our arrival on the last day, ie, at the conclusion of our Camino. Otherwise, I think that most likely, we would have left our luggage at the lobby.

Thanks to SW for the arrangements, that worked out our schedule marvelously to our satisfaction. YES, we would recommend SW to our friends and select SW if we were doing the Camino in the...

If you are considering using Santiago Ways, be careful. They take your money and a transactional, cookie-cutter approach to their service. If what they offer is exactly what you want/expect and everything goes exactly to plan, you may be satisfied. If you have issues, you will get one or two-line emails (everything is by email) saying what is 'not possible' and what they cannot do in accordance with their 'policy'. Email responses are prompt because they give no real consideration to whatever it is you want to discuss. Having done two Caminos previously, one with Santiago Ways that broadly went to plan, I recently pulled out of the full Camino Frances. As a woman travelling alone, I was not happy with the frequency of isolated accommodation away from the Camino with limited dinner options after a long day of walking. On paper, it seemed tolerable at best but in reality, it wasn't, especially when it keeps happening. When I called Santiago Ways to discuss rescheduling my accommodation to limit this kind of thing and finish the Camino from Leon, they asked me to email my request instead. In response, they made no attempt to discuss it with me except to say it was 'not possible', ask me to confirm my decision when I made it, and wish me 'Buen Camino'. The full Camino Frances has been a dream of mine for 10 years and I had come from Australia to do it but with that hard 'no' and great disappointment, I decided to cut it short after only walking to Logrono. When I advised them by email (of course), their dismissive and uncaring response to such a big decision was to ask me to notify their operations team of the accommodation I would not be using. I declined. I understand that rescheduling my accommodation would have been inconvenient and an exception to their 'policy', but I was prepared to compromise had they bothered to discuss it with me, I am a repeat customer, they have thousands and thousands of my dollars, and they are meant to be in the business of good customer relations in what is a very lucrative industry. In the planning stages, Santiago Ways was similarly transactional and communication wasn't great (short, blunt emails that didn't really answer questions, other emails with key information in Spanish that I had to ask to be translated and very long unwieldy PDFs - one was 183 pages - that I spent hours editing down to a usable size when they advised resending them in Word was 'not an option'). Other Santiago Ways customers I met volunteered that they are ‘hopeless’. I made the mistake of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Never again. Look closely at their responses to unfavourable reviews. They sound sympathetic but say nothing of substance. They will take your money and hide behind emails and policies, but they will not provide good customer service. Linda Rosser Santiago Ways phoned. They asked me to reiterate my concerns and offered me 200 euros 'compensation' on the condition that I delete the review. I refused. Their website says that their 'number 1 priority is client satisfaction, even above our business'. Maybe that's what...