Call me nuts, but I'll stick with RSSC excursions. We're certainly not wealthy folks, but the peace of mind and lack of pressure about things, such as Marcie's situation, make the extra cost worth it. Tours and such are not a profit center for RSSC. They deal with good tour operators and pay the cost for reliability. We've only done one private tour on our own and that was in Lisbon for the trip to Sintra. Toursforyou normally required much the same thing as what Marcie is describing, but they waived all of that as soon as they learned that we were cruising RSSC. No money passed hands until the actual day of the tour. There is no way that I'd pass the info they request of you on a non-secure mode and I'd surely check them out with the Argentinian Tourist Office.