Private tours enroute to Antarctica

We are going to Antarctica with Seabourn Quest on Feb 3rd and we are very excited and looking forward to it immensely. We are interested in doing some private tours and would welcome feedback on which ports it would be better to do a private tour rather than one of the ship's tours (and perhaps which ports it would be best to do no tour, just do our own thing). We have travelled extensively, but not on cruise ships, so we are used to looking after ourselves and catching local transport etc. to see local sights.

Our ports of call will be:-

Puerto Montt, Chile 10:00am 8:00pm

Castro, Chile 7:00am 3:00pm

Punta Arenas, Chile 6:00am 6:00pm

Ushuaia, Argentina 2:00pm 11:00pm

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands 7:00am 4:00pm

Montevideo, Uruguay Noon 8:00pm

You may get more replies if you post this in the South America forum as often this is where people look for info about trips purely to Antarctica itself. A totally different type of cruise.

You might also look in the roll call section and see if there is a thread for your sailing. It's a great place to find information about what others are planning, and sometimes you can join group excursions being organized by other passengers.

Liz Cowley in Montevideo (http://www.realenglishtours.com/whoarewe.html) is very good.

Hi

Check out the roll call forums for Holland America Line Zaandam for January 11 and January 30. Both have extensive discussions of private tours in all of the South American ports that Zaandam visits.

Charles

I believe that there is quite a lot of choice in Stanley for private tours.

I believe that there is quite a lot of choice in Stanley for private tours.

Bluff Cove Lagoon for one.

Excellent tour driven by knowledgeable locals: Stanley, the countryside outside Stanley, penguins (Gentoo and King) and even cows grazing on kelp in the sea. Where else can you take a photograph of penguins, cows in the sea and dolphins offshore all in the same frame? And then enjoy superb home-made refreshments in their Sea Cabbage cafe!

We used Estancia Excursions in Port Stanley. We went to Volunteer Point. It was fabulous. http://estancia-excursions.com/