Ken the cruiser

I just noticed on the Cruise Mapper (CM) itinerary, which hopefully is missing a few ports, the Sapphire is only stopping at 4 ports, and is 2 days longer! However, on our similar 14-day Feb 5 itinerary, I noticed we’re also stopping at Puerto Madryn AR and Puerto Montt CL as well as staying an extra day in Buenos Aires AR. Not sure if it’s just an oversight on the currently listed CM Sapphire itinerary, but if not, we are definitely excited about having the 2 extra wildlife ports to visit on ours! 😁

We agree. On our 22-day HAL cruise on the Zaandam back in 2018, we were in a balcony cabin on the starboard side 2 doors from the entrance to the covered aft-facing viewing area on Deck 6. Combined, that's where we spent a majority of our time while cruising around the Peninsula. However, we also spent time occasionally walking around the promenade where we encountered most of our whale sightings. But, on those windy days being the balcony kind of guy that I am, it will be nice sitting out there out of the wind and sun I might add, enjoying the aft-facing views of all the places we will be visiting!

Glad to hear most of the best viewing when cruising around the Peninsula is on the starboard side, as our aft-facing cabin is positioned more towards that side of the ship.

Sounds fantastic! Hopefully, we will have similar experiences with the elements on our upcoming cruise as well!

Nice review, but I did not see any mention of evening or sea day entertainment. If you get a moment, would you mind giving your thoughts on those? For example, on sea days were there any lectures and/or other forms of entertainment provided? During the evening, what type of shows were offered in the main theater, or did you mostly hang out along the Music Walk? Thanks!

You’re going to have a great time! If you click on the ports that are underlined in my 2 itineraries on the first page, you will see the ones we’re currently booked on. As far as how early to book them, my recommendation is to book your cruise as early as possible and then book the excursions as soon as they become available, as the good wildlife ones get booked quickly, especially on the Antarctica leg.

Hopefully, we will have a little better luck with the weather than some of the other cruises have had to deal with, especially in the Patagonia area, the past few weeks. In any event, I’m sure it will be an awesome cruise! 😁

As we continue to get ready to fly to Chile on Thursday, I found this link that provides Princess Bridge Cam shots for all of their ships, as I was curious if the Sapphire had left Ushuaia yet heading for Punta Arenas. Princess Cruise Ship Bridge Cams Thought it would be a cool reference in case someone was interested in a relatively current view from the front of the ship. From what I can tell they seem to update every 60-70 minutes, and it's raining right now as the Sapphire just left the port.

Great pictures! FWIW I use Windy to check out the weather forecast, up to 10 days out, when we're on a cruise. There are various forecast options on the right-hand side of the screen. All you need to do is put a location in the upper left-hand corner (e.g., Falkland Islands, Ushuaia, etc.) for it to provide the various forecasts. In the below example, I put in Drake Passage, then clicked on the Waves option. Windy: Wave action in Drake Passage Hope this is useful for you. If you want the forecast for the Antarctica Peninsula, put in "The Stars Town".

That happened to me, believe it or not, when our TA asked the PCL rep last week to update our April 2024 Alaska booking to reflect our new Elite status. That's when the PCL rep gave the below link to my TA telling her I needed to recertify my military status, even though it has been on my account since 2013, to have the MOBC reapplied to that booking. Maybe it's a new 10-year thing. Who knows. Princess Cruise Lines | Military Verification (sheerid.com) Anyway, it took all of 5 minutes to do and the MOBC was reapplied and all was good again.

Just curious if PCL ever mentioned that your husband could get his veteran status verified immediately by using the below link a PCL rep provided us the other day? https://offers.sheerid.com/princess/military/

It will be interesting to see how our upcoming route from San Antonio to Buenos Aires by way of the Antarctica Peninsula will differ, other than being in the opposite direction of course, from that of its current itinerary originating in Buenos Aires. To include the 4-day portion cruising around the Peninsula and hopefully still going to see the A23a Iceberg and Elephant Island. Then there are the waves to deal with crossing Drake Passage, which currently seem to be ranging around 13' as the Sapphire gets closer to Ushuaia.

You would think they would, especially since it involves the embarkation port.

I will add one note. The "single itinerary" cruises that are 12 or more days in length usually have an older demographic whereas on the shorter 4-7 day itineraries, there is usually more of a party-hardy crowd. For example, we were on a 21-day Med cruise on the Regal back in July 2022, which was actually three unique 7-day itineraries, but was packed on each 7-day leg with the party-hardy crowd. However, we were on a 12-day Canadian cruise on the Caribbean Princess from Quebec City to Ft Lauderdale this past fall and had a more relaxed older crowd, with maybe 3 children total. However, the 5-day Bahamas cruise right after it was packed with the party-hardy crowd. That's just a little tidbit to take in consideration when planning your next Princess cruise. Regarding your upcoming cruise on the Sun in July, it looks like they have a combination of 7-day itineraries available in various 7, 14 and 21-day combinations. Since they are also in July when school is out, the chances are pretty high you will be cruising with a party-hardy crowd.

We have cruised with a variety of cruise lines over the past 12 years. Right now, Princess is our favorite cruise line for 3 reasons. We like their unique 3-5 week itineraries, booking cabins that allow us to dine in the Reserve Dining Room, and being able to laugh a lot when we go to their various evening game shows. But then, we're in our early 70s and fully retired, so that does help in our decision making process.

Wanted to add one more reference that might come in handy when we're trying to figure out what type of bird we're looking at when we're cruising around Elephant Island and the Antarctica Peninsula. 30 Birds That Live in Antarctica BTW we're really starting to get excited now. After today, just 4 days and a wake-up before we board our flight and head towards Santiago! 😊

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If you are referring to this itinerary, we went on a B2B in Aug 2022 on the Summit from NJ to Iceland then back to Boston and had a great time. My Live From thread if you're interested is in my below Signature area. To speed through it, just look at the pictures as they really tell the story. 13 Nights Greenland & Iceland from Reykjavik, Iceland | Celebrity Cruises

Sounds pretty cool! We just finished a Galapagos cruise on the Flora (check out the pictures in my below Live From thread) that was totally awesome! But I also have to say the best cabins on the Flora are the cheapest ones, a sky suite with veranda!

Nice pictures!! The first one might be a white-chinned petrel and the second one close to the water might be a Brown Skua, both of which have been known to visit the Ushuaia area. My source is this link. 51 Common Birds That Live Around Ushuaia

We originally had a 14-day cruise booked on the Celebrity Eclipse, but switched to this PCL cruise when we noticed PCL cruises around the Antarctica Peninsula for 4 days rather than 2 like Celebrity does. We were also able to get the VS for roughly the same price per day as an AQ cabin on the Eclipse.

Understand. We used to cruise with Oceania for a while who also offers some pretty cool itineraries. However, we got tired of the small ship atmosphere. We much prefer being able to get lost in a crowd of 2-3000 passengers like we're getting ready to do on a 30-day Antarctica/SA cruise on the Sapphire Princess in an aft-facing VS.

That's why we're doing the 30-day RT out of Santiago (San Antonio). If we have to fly 9 hours between Atlanta-Santiago, we want to take our time and enjoy all that there is to offer down there before flying back. After doing 4 flights between 14-17 hours this past year to get to/from a cruise, our new limit is 10 hours or less and the associated cruise we're flying to has to be at least 3-weeks to allow us plenty of time to recover! 😂 As far as going to the South American ports, we have always felt very safe there. But then we usually book ship excursions that take us to locations where there is plenty of wildlife as well as scenery to see. I have to admit of all the places we've been, except for Alaska and a few spots in the Galapagos, the most unique wildlife we've seen and in abundance has always been south of the equator. But when it comes to South America, there is also no shortage of beautiful churches to see either if you enjoy that sort of thing as well!

Thanks! I believe we will be cruising with you from BA to Ft Lauderdale on the last leg of your Dec 1st cruise. That's also going to be an awesome cruise for us as it stops in 3 Brazilian ports and I won't have to get a YF shot waiver as I'm too old to get one. Yay!! 😂

For us it's all about being able to book unique 3-5 week itineraries with a refundable deposit that visit cool places, such as Antarctica, Longyearbyen, Africa, and Easter Island. We're also done with Caribbean cruises for the foreseeable future as we did a bunch of those when cruising started back up. Unfortunately, except for the Galapagos and possibly a transoceanic B2B cruise in an E-class aft-facing cabin, Celebrity falls to a distant 5th behind Princess (in a RC mini-suite or higher), NCL (Club Balcony or aft-facing balcony), HAL (aft-facing balcony), and on occasion Crystal (regular veranda), when we just want to be totally wowed on a cruise!