Mercruiser

If you want seat assignments on LATAM, then call LATAM. Similar to you, I booked LATAM flights using Alaska miles. I had to call LATAM to get seat assignments. LATAM business class in 787s is very nice and spacious

We booked all of these about about 4 months in advance. Prices may have gone up since 1) RT non-stop air from Buenos Aeries to IGR airport in Argentina We booked on Aerolineas Argentinas. It was about $55 per person one-way. We booked in the Argentina web site in Spanish. It will cost more if you book on the USA site. The seat pitch was the smallest I'd experienced since domestic India flights. If I had to do it all over, I'd pay the upgrade for a roomier seat up front. 2) 2 or 3 nights hotel in Iguazu Falls Argentina - ”Secret Garden Iguazu”. I booked on booking.com Check your dates for prices 3) We hired a private guide to take us to both the Aregentina and Brazil side. Brazil side was a day trip. We booked the guide through Tours by Locals. Click the link in post 5 and get a price. I paid about $550 with cancel for any reason option. I really liked having a private tour guide for both days. It really made the trip low-stress, enjoyable, and easy. You can get group tours cheaper of course. But I really liked the private tour. We never had to wait for anyone else, and the tour guide customized the stops according to our wishes. In addition you will have to pay admission fees to both parks. I'm remembering it's around $20 pp x 2 parks. You can check on their web sites.

Here is the tour we booked https://www.toursbylocals.com/iguazu-falls-in-two-days The boat ride on the Argentina side was extremely fun. You'll get soaked, but it is hot so it feels good.

If you want to fly into Brasil, then modify my trip to fly into IGU airport on the Brasil side. See the Brazil side first, then cross the border to Argentina and see the Argentina side, and then fly from IGR on the Argentina side to Buenos Aeries for your cruise. AEP airport in Buenos Aeries is right next to the cruise terminal. The Tours by Locals guide we used took us across the border as needed. He said you can pay a taxi driver to take you across the border. But we didn't do that so I cannot provide any first hand experience.

We just completed a DIY trip to Iguazu. It was a great trip and was easy to do, the way we did it. 1) RT non-stop air from Buenos Aeries to IGR airport in Argentina 2) 2 or 3 nights hotel in Iguazu Falls Argentina 3) We hired a private guide to take us to both the Aregentina and Brazil side. Brazil side was a day trip. We booked the guide through Tours by Locals.

Wow. The Norwegian response was not good.

I was disappointed they didn't buy local. We had excellent local seafood in Valparaiso, Puerto Natales, Punta Arenas, and Ushuaia. The king crab and Patagonian Toothfish were especially good. Ushuaia is a major cruise turnaround port for super-expensive Antarctic cruises. They surely have reliable seafood providers there.

This is our first Azamara cruise in which they did NOT buy local seafood along the way. Perhaps Johannes needed your assistance in South America. 😀

We ate at Aqualina on Quest the last night of the cruise. Dover Sole was the special. It was delicious. The table next to us asked if it was fresh. The waiter's answer was frozen. I don't mind that the least. Better frozen than in the fridge for 16+ days.

Watching penguins reminds me of the days when we had teenagers with voracious appetites. Teen: Mom, What's for dinner? When's dinner? I'm starving! Every meal, it's regurgitated fish. I'm tired of regurgitated fish. Can't we go out for dinner? Mom: I gave up a career for this?

March of the penguins Beach party

Recently hatched chick Going fishing! Thousands of penguins at the rookery Juveniles transitioning to their adult feathers.

Our Volunteer Point excursion was with Estancia Excursions. http://estancia-excursions.com/ The cost was $200 USD per person, payable in cash during the excursion. It was a great tour with a great company. I wholeheartedly recommend Estancia Excursions. Here are a few photos in the following posts.

We went on the Penguin Excursion at Volunteer Point on the Falkland Islands. Our ship, the Azamara Onward, and the Sapphire Princess visited the Falkland Islands that day. Sadly, for reasons I don't understand, the Norwegian Star captain elected to skip the scheduled Falklands port stop and sailed right on by. Star's passengers must have been very disappointed.

We have seen several people up there on conventional bikes. But I did not notice any e-bikes.

Here are the details. Web site: https://www.aeroclubushuaia.com/vuelos/ We booked the 60 minute tour. We did not go over the mountains, as shown in the map, because it was too windy in the mountains, which would have been very turbulent. We flew over the Beagle Channel. Price: The price was less than a lot of the bus tours with Azamara. I thought this was an excellent value. Contact info: Do not fill out the form on the web site. They will not respond. Do not sent them an email. They will not respond. Do contact them on WhatsApp: 542901640005 They will respond on WhatsApp. You will also communicate with them by WhatsApp the morning of the flight to confirm that the weather is good. Our appointment was for 10:00 am. We were contacted at 8:30 by our pilot, asking if we could come early, before the winds picked up later in the day. We did that and had a great flight. Sure enough, it got very windy in the afternoon. This flight was conducted by an aviation club. This is not a tour business. I learned to fly in an aviation club in Spokane when I was 16 years old.

We went on a very interesting and unique excursion. If you want something very different from the run-of-the-mill bus trip or harbor cruise, read on. The airport is just across the harbor. You can see our ship, Azamara Quest, above the propellor. This is Bahia Yendegaia in the Yendegaia National Park of Argentina. There is a glacier in the distance. We are flying over the Beagle Channel looking NW. This mountain peak is across from Yendegaia National Park. I don't know the name of the mountain, but it is in Chile on the south side of the Beagle Channel. T Tour boats at a lighthouse. The city of Puerto Williams in Chile. They claim to be the southernmost city in South America because they are on the south shore of Beagle Channel. Landing in Ushuaia After the flight, a bit of aviation humor in the baños.

Quest internet while in Ushuaia. This is the fastest I've seen yet. It's 12:30 pm local. Most passengers are off ship touring. Remember, I paid extra for the high speed access. Still underwhelmed by the Internet. Everything else about Quest has been great.

See my latest update on Quest here. I was not surprised to see the Quest spent the most time in the Fjords. The big surprise to me was the supposedly Ultra Luxury Expedition Silver Nova ship spending so much time sailing offshore in rough waters, when she could be in the Fjords with great scenery and smooth water.

Now that Azamara Quest and Norwegian sun have completed their Chilean Fjords sailings, we have the opportunity to test my original hypothesis: Smaller ships are more likely (than big ships to) to take the "inside passage", versus heading out to sea. Additionally, the Silver Nova followed this route a day behind Quest and Sun. Silver Nova is described by her owners as "Ultra Luxury Cruise Travel with Silver Nova". So lets include Silver Nova in this comparison. Azamara Quest - Spent the most time cruising in the fjords. She only exited the fjords for 11 hours. This 11 hour part of the trip has no sheltered route available. So every ship, large or small, has to sail in unsheltered waters for this part of the trip. Quest also added a two hour side trip to visit a tidewater glacier. Norwegian Sun - Spent a good amount of time in the fjords (compared to Silver Nova), but came out of the fjords two more times than Quest, and did not make the glacier viewing side trip. The part that surprised me was Sun cruised a longer distance and burned extra fuel to make these trips out to open ocean. Both the Quest and the Sun cruised pretty consistently at 17 knots, both in the fjords and in the open ocean. Silver Nova - I really don't get why the Silver Nova, a self-described Ultra Luxury ship, spent so much time outside the fjords. This was not a comfortable ride for the guests. We had consistent 4 meter swells from the south and gale force winds from the north. 4 meter swells (12 feet for the metrically challenged) is not a comfortable ride. The barf bags were put out for Quests' 11 hours in these swells. Here are my final grades for each cruise line (my thread, my rules): Azamara Quest - A Norwegian Sun - B Silver Nova - C Seeing the other two ship tracks, I am really happy to be on Azamara Quest right now. I think the Silver Nova really did not deliver on their promise of ultra luxury expedition cruising. Her passengers missed out on some really great Chilean Fjords scenery (see posts 8 and 11) and they had an unnecessarily rough ride.

This Reddit user was experiencing Starlink speeds of 196 Mbps in Patagonia (region adjacent to Punta Arenas). I don't think we can blame Quest's poor Internet on Starlink. It looks like an Azamara issue to me. https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/xu4gdh/starlink_offgrid_in_patagonia_next_to_magellan/

Punta Arenas should have excellent Starlink throughput. Starlink has a ground station (gateway) in Punta Arenas. The remote location does not matter if it has a ground station. Source: https://starlinkinsider.com/starlink-gateway-locations/

Not on Quest

Arrived in Punta Arenas Chile on Quest. This is the southern -.most city in Chile. Here is the ”high speed" Starlink connection measured at 5 am, before any sensible person is awake. This is really bad for Starlink in general and the extra cost high speed package. After we docked, I switched my phone over to cellular data. This is way faster than ship internet on Starlink. I'll speculate this is a Quest problem and not an indication of Starlink performance users in general. Lesson learned is that you still want a esim in port stops (or international data from you cell company). Using Claro for cellular data.

We arrived in Punta Arenas about 30 minutes ago. Here is a GPS recording of our route from San Antonio Chile (Santiago) to Punta Areas. You can view these files in Google Earth (or just about any other mapping program.) Here is what a small section of the track looks like in Google Earth. Here are the track log files. There are a couple of gaps in the track, when my GPS logger battery died. 20240128.kmz 20240127.kmz 20240126.kmz 20240125.kmz 20240124.kmz 20240123.kmz 20240122.kmz