And I think that's the reason for the whole mess. Some guests on the Jan. 21 sailing could not accept the captain's decision to bypass Stanley for safety concerns related to potential afternoon storms. It is his ship and he has both that right and that responsibility, and yet a few passengers became disruptive. NCL changed the schedule to reduce the risk of unrest on later sailings (and rewarded the disruption by handing out $100 OBC). But the new itinerary is a very bad tradeoff: removing Antarctica (which was the main selling point of the cruise) and replacing it by two extra hours at a tender port that might not even happen. The current sailing has just missed Punta Arenas due to weather, and will miss Antarctica because of the itinerary change. The forecast for Stanley on Wed. is for showers and wind. For the sake of the Feb. 18 passengers, I really hope that the ship is able to anchor there. Otherwise, this will look like an even worse tradeoff in hindsight.
The talk about speed restrictions is almost completely irrelevant. The restrictions may have tied NCL's hands as far as arranging a modified itinerary that made everyone happy, but they were not what motivated the change. NCL has said that they made the change to "optimize" the guest experience in Stanley, and everyone questioned it because it was so absurd. However, I believe they were actually being honest about it. They are NOT being honest by continuing to market this as an Antarctica cruise for next season under the original itinerary that they will almost certainly not be following.