PghCruiser84

Don’t the talks also get streamed to your cabin to watch later?

I’ll add that you have the option to reserve dinner times, correct? Why not book dinner for a later time, after the briefing or something? You could go at 7:30 or something like that and avoid some of what you’re talking about. With that being said, I don’t think it’s fair at all to say Hurtigruten has a “preference to the Chinese market”, as this just doesn’t check out as far as my experience and seems borderline xenophobic (and this is coming from someone who is frequently frustrated with the way a lot of Chinese travelers operate in a lot of tourist settings).

No. Very few Chinese passengers on the 11/23 sailing. The other languages things were presented in were German and French.

Didn’t know that, but I guess it makes sense.

Regarding the bolded, with all due respect, if you or your travel companion suffered a serious heart attack alongside the Antarctic continent, you’re as good as dead, but the ship doesn’t have a morgue so it has to turn around. That said, I understand the sentiment, there are plenty of life threatening conditions where your life can be saved even if two days later. Did the passenger who broke their hip seem like the type of person who belonged on one of these expeditions?

It’s kind of the nature of the beast. Antarctic cruises are going to be full of literal bucket listers who want to see the white continent before they die, and people who have the money to take such a trip, and people who have the time to take such a trip without having to worry about work schedules and paid time off. So it’s going to skew elderly and of course there are doctors who will sign off on such forms if it’s even somewhat within a grey area. And as I was on the exact same cruise as you, I know of several of the people you are likely referring to and it’s somewhat of a miracle that we didn’t have something catastrophic happen that affected our trip, helped in part by the smooth seas. That said, I would be utterly shocked if they reviewed the medical certificates for the lottery activities or really anything else beyond simply who gets to board the ship. And then you add to that the fact that we’re still kind of in a global pandemic and you’re on a ship with a bunch of highly vulnerable elderly folks, even if everyone is vaccinated, but who is actually going to quarantine themselves on a trip like this if they think they have covid? So serious illness is also a possibility. The insurance seems a bit much for someone young and healthy such as myself, but I can see where it could come into play fairly regularly.

Wow, after hearing these stories, I’m thankful for just how lucky we got. We took the same Hurtigruten cruise on 11/23 and got a Drake Passage with 10 foot waves both directions, five days of absolutely perfect weather for landings where every planned activity got to happen, and last but not least, we won the lottery for the camping, which was the only activity we really wanted. Thank you for the review, and I’m sorry your trip got cut short. I hope the injured passenger is okay. Agree on the Emperador in BA, it is a fantastic hotel. We actually splurged and stayed an extra night there on the way home. They even held onto one of our bags for 10 days (of items we wouldn’t need for the cruise) so that we could meet the baggage allowance for the charter flight to Ushuaia.