Kos123

Totally! some pieces of advice about Buenos Aires if you are going to spend any time there: - currently because of the economic crisis everything is dirty cheap. Credit cards have good exchange rates so it’s not longer the case that you need to exchange a lot of cash. We exchanged $100 mostly for tips and small purchases like empanadas and coffee. - Uber works, but usually 1.5/2 more expensive than DiDi. Both are super cheap and easy to use. - We were super cautious about our phones and valuables, wore backpacks faced front. We left our documents, wallets and jewelry at Airbnb/ hotel when went out. There are a lot of police but I heard petty theft still happening. Generally felt safer than most places we have visited. - our Spanish is just enough but we had to use Google translate in some casses - people are really nice and understanding though. - Wine and steaks are absolutely the best and fairly cheap, we researched where to go through Reddit and Google maps. - we did a bike tour, cooking class and a tango class/milonga (where locals dance) through Viator and Airbnb experience. The tango class in milonga is probably the highlight from this trip for us ( - penguins of course 🙂 )

The expeditions I would book are starting at 13k$ pp without flights. Our total for this cruise was about 7k$ with flights. I absolutely wouldn’t go again on this one but at least we got some time together with my wife that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. the disembarkation today went very smoothly, we waited in a lounge till they call our numbers, the shuttle took us to the terminal where we picked up our luggage. the taxi is a bit tricky part, didn’t want to take the ones next to exit, so we went outside of the terminal, crossed the road and ordered it through DiDi. We found a hotel to store our luggage and went exploring the city before going back to the airport. Attaching some pictures. To wrap up this review: - I think this cruise is not for everyone. For us it was simply too many sea days - Antarctica is great but the weather makes it unpredictable and it’s just 2 days “passing by”. - Tendering in Falkland Islands is a hot garbage if you don’t have status and/or excursion. Plus a risk to be cancelled all together because of the weather. - We really liked service and food on board. - The ship is great. A bit showing its age but not really noticeable. - Entertainment for the most part was cheesy for us but that’s because we were 2/3 times younger than most cruisers. Not a big deal, live music is awesome though. - A absolutely hated nickeling and diming by Celebrity on everything, same as super overpriced drinks on board. - The piece of advice I can give is monitoring flash sales. Pretty much everything we got: an excursion, WiFi, laundry, a bottle of wine, a slot tournament entry, something else I forgot( were at 50% off and still felt ridiculously overpriced. Overall did it once, wouldn’t do it again. I had booked the best of Japan cruise with Celebrity prior to this cruise and now I’m researching an alternative option.

Montevideo is our last stop and our last day at this cruise. After researching it didn’t seem like there are much to see/ do here, so we just walked around the touristy part of the city. Not much to share to be honest, we just wished we had another day somewhere else instead. The only thing we noticed is that prices for everything are somewhat on the higher end. excited to be back to Buenos Aires as we have a late flight back home tomorrow and plan to spend a day in the city.

yes, we read that penguins are leaving Punto Tombo in the end of March / beginning of April. But the tour guide mentioned yesterday that this year they arrived a month later so that may shift timing a bit!

We are at Puerto Madryn. Unfortunately no time to go out to the city itself, although, I couldn’t find much to see there online anyway. We booked a Punta Tombo rookery tour today and it’s pretty much took the whole port time. This is probably the only time I would recommend get an excursion through Celebrity because the time is super limited — it takes about 2.5 hours to get to the rookery so it takes all day pretty much. I booked with 50% off during Black Friday dunno if I would pay the full price that Celebrity charges though. the excursion itself is amazing, we got to see a lot of penguins, chicks, dolphins, birds, etc. we had about 1.5 hours there, which was enough but definitely felt rushed. wish we had an hour more. Highly recommend it. I’m attaching some pictures. Also an observation - I have never seen so many rude people who get mad that people don’t speak English, are super loud and complain about every single thing they see. Sure, you are white and rich retiree but the world is not your bubble you live in, there are other people around, other cultures, languages, etc. We have visited about 40 countries, but never encountered so many such people in one place.

A small ship is definitely a way to go to Antarctica! No camera, just an iPhone 15

A couple of more pictures from yesterday and the sunset. Just really amazed by penguins. Again I’m a newbie and have to nothing to compare this cruise against. Just doesn’t feel right pretty much be blackmailed to buy an overpriced tour by Celebrity or be at the risk to miss a lot of valuable time at unique places like Falkland Islands. I guess it’s just the part of cruising on mainstream cruise lines. We did book a penguin roastery tour for our next stop at Puerto Madryn when it was on sale on Black Friday. Couldn’t find a cheaper option to get there anyway.

The weather was as perfect as it can get - sunny, about 20C and no wind. Basically Retreat and Excursions were tendered first and that’s why everyone else was left behind waiting for hours. We picked up our tender ticket roughly at 7.30 and were at the pier around 12.20 - almost 5 hours in total. We are trying to get a refund for the private excursion we missed but it doesn’t look promising. we rushed to a gipsy cove shuttle ( about $20 round trip) and sprinted to the penguin colony beach. The beach was fantastic, we did enjoy the small amount of time we had there before getting back to the port - unfortunately no time to do anything else.

Totally. I just don’t get why we are being told to collect tickets at certain time when it clearly doesn’t work when people camp those lines before the announced time. A lottery of random numbers a day ahead would make more sense than camping the line 2 hours before the announcement time. 4 hours and still waiting. We missed our private tour hopefully we will be able to taxi to gipsy cove and get a refund.

So our Falkland Island experience is the second ***** show with Celebrity. We were told to come at 7.30 to collect our tender tickets. When we showed up at 7.29 we got #25. So it has been 3 hours since then and they are at number #12. I know logistics is not easy but I’m pretty sure there is a better way to organize this since they know the # of people with excursions, # of boats they have, # of people on board, but they chose to trying to sell us spas and special restaurants while we wait for their mistakes and our #. Now the emotional part - f Celebrity for ruining our experience and I will make sure I never get on board Celebrity cruises in the future. And I will make sure all my friends know about this.

And then there is the moon view straight from the balcony. also a big plus for Celebrity - we love the live music at the ship much all the time.

Today’s sunset! the captain said we are looking good for Falkland Islands tomorrow, so at least something!

That’s exactly my thoughts. At this point I would not recommend this cruise for people who want to see Antarctica like myself. Too many sea days + a high probability of bad weather + a high probability of Port Stanley to be cancelled. The reason we went for this cruise is because I wanted to go together with my wife and the high price of an expedition would make it impossible to go for one together. We are still having great time just not our travel style.

Today was very windy, snowy and freezing cold. The outdoor decks were closed so we were glad to enjoy the view of Elephant Island from the cabin and balcony. Saw a lot of penguins both in water as well as on icebergs passing by, some whales and sea-lines. So sad to leave Antarctica considering 3/4 of time there was foggy 😞

Today’s morning started with really thick fog and rain. We were really sad and worried that we won’t get to see anything today and questioned whether it was worth to come all this way with a risk to not see much in Antarctica because of the weather. However as we were going down south it started to clear up a bit and we had one of the most amazing scenery we ever seen. We saw several whales, icebergs with penguins, jumping penguins in water and a lot of birds. Really appreciate the announcements and updates by the captain, and can’t wait for more scenery tomorrow.