South America with school age kids?

[rjm11]

we are considering the 2 week "around the horn" South America itinerary when NCL starts doing them again in 2015/2016- has anyone done this itinerary (on a different line, or on NCL back when they were still doing them) with school aged kids? My kids will be 8 and 10 when I'm thinking of going- they will miss a week of school (cruise is 2 weeks- I would try to time it with winter or spring break).

 

If you've done this, any excursions you liked/didn't like? What heald their interest? Ease of traveling into/out of Buenos Aires, and Santiago? Etc etc... all information welcome- I'm just starting to plan!

[boulders]

We just did a 3 week cruise to Antarctica and South America with my 3 kids. The youngest is 8. We did it on HAL. We really went for Antarctica, so South America was secondary.

 

Buenos Aires - we did a tour that was called "Markets of Buenos Aires". Worst. shore. excursion. ever. The best part was at the end when we visited the cemetery. I recommend the cemetery.

 

Falkland Islands - we did a private excursion with Estancia Excursions to Volunteer Point. Best shore excursion we have done anywhere. I can't recommend this high enough. Make sure to prebook. The ship's excursion sold out very quickly when it was posted 5 days before the cruise started. It was almost twice the price of the Estancia Excursion too.

 

Ushuaia - we went to Tierra del Fuego National Park. Not very interesting, most ly because the scenery was very similar to home.

 

Punta Arenas - We went to see the Magellanic penguins. It was not as spectacular as Volunteer Point, but was worthwhile if we hadn't seen Volunteer Point.

 

Puerto Montt - We had a disaster of a private tour. Got back AFTER the last scheduled tender. I would just plan to take the ship's tour here to the National Park.

 

Valparaiso - The ships dock at Valparaiso which is about an hour and a half from Santiago. We didn't have a lot of time because our flight left at 3 pm. Most flights leave late at night. We did go to see the Easter Island Moai at the Fonck Museum. I would have liked to go in the museum, but it wasn't open yet.

 

Best souvenir shopping was at the Santiago airport. Next best was on the ship.

 

My biggest recommendation for this cruise would be to fly into Buenos Aires and out of Santiago. To enter Buenos Aires by ship/plane/foot/car, you will need to pay a reciprocity fee if you are travelling on a U.S./Canadian/Australian passport. It can be as high as $160 pp for U.S. citizens. If you fly into Santiago, you have to pay an entry fee of about the same amount, so total of $320 per person if you are U.S. citizens. If you sail into Valparaiso, you don't pay the Chilean entry fee, so it's "only" $160 per person.

 

Another recommendation would be to consider adding on another South America site at one end of the cruise or the other. For us, the airfare was very expensive and I wanted to make the most of it. We ended up with airfare just under $1500 pp which was a bargain compared to others from North America.

 

We went to Iguassu Falls before our cruise. If I had to do it again, I would have bit the bullet and stayed at the hotel inside the park. There are hotels on the Argentinian side and the Brazilian side. Brazil requires visas - another cost which we had to pay because our cruise left from Rio. Santiago has directly daily flights to Easter Island - which I considered, but the kids would have missed more school. There's also the Amazon, Galapagos and Macchu Picchu which I would still like to visit.