South America in March

[JFTraveler]

I heard that the weather is very hard to predict rounding the cape and instead of bringing everything and the kitchen sink, what should we make sure we bring?

 

Some of the excursions booked on the ship are being cancelled. Not sure why. Please let us know if there is something that we just must do!

 

We are leaving in March 06 on Holland America. Anybody else going?:)

[Keith1010]

I sailed around the Cape Horn late January of last year. The weather at the horn is very hard to predict, even a few hours before. About eight hours before we went around the Horn the weather was perfect, but in just an hour it turned bad. But, it was fine and we had a wonderful cruise. The beauty that we saw throughtout our South America cruise was wonderful.

 

The key is to layer your clothing and you will need two types of clothing. It will be warm in say Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires and signficantly cooler as you go South from both of these locations. So, we did pack a winter jacket, sweater, gloves, and hat and needed them in some of the ports. Knowing that we needed a mixture of items we were just selective in what we brought to minimize luggage. It worked out fine.

 

In terms of the shore excursions being canceled, I'd recommend having your TA contact Holland but I wouldn't read much into it.

 

Hopefully, you will enjoy South America as much as we did and if you do you'll want to return. We will be back there next year.

 

Keith

[Druke I]

We'll also be down there in March, on Regal Princess.

 

Last week, both Regal Princess and a Celebrity ship (don't remember which one) ran into very rough water, and Regal Princess skipped the port call in Stanley, Falklands. Gale force winds in excess of 60mph.

 

Couple of years ago, I think, although it might have been last year, some passengers from a HAL ship were stranded overnight in Stanley, when the tenders could not get back in to pick them up from their shore excursions.

 

Supposed to be some very rough water down that part of the world - but that is but one of the many attractions it holds for us.

 

On the flip side, we did a trans-Atlantic, Buenos Aires, Argentina to Barcelona Spain, 3-98, on the late great Royal Princess, and the South Atlantic was very smooth.

[May]

The best advice is to bring clothes that you can layer. We cruised with Amsterdam last year in mid March from Rio which was very hot (30-35C) down to Cape Horn where we had (around 0C with very strong winds) and then the weather was slowly warming up, but it really only got hot again on the day before we reached Valparaiso. So overall, you need more clothes for cooler weather. Bring wind and waterproof jackets, hats and gloves. The seas were fairly calm, but it tended to drizzle in a lot of ports.

The cruise is awesome and there is so much to see in all the ports. We only booked one tour in Ushuaya throught the cruiseline (becasue the time thre was limited and we wanted to se the glaciers), the rest we aranged on our own, including the return to Santiago. That made it a lot cheaper and much more enjoyable. There are a lot of resources posted on this web site to help you make your own tour arrangements (we found all the infor here). It's difficult to recommend the "must" see places since everyone has different ideas about that. I would certainly recommend a good city tour in most ports. I think you need to decide what it is that you enjoy and that will help you narrow down your choices.

 

Visit this thread on CC to find out more: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=12679