South America & Antarctica Cruising 2021

[Rickster50]

Hi All,

We are thing of doing a South America & Antarctica cruise in 2021 on board either Holland America, Princess or Celebrity for up to 16 days.

I was wondering whether any of you folks here have done a similar cruise and if so, how was it? We are both in our 60's.

Thanks

Rick

[clo]

6 minutes ago, Rickster50 said:

Hi All,

We are thing of doing a South America & Antarctica cruise in 2021 on board either Holland America, Princess or Celebrity for up to 16 days.

I was wondering whether any of you folks here have done a similar cruise and if so, how was it? We are both in our 60's.

Thanks

Rick

You may already know this but if not, there's a "treaty" that doesn't allow ships carrying more than 500 pax to disembark ANY on Antarctica. You would just cruise by which is fine for many. We were on Hurtigruten's Midnatsol with 400 pax so were able to go ashore at four different places and were also taken out in zodiacs.  Thrilling.

[Rickster50]

Thanks clo for that info. Is there a particular month which would be better to take this type of cruise or do you just take your chances and hope the weather is going to be ok?

 

Rick

[Heartfelttraveler]

We are booked, but have not been to Antarctica yet.  We used many factors in choosing which month to make the trip.  Weather, wildlife, other trips already booked, and cost.  Our determination was actually made by cost and already booked trips.  We were planning for 2021 but got such a fantastic deal we squeezed it int 2020.

 

The article below may be useful.

 

https://www.adventure-life.com/antarctica/articles/best-time-of-year-to-travel-to-antarctica

[scubacruiserx2]

On 2/2/2020 at 7:22 PM, Rickster50 said:

Hi All,

We are thing of doing a South America & Antarctica cruise in 2021 on board either Holland America, Princess or Celebrity for up to 16 days.

I was wondering whether any of you folks here have done a similar cruise and if so, how was it? We are both in our 60's.

Thanks

Rick

 

We did a similar cruise on HAL last year but HAL only has 22 day cruises . Is it possible to go that long ?

We did a photo review here if you're interested : 

 

 

If you are limited to 16 days we think that the Coral on January 3rd would be the best choice since you would see Glacier Alley in Chile in the morning and you can see penguins with their chicks in Punta Arenas or the Falkland Islands which is best . Book early in the Falkland Islands ASAP with Patrick Watts or Estancia since they sell out quick . The Coral and the HAL ship spend 4 days in the Antarctic waters but the Celebrity is only 2 days .

[clo]

On 2/3/2020 at 4:58 PM, Rickster50 said:

Thanks clo for that info. Is there a particular month which would be better to take this type of cruise or do you just take your chances and hope the weather is going to be ok?

 

Rick

Well, you can only go in (their) summer and we had great weather. Except when we were off the ship we wore shorts 🙂 And I just saw awful news that it was in the mid60s the other day.

[lois1112]

Just back from my "sail by" on Princess

I would recommend  it 100%

it was a cruise of a lifetime- 

[clo]

On 2/11/2020 at 1:25 PM, lois1112 said:

Just back from my "sail by" on Princess

I would recommend  it 100%

it was a cruise of a lifetime- 

Do you wish you could have gone ashore or traveled out on a zodiac?

[lois1112]

20 minutes ago, clo said:

Do you wish you could have gone ashore or traveled out on a zodiac?

Not at all.    My goal was to

go to and see Antarctica which I did

i would do it this way again 

[clo]

1 minute ago, lois1112 said:

Not at all.    My goal was to

go to and see Antarctica which I did

i would do it this way again 

Not picking on you at all but I've seen others say this and find it a little 'different.' When you cruise do you normally skip going ashore? We consider ourselves really lucky that we found out the treaty rules in advance.

[lois1112]

On 2/12/2020 at 7:18 PM, clo said:

Not picking on you at all but I've seen others say this and find it a little 'different.' When you cruise do you normally skip going ashore? We consider ourselves really lucky that we found out the treaty rules in advance.

I've thought about this, I do go ashore and see things, but you can see Antarctica without going ashore. would you tell people who saw glacier national park in Alaska from a ship they didn't see it. If you went to London and saw the London eye but didn't ride on it- would that be the same?

 

[clo]

On 2/18/2020 at 10:47 AM, lois1112 said:

I've thought about this, I do go ashore and see things, but you can see Antarctica without going ashore. would you tell people who saw glacier national park in Alaska from a ship they didn't see it. If you went to London and saw the London eye but didn't ride on it- would that be the same?

 

Different people want different things. I'm glad I didn't miss these:

 

[Lido deck main]

Awesome pictures, thanks for sharing.

[Queen of DaNile]

On 2/3/2020 at 7:58 PM, Rickster50 said:

Thanks clo for that info. Is there a particular month which would be better to take this type of cruise or do you just take your chances and hope the weather is going to be ok?

 

Rick

It's a very short season. We went January 13 - February 3, 2012 and had near perfect weather. You never know about the weather.

We were on an expedition type ship with 69 guests and 12 staff specialists (biologists, birders, etc) plus Captain and crew. Thanks to the great weather, we did 3 landings a day by starting with a wake-up at 5 AM on some days! We even set foot on Elephant Island so if you know about the Endeavor,  that's a BIG deal. Visiting South Georgia is a must if you want the full Shackleton experience.

[Rickster50]

Good stuff Queen of DaNile. We are cruising on the Roald Amundsen in February,2022. Looking forward to it very much.

 

Rick

[Queen of DaNile]

6 hours ago, Rickster50 said:

Good stuff Queen of DaNile. We are cruising on the Roald Amundsen in February,2022. Looking forward to it very much.

 

Rick

That ship look amazing. Have a fabulous time.

[onyx007]

Agree with above, that a drive-by is just not enough to crasp the beauty of Antarctica...

...wouldn't have missed the opportunity to walk along Penguins in their 1000 or even 100'000 in South Georgia.

(which I recommend to do as well) Or sit down on the ground at Neko Harbour / Antarctica and let big Gentoo Chicks climb all over you and bite you into the fingers.

 

I travelled with "G-Expedtion" (G-Adventures own vessel) for 20 nights with 2 days in the Falklands, 4 days in South Georgia and 5 days in Antarctica on February 2020. And it was the journey of a lift time; weather was brilliant and the wildlife encounter was amazing (Penguins, Seals, Whales, Sea Birds)

Edited April 2, 2020 by onyx007