Antarctica: Fly the Drake or choose longer cruise with Falklands and South Georgia?

[droz]

Just booked the 18DEC23 Silver Cloud 18-day trip. My wife is sensitive to motion sickness. I experienced sea sickness one time on a cruise sailing the Alaskan Bay at bedtime. Went to sleep. It was over.

 

With the cost, we decided to see it all. We are excited about the cruise. It will be the cruise of a lifetime. We never gave it a second thought.

 

 

[LouChamp]

Aloha.  We have not visited South Georgia but were blessed to visit the Falklands.  It certainly is a once in a lifetime experience and if you can visit, it is strongly recommended.

[hoya68]

14 hours ago, cruiseej said:

 

@hoya68Interesting that we were on the Cloud a month later than you and found the expedition staff to be outstanding. I know we had a different expedition leader, but I don't think too many of the others changed between your cruise and ours. Maybe they got the hang of it with an extra month. 😉

 

The one thing to note about going on the Quest is that you'll get half as many landings. We love Seabourn and the Quest, but I would choose a smaller ship for Antarctica just so you can get off the ship a lot more. If you trust Seabourn more, they'll have both their new expedition ships in operation next year, so maybe consider the Venture or Pursuit. (I know... it's a lot more expensive.)

Between COVID and bad weather cancellations we didn't have many landings anyway. Looked at Venture, butcost and a few other factors turned us away. 

[bubbulz]

Good morning, everyone! I am sitting here with a huge grin on my face since I just got off the phone with SS and I have rebooked my cruise to include South Georgia and the Falklands. Thank you all for your helpful feedback.

[WesW]

bubbulz; here is a youtube vidoe of the Endeavour in Antarctica and the couple featured includes Carolyn Spencer Brown, the top manager of cruise critic:

 

 

[bubbulz]

1 hour ago, WesW said:

bubbulz; here is a youtube vidoe of the Endeavour in Antarctica and the couple featured includes Carolyn Spencer Brown, the top manager of cruise critic:

 

 

Looks incredible! Thanks so much!

[JandKsVistas]

[JandKsVistas]

Just now, JandKsVistas said:

Enough said. South Georgia is magic. 

 

 

[Rothko1]

Just got back from the Antarctica Bridge trip on the Endeavour.  I completely understand the comments about taking the longer cruise and going to the Falklands and South Georgia Islands.  But, not having to spend two days on the Drake going over, and two days coming back, was definitely worthwhile.

 

Flying into King George Island can be dicey based on the weather.  There was a couple onboard who had been booked on an earlier Bridge cruise who had it cancelled because the planes couldn't land at King George due to weather.  Fortunately for us, the weather did cooperate pretty nicely.  We were originally told our "window" for flying out was going to be the next day in the afternoon, and then after dinner we got texts and emails that the "window" had moved to 7:00 a.m. in the morning rather than the afternoon and we needed to be downstairs before 5 a.m.  A few of the younger folks who were out at a bar in Punta Arenas drinking because they thought they could sleep in the next day got caught off guard by that!

 

The Expedition Leader on the ship showed us wave activity maps that indicated for both a trip over and trip back on the Drake we would have had seas up to 6 meters!  It was money well spent avoiding that!

[RachelG]

South Georgia is one of my favorite places ever!  Don’t miss it if at least possible.

[kimanjo]

While traveling throughout Patagonia for a month, we met a German couple who tired for 5 days to fly to King George.  They never made it, weather did not cooperate.  Cancelled cruise, and decided to go to Patagonia instead of going back to Germany.  They said they WILL NOT re-book a fly cruise when they rebook for next year.