Live From the Sapphire, 30-Day Antarctica/SA B2B, Jan 20 - Feb 19

[Ken the cruiser]

It is time to start getting super excited about our upcoming South America cruise on the Sapphire Princess that includes 4 days of cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula! We first cruised in this part of the world back in 2018 and were so overwhelmed by all the whales, seals, and penguins we saw, we couldn’t resist booking another one!

 

 

Leg 1 - Santiago CL to Buenos Aires AR
Date	Port	Arrive	Depart	Date	Port	Arrive	Depart
1/19	Arrive at Santiago CL airport	7:00		1/27	Antarctica (Cruising)	12:00
	Stay at airport hotel			1/28	Antarctica (Cruising)
1/20	PCL airport transfer to ship	9:30		1/29	Antarctica (Cruising)
	Board ship - San Antonio CL		18:00	1/30	Antarctica (Cruising)		12:00
1/21	At Sea			1/31	At Sea (Drake Passage)
1/22	At Sea			2/1	Falkland Islands (tender)	8:00	11:30
1/23	At Sea				Falkland Islands (tender)	13:30	18:30
1/24	Punta Arenas CL (tender)	7:00	19:00	2/2	At Sea
1/25	Ushuaia AR	12:00	20:00	2/3	At Sea
1/26	Cape Horn (Cruising)	7:00	8:00	2/4	Montevideo UY	8:00	17:00
	At Sea (Drake Passage)			2/5	Buenos Aires AR	5:00
Leg 2 - Buenos Aires AR to Santiago CL
Date	Port	Arrive	Depart	Date	Port	Arrive	Depart
2/5	Buenos Aires AR	5:00		2/14	Punta Arenas CL (tender)	8:00	20:00
2/6	Buenos Aires AR		18:00	2/15	Amalia Glacier (Cruising)	16:00	17:00
2/7	Montevideo UY	7:00	18:00	2/16	At Sea
2/8	At Sea			2/17	Puerto Montt CL (tender)	7:00	18:00
2/9	Puerto Madryn AR	8:00	18:00	2/18	At Sea
2/10	At Sea			2/19	San Antonio CL	5:00
2/11	Falkland Islands (tender)	8:00	18:00		PCL excursion/AP transfer	9:00	18:00
2/12	Cape Horn (Cruising)	18:00	19:00		Fly back home		23:20
2/13	Ushuaia AR	7:00	16:00

 

Some weather-related links depending on the Sapphire’s Current Location

   -  Ushuaia forecast

   -  Drake Passage “Waves” forecast

   -  Antarctica Peninsula forecast

   -  Falkland Islands forecast

   -  San Antonio “Waves” forecast

  

As one might imagine there is quite the variety of wildlife found around Antarctica and the South American ports we will be visiting. For example, ever since our first penguin sighting while cruising around the Galapagos Islands in 2015, we have enjoyed keeping an eye out for some of the other 19 types of penguins. Hopefully on this cruise we will be able to see many of those listed below, with the Emperor penguin probably being the most difficult to spot.

  

Great Penguins	Emperor
	King
Brush-tailed Penguins	Adelie
	Chinstrap
	Gentoo
Banded Penguins	Magellanic
	Humboldt
Crested Penguins	Southern Rockhopper
	Macaroni

  

This list includes some of the other wildlife we are hoping to see as well, along with of course any adorable looking insects or reptiles we might see crawling around! 😉

  

Seals		Birds
Antarctic fur seal		Yellow-billed pintail
Southern elephant seal		Snowy sheathbill
Leopard seal		Upland sandpiper
Weddell seal		South polar skua
Crabeater seal		Kelp gull
		Antarctic tern
Whales		Wandering albatross
Southern right whale		Wilson's storm petrel
Blue whale		Broad-billed prion
Humpback whale		Antarctic shag
Sperm whale		Cattle egret
Hourglass dolphin
Orca

 

Please feel free to follow along and I will try to make it interesting. Of course, if you have any questions, let me know and we will try to find the answer.

 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Great start to your live from!  I just disembarked in BA Jan 4th and stayed thru Jan 6th night. There is currently a huge mosquito explosion in BA. Insect repellent of any kind is hard to come by. My friends who stayed on for the next leg back to Santiago said their balcony was so overtaken with mosquitoes they couldn’t use it and GS came and sprayed it with raid. The promenade deck and deck 15 were similarly over run with the buggers. My poor husband got bitten quite a lot during our time in BA. Coconut sunscreen helped though the day he had it on. 
 

The enrichment speakers and naturalists onboard were excellent and all the talks are in your tv. You’ll have a great time. It was stunning.

[Ken the cruiser]

47 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Great start to your live from!  I just disembarked in BA Jan 4th and stayed thru Jan 6th night. There is currently a huge mosquito explosion in BA. Insect repellent of any kind is hard to come by. My friends who stayed on for the next leg back to Santiago said their balcony was so overtaken with mosquitoes they couldn’t use it and GS came and sprayed it with raid. The promenade deck and deck 15 were similarly over run with the buggers. My poor husband got bitten quite a lot during our time in BA. Coconut sunscreen helped though the day he had it on. 
 

The enrichment speakers and naturalists onboard were excellent and all the talks are in your tv. You’ll have a great time. It was stunning.

Thanks for the heads-up! We will definitely pack plenty of mosquito repellant.

[azbirdmom]

Can't wait to read your reports.  Our Antarctica "sail by" cruise back in January 2020 on the Coral Princess was the most amazing cruise that we've ever taken.  The excitement on the ship was palpable, even crew who don't seem to be phased by where we are were really in awe of Antarctica.  The lecturers and experts were top notch too.  Safe travels and I will definitely be following along!

[phabric]

Will be looking forward to seeing your wildlife pictures.

[aprilsp88]

Following, I also just disembarked not too long ago, hope I can stay on. Sapphire Princess is a wonderful ship, many activities, all staffs are very friendly. Antarctica is an amazing destination. I'm sure you'll like it. If I remember correctly, you like to dance. You'll love Supersonic, they're fantastic.

[Mah Jongg]

We have also done this trip on Princess. We will enjoy reliving it with your pictures and commentary. Hope you have a great time.

[dreaminofcruisin]

Yay! I was hoping to see a Live from for SA. We'll be doing BA to Santiago in 2025 and am just starting the planning stage. I'll be following every word. Have an awesome trip! 🙂

[effinaround]

Looking forward to this Ken! My wife and 4 year old daughter (as well as yours truly) will be on board for the first leg on January 20th. We've also loaded up on mosquito repellant. See you on deck! 

[LACruiser88]

This was one of our bucket list itineraries and we completed it on the Star Princess in 2011.  We were also on the Sapphire this past March, Buenos Aires to LA.

 

Great ports and tons of wildlife to see in many ports.  We love the itinerary so much we will be on the Dec 1st, 51 day voyage, LA to Ft Lauderdale, on the Majestic.

 

Enjoy!!! 🐧🐋🐳🦈🕊🐦🦆

[abbydancer2003]

We did Antarctica "drive bys" in 2010 on Princess, and 2019 on X.  Princess had top notch naturalists, Celebrity had a radio personality reading wikipedia.  I've done a couple of cruises on the Sapphire, and she's one of my favorite Princess ships.

 

Have a blast.

[Boatharbour]

I’m very excited to be following this thread. We have booked for January 2025.
 

There have been a few similar threads on the Holland America forum but it’s even better to read this one here. Have a wonderful trip!

[KLM3164]

All checked in and ready to follow along! Have a great trip!!!

[nini]

@Ken the cruiser Thank you so much for doing this!!! We would love to do this but we would need convincing for the South American ports as well as the long flights.

[Leish]

Excellent. South America is on our bucket list for 2026. Looking forward to your posts 😊

[cadien]

We're doing Buenos Aires to Santiago without the Antarctica part next month, so this preview will be great.

[hooked_on_cruising]

Hi Ken,

 

I will be on the Jan 20 - Feb 5 portion of the cruise.  Sailed the Buenos Aires to Santiago route last January and the beauty of the continent won me over, so I decided to do the reverse route this year.  See you onboard.

[Mary loves to travel]

we'll be on the first leg with you!    packing just about complete, we have lots of bug spray with 25% and also 40% DEET (just in case we need the strong one) - we'll disembark in BA.

We may see you on the Princess shuttle the morning of the cruise 🙂

 

Truly a bucket list cruise!!

 

Mary

[nini]

All of you- Have a fantastic trip!

[Ken the cruiser]

Thanks everyone for following along! Our first cruise to this area was on a 22-day HAL cruise back in 2018. We had such a great time not only cruising around Antarctica, but also visiting a variety of South American ports offering a multitude of wildlife excursions to be wowed by! One suggestion for those thinking about cruising here in the future. Book your cruise and your excursions as early as possible as it was amazing how fast some of the popular wildlife excursions on this cruise sold out.

 

Here's another fun fact. Prior to booking our HAL cruise in 2018 and again booking this cruise in April 2022, we had first booked a 14-day Celebrity cruise RT out of BA. But on each occasion, we wound up cancelling the Celebrity cruise to go first on the HAL cruise and now this cruise on the Sapphire. The key difference being that both the HAL and PCL itineraries included 4 days of cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula while Celebrity only offers 2 days. Also, in the case of this PCL cruise, we were able to book a VS for about the same price per day as a Celebrity AQ cabin.

[nini]

3 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks everyone for following along! Our first cruise to this area was on a 22-day HAL cruise back in 2018. We had such a great time not only cruising around Antarctica, but also visiting a variety of South American ports offering a multitude of wildlife excursions to be wowed by! One suggestion for those thinking about cruising here in the future. Book your cruise and your excursions as early as possible as it was amazing how fast some of the popular wildlife excursions on this cruise sold out.

 

Here's another fun fact. Prior to booking our HAL cruise in 2018 and again booking this cruise in April 2022, we had first booked a 14-day Celebrity cruise RT out of BA. But on each occasion, we wound up cancelling the Celebrity cruise to go first on the HAL cruise and now this cruise on the Sapphire. The key difference being that both the HAL and PCL itineraries included 4 days of cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula while Celebrity only offers 2 days. Also, in the case of this PCL cruise, we were able to book a VS for about the same price per day as a Celebrity AQ cabin.

 

Excellent suggestions! Princess for us, never again Celebrity anyway.

[Ken the cruiser]

To help identify some of the various bird life we might see while visiting South American ports on this cruise, I found these helpful links. For those of you that haven't followed my Live From threads before (see below), I very much enjoy taking pictures of wildlife. I guess once you reach those golden years, you need to find something to keep your mind alert. For me while we are on a cruise, it's searching for the elusive "local area" pigeon and any other wildlife we might come across! 😉

 

51 Common Birds That Live Around Ushuaia

Over 220 birds visit the Falklands

49 Most Common Birds Found In Chile

49 Birds Of Argentina - The Worlds Rarest Birds

 

[azbirdmom]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

The key difference being that both the HAL and PCL itineraries included 4 days of cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula while Celebrity only offers 2 days.

 

Wow, X doesn't leave much room for itinerary adjustments with only 2 days planned in Antarctica.  On our 2020 Princess cruise we had a late start in San Antonio (Chile) due to full bunkering delays and then by the time that settled the Pacific south of us was too rough for us to transit through it.  So we were delayed a day which took one day from our time in Antarctica.  Despite the fact that our time in Antarctica was reduced to three days the Captain promised we wouldn't miss anything and boy did he deliver.  Delays are common in that part of the world and I just can't imagine X having to deal with that with only two Antarctica days.  You chose wisely!

[Ken the cruiser]

21 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Wow, X doesn't leave much room for itinerary adjustments with only 2 days planned in Antarctica.  On our 2020 Princess cruise we had a late start in San Antonio (Chile) due to full bunkering delays and then by the time that settled the Pacific south of us was too rough for us to transit through it.  So we were delayed a day which took one day from our time in Antarctica.  Despite the fact that our time in Antarctica was reduced to three days the Captain promised we wouldn't miss anything and boy did he deliver.  Delays are common in that part of the world and I just can't imagine X having to deal with that with only two Antarctica days.  You chose wisely!

I’ve been following the track of the Sapphire since it left the Falklands, and would be very interested to hear why it headed due east yesterday for awhile after leaving Elephant Island before doing an about face and heading back towards the peninsula. I’m sure there is a fascinating story behind it.

  

 
https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9228186

 

[azbirdmom]

46 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I’ve been following the track of the Sapphire since it left the Falklands, and would be very interested to hear why it headed due east yesterday for awhile after leaving Elephant Island before doing an about face and heading back towards the peninsula. I’m sure there is a fascinating story behind it.

  

 
https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9228186

 

 

I read a post earlier today on another forum and the OP said that the Sapphire did divert from the original plan per an announcement from the Captain.  No details provided in the post but despite the diversion the OP was thrilled with what they saw and the pictures they posted were amazing.  On the prior cruise they had to adjust the schedule because that giant ice shelf had moved into a position that would have made their original route challenging.  Never a dull moment down in Antarctica, it's part of the deal with this itinerary.

 

ETA:  Just found another post about it and here's what that person said: "Antarctica Scenic Cruising Day 2: change of plans due to weather & Captain took us to Admiralty Bay, King George Island. The weather was poor to start, but cleared & we've had the most glorious day cruising Admiralty Bay & then the coasts of the South Shetland Islands"

Edited January 12 by azbirdmom