Special 1: Antarctica

This morning, enjoy breakfast and check out. Please ensure your cabin luggage has cabin tags clearly labeled with your name and cabin number. Take your cabin luggage to the hotel reception before or at check-out. Your luggage will be stored and transferred directly to the port for clearance and placed in your cabin before your arrival on board. Please keep any valuables or personal items with you throughout the day.

Your morning is at leisure to explore Ushuaia.

Those wishing to join our afternoon catamaran cruise, meet back at the hotel lobby at 12.45 pm ready to transfer to the port at 1.00 pm. We board our catamaran and sail the Beagle Channel, towards the city’s iconic Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse. Crossing the Bridges Archipelago, we’ll slow down to watch colonies of sea lions and imperial cormorants sun themselves on the rocky outcrops while gulls, rock cormorants, skuas, petrels, albatrosses, and cauquenes are often sighted. Our cruise offers panoramic views of the city and the surrounding mountain range, in addition to hearing tales of the people and communities of the region.

Alternatively, enjoy your day at leisure and meet at your hotel lobby at 3.45 pm to be transferred to the pier for embarkation.

Once onboard, you’ll have time to settle into your cabin before our important mandatory briefings. As the ship pulls from port, we’ll gather on the deck to commence our adventure with spectacular views over Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego.

This evening get to know your fellow expeditioners and friendly expedition team and crew at a welcome dinner to celebrate the start of a thrilling adventure to Antarctica.

As we commence the Drake Passage crossing, we make the most of our time getting comfortable with the sea’s motions. Our expedition team prepares you for our first landing with important wildlife guidelines and biosecurity procedures and starts our lecture program to help you learn more about Antarctica’s history, wildlife, and environment.

Our wildlife experiences begin as we watch and photograph the many seabirds, including majestic albatrosses and giant petrels, following our vessel. On sea days, you can enjoy the vessel’s facilities, including the gym and wellness center, or relax in one of the observation lounges.

On the afternoon of day four, we are nearing the South Shetland Islands and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The excitement is palpable, and everyone converges on one of the observation decks, watching for our first iceberg. The ocean takes on a new perspective once we are below the Antarctic Convergence and surrounded by the surreal presence of floating ice sculptures. The memory of your first big iceberg sighting will likely remain with you forever. Time and weather permitting, we may attempt our first landing in Antarctica by late afternoon.

It is almost impossible to describe the feeling of arriving in Antarctica. Spotting your first iceberg and taking a deep breath of some of the most fresh, crisp air on earth is an experience that will stay with you forever.

Once we arrive, the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands are ours to explore, and we have a host of choices available to us. Because we are so far south, we will experience approximately 18-24 hours of daylight and the days can be as busy as you wish.

Your experienced expedition team, who have made countless journeys to this area, will use their expertise to design your voyage daily, choosing the best options based on the prevailing weather, ice conditions, and wildlife opportunities.

We generally make landings or Zodiac excursions twice a day. You will want to rug up before joining Zodiac cruises along spectacular ice cliffs or among grounded icebergs, keeping watch for whales, seals, and porpoising penguins. Zodiacs will also transport you from the ship to land, where you can visit penguin rookeries, discover historic huts and explore some of our favorite spots along the peninsula.

While ashore we aim to stretch our legs, wandering along pebbly beaches or perhaps up snow-covered ridgelines to vantage points with mountains towering overhead and ice-speckled oceans below. If you have chosen an optional activity, you will have the option to participate in the activity whenever conditions allow. Of course, keen polar plungers will have the chance to immerse themselves in polar waters – conditions permitting fully! The polar plunge can take place any time during the voyage, so listen out for the announcement from the expedition team and get ready for the most exhilarating dip of your life!

In addition to Zodiac cruises and shore excursions, we may ship cruise some of the narrow, dramatic straits separating offshore islands from the mainland, or linger in scenic bays to watch whales travelling or feeding. This is a great time to enjoy the observation lounge or go to the bridge (open at the captain’s discretion) for uninterrupted views of Antarctica in all its splendor. Listen out for the creak and deep rumble of glaciers as they carve into the sea. Take a quiet moment to experience the wonder of the pristine paradise of the splendid white continent.

Enjoy a final morning landing in the South Shetland Islands before re-entering the Drake Passage for our return journey to South America.

With lectures and film presentations to complete our Antarctic experience, there is still plenty of time to enjoy the magic of the Southern Ocean and the life that calls it home. There is time for reflection and discussion about what we have seen and experienced. We hope you become ambassadors for Antarctica, telling your family, friends, and colleagues about your journey to this magical place and advocating for its conservation and preservation so that they might one day visit the region to experience what you have been lucky to see and do here.

As we approach the tip of South America, our Captain may sail close to legendary Cape Horn, weather and time permitting.

In the early morning, we cruise up the Beagle Channel before quietly slipping into the dock in Ushuaia, where we will be free to disembark around 8 a.m. Farewell to your expedition team and fellow passengers as we all continue our onward journeys, hopefully with a newfound sense of the immense power of nature.

On disembarkation, passengers on flights departing before 14:00 will be transferred directly to Ushuaia Airport. In contrast, those fortunate enough to continue their travels in this spectacular region of the world, will be transferred to their post-voyage Ushuaia accommodation. Passengers flying after 14:00 will have time to explore Ushuaia, before an afternoon airport transfer, the details of which will be provided onboard before disembarkation.

Note: At the conclusion of the voyage, we do not recommend booking flights departing Ushuaia prior to 12.00 pm on the day of disembarkation in case there are delays.