Holidays at Sea - Valparaiso to Buenos Aires

[sfbear]

The Insignia's December 17th Valparaiso to Buenos Aires cruise includes both the Christmas and New Year Holidays. Christmas Day we are in Ushuaia, Argentina and on New Year's eve we're in Puerto Madryn, Argentina and at sea on New Year's day.

This should prove somewhat interesting. I would expect that Ushuaia will be "closed" due to the holiday? I would love to hear of anybody's past experiences on board during these holidays. We dock at both Puerto Montt and Montevideo on Sunday's. Will there be anything to do or see ?

Still, this is going to be a great cruise.

Rich
"Counting the days. . . "

[pnd1]

We stopped in Peurto Montt this past New Year's Day while cruising on Orient Lines' Marco Polo. The port town itself is very small, but many of its shops were open for business. We took a five hour ship's excursion to Petrohue and Puerto Varas -- in Chile's spectacular Lake District. Views of snow capped Osorno volcano across Llanquihue Lake were quite beautiful, and the Petrohue waterfalls were accessible and worth the short hike to reach them. The resort community of Puerto Veras features a handicraft market, which was also open for business.

Enjoy.

[Liat]

When we did our Santiago to Buenos Aires cruise on Celebrity's Mercury in 2002, we arranged a river raft expedition in Peurto Varas which was very good. It is a German Company called Aqua Motion, and you can probably still find it on the web. If you are stopping in the Falkland Islands, I can put you in touch with a fantastic tour guide also. My email is: hagglawphx@aol.com.
You can read a very thorough review of our whole trip on www.cruisereviews.com under Celebrity and then Mercury.
We are sailing on Insignia from Manaus to Barbados - Feb. 28-March 15, 2005, which is why I happened to be in this thread.