RyanJCanada

Look forward to your updates, Fletcher! This itinerary has been on my list for a while now.

We ended up going with Dulini - we’re shooting to do 3 days at their Dulini Moya and 3 at Dulini River. Not quite as upscale as Londolozi but we’ve heard really good things about them - they also confirm that it’s max 6 to a vehicle, so glad we checked that. Good to know about Airlink - that’s who we’re looking at for flights.

Fantastic trip report, thanks so much @highplanesdrifters! We had been looking at a Namibia driving safari but are now in the final stages of booking our stay in Sabi Sands in 2025.

Ha! Yes, we ran into some of that ourselves... but very glad to hear that the good outweighed the bad. Kids were definitely spoiled by crew, expedition staff and even their fellow passengers last time - they're really looking forward to Galapagos this summer and Antarctic / Cape-to-Cape in 2025. As for our recent trip, we ended up live-posting both Morocco and Paris on our blog here: Morocco - Morocco Storybook Tour – Day 1 – Unknown Longitude Paris - Morocco Storybook Tour – Day 12 / Paris – Day 1 – Unknown Longitude For Morocco, we did an Arabian Nights 'storybook' tour with Black Tomato, while Paris was mostly on our own except for several private day tours with Context Travel. And did I hear you're going on a safari after this? Hope you'll take us along for the ride...

Such great posts - thanks so much! We were away in Morocco and Paris so just getting caught up now. Were there any children on either of the legs? And if so, did you have a sense of ages? Our kids had a great time hanging out with the adults on our 20 night Dublin-Greenland cruise last summer, but curious as to whether they’re likely to be the only under 18s for Antarctica and the Cape to Cape

That's great... a higher proportion than I would have expected. Fingers crossed for the "Drake Lake", plus thoughts and prayers for the first-timers in your group. We did the British Isles cruise first for a reason... though I do salute their sense of adventure.

Interesting that so many are first time cruisers, and first time to Silversea... do you have a sense yet of how many guests are doing the full Cape-to-Cape, as opposed to just the first segment to Antarctica?

This happened to me constantly with my other trip reports... I ended up rotating the picture on my laptop / phone, taking a screenshot, and uploading the screenshot instead. That seemed to remove the 'rotation' information associated with the photo.

I'd certainly be very interested! Understand that a live report is a lot, but occasional updates would be great. We're particularly curious as to the severity of the Drake passage, ice conditions, the amount and stage of wildlife, and the condition of the landing sites. Tall orders, I realize, but anything you can post would be wonderful. Hope you have a great trip!

This is very helpful, thank you so much - our research was showing the same, but it's hugely helpful to hear from someone who has experienced both times of the year!

Absolutely, that's the cruise to which we're referring: Cruise from Puerto Williams to Cape Town - WI250222C40 | Silversea The last day on the Antarctic peninsula for that cruise will be March 8th, but from what I've heard it sounds like that will still be a reasonable time to be in the Antarctic. We're still very curious as to whether Silversea will be announcing a similar cruise for 2026, but it looks like they will be stretching the season slightly later that year - Cruise from Puerto Williams to Puerto Williams - WI260304012 | Silversea - with their last day on the Antarctic peninsula being on March 12th. Also interesting to note that the 2026 cruise includes a day "South of the Polar Circle", and seems to be the only Silversea cruise to do so.

I seem to recall that being the first of your trip reports that I read. I'll have to go back and read through it again - feels like I have a completely different perspective now that we've done expedition cruises of our own. Very glad to hear that this will be a good time to see wildlife in S. Georgia, as that's what we've decided to make the focus of this trip. Looking at available cruises, there are plenty that stop in at Antarctica but very few that visit S. Georgia and Falklands so hopeful that we'll be able to head down to Antarctica again with the kids if we elect to do so. (Already having to limit future holidays so as not to unduly interfere with our son's time in high school.) Fingers crossed that the current bird flu situation has improved by Spring 2025...

Thank you all for continuing to weigh in - now seriously looking at the 40 day Cape-to-Cape cruise, which would finish up in Antarctica on March 8th. So I suppose the question becomes, "How late is too late?" @drron29 Appreciate your thoughts on asking for some extra OBC. Hoping we can still work a bit more of a deal. I'll let you know how it shakes out.

@drron29 Our travel agent spoke to Silversea, and they are unfortunately not offering any discounts or compensation of any kind. Any suggestions as to next steps, or who else we might be able to raise this with?

This is very helpful, thank you! I’ve reached out to our contact at Silversea… we’ll see what they’re able to offer.

If this topic seems familiar, it's because we already asked about it a few months back. However, we've just gotten notice that Silversea has shifted our cruise up by a full 10 days. This means that we would be departing from Buenos Aires on October 5th 2025, as opposed to October 15th. Other timings would be as follows: Falkland Islands - Oct 9th and 10th South Georgia - Oct 12th to 15th Elephant Island - Oct 17th Antarctic Peninsula - Oct 19th to 22nd S. Shetland Islands - Oct 23rd It's only 10 days, but is that enough to change the calculus on this? Or are we just being silly? If this is significant - has anyone had any luck getting Silversea to offer further discounts or discount other cruises after they've made this kind of significant change? The rates have all gone up since we've booked, so it's unfortunately no longer an apples-to-apples comparison. Thanks in advance...

After all that, the cruise is now visible and bookable by the general public once more. As much as we've enjoyed telling people we're going on a ghost cruise, we're relieved to no longer be facing the threat of the cruise being suddenly turned into a charter. (No guarantees in life, but at least we're back to the risks that we've already accepted.) Still hoping to get some feedback as to whether we should be on Deck 5 or Deck 6 - any thoughts?

Fingers crossed that South Georgia doesn't close to visitors, but that's why part of why we booked this as a door-to-door cruise rather than a port-to-port. We would also drop our current cruise if we couldn't go to South Georgia. Here's hoping your trip goes forward as planned...

So, after much, much hand-wringing, wrangling and negotiation, we have finally booked the October / November Buenos Aires to Puerto Williams cruise. Just in time for the cruise to cease to exist. At least, not on the Silversea website. In fact, the Wind itself seems to disappear for a six-week period before suddenly teleporting to Puerto Williams. Even the initial extended cruise from Natal, Brazil seems to have some irreperable error that rears its head whenever we attempt to book a stateroom. (You can check for yourself if you'd like - here is the original link, and here is the cruise starting in Natal.) This does not seem to have inconvenienced our travel agent, however, and we are now booked on an unlisted cruise - and crossing fingers that it hasn't actually been chartered or otherwise taken offline. But that is a problem for another day. So thank you all so much for your help - we have learned that we might end up encountering some rougher weather and that we may miss the babies, but we also hope to find a wild, beautiful Antarctica that is (relatively) free of penguin pong. We can't wait. If anyone does happen to know anything about our "ghost cruise" (or this sort of phenomenon, which may have occurred on Silversea before) we would greatly appreciate your thoughts, insights, and wild guesses. 20 prize points to whoever's theory comes the closest... Lastly, we are currently booked on deck five - which we chose because we felt it would have less motion than higher decks, and thereby make the Drake crossing slightly more manageable. But we're now wondering if the waves will get up to our veranda. Any thoughts on whether deck five or six is the better option for this kind of cruise? There are apparently only a handful of staterooms currently booked, so we have our pick of the litter - at least for now. Also, please enjoy this image of a penguin in uniform on a ghostly cruise ship, as generated by AI.

These are fantastic photos - thanks for sharing!

Glad to hear that they kept the pool open! They kept draining it down when we were in Greenland… though in their defence a large portion of it had sloshed onto the deck over the previous few days.

Please keep us posted! Definitely tempted by Endeavour but ultimately the cost difference is too much for us to swing, particularly with the other trips we have planned - we're trying to cram in as much travel as possible before the kids get to high school and need to start focussing on their studies. Hope you'll post lost of photos so we can live vicariously through you and Mrs Machotspur!

Thanks for the book recommendations! Yes, I'm also amazed that the Shackleton Expedition isn't more widely known - I think the first time I heard about it was in one of @drron29's cruise reports. Very glad that we're able to share these kinds of books with our kids. These stories feel so much more real when you see the actual destinations involved.

Good to know regarding Elephant Island - though a Zodiac ride would be great, should we be that lucky. And great to hear that it'll be an amazing destination regardless. Clearly the solution will be to make a second trip later on...

Such incredible pictures... we're going to have a hard time waiting for our departure date to arrive.