JasonMochilero

Airport transits totally don't count or I'd had been to Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Miami. I did finally visit Dubai after transitting there 10+ times last year. Probably wasn't really worth it.

TBH, I don't think doing a 6 hour visit from a cruise ship really counts as visiting a country either. One of my friends reckons it doesn't count if you don't spend a night there.

Plus they were always going to Elephant Island in the South Shetlands anyway. Paradise Bay was spectacular. Doubt Admiralty Bay compares.

They're going to the South Shetlands, about 100kms offshore of the mainland.

But if it was one of those reasons, that's what we would have been told. Instead, we were first told it was the weather, then when some of the Argentinians protested, he called a meeting the following day where he kept changing his story with a variety of excuses. I've since seen a map showing us sailing past whilst other ships were all docked. I couldn't have seen this on the day because the internet, which worked badly every other day, went completely off for two days.

I booked 3. Montevideo, we just walked around the town on our own. As the dock is right in the old centre, this was great. Puerto Madryn, we dived with sea lions. I organised it myself with Lobo Larsen who were super efficient at rushing us out to the site whilst the tide was right. Puerto Arenas was the one that got substituted. However, when they substituted it, they then blocked $50 on my credit card because they took back the excursion credit and then said I'd be credited it 2 days after doing the tour. I wasn't. I had to complain again. Given I was within cancellation period and I hadn't actually agreed with the substitution, I thought this was taking liberties. Did the Beagle Passage and train at Ushuaia, which was good but hardly worth $250. It would have been very stressful doing that independently because we got back over half an hour late. And the Falklands was cancelled. Having to meet in the theatre to listen to someone droning on about a tour before yours for up to 45 mins was very annoying. I don't understand why they couldn't just post the details to your room with the countless other bits of paper they posted every single day. In Ushuaia, we sat for 20 mins in the theatre and were finally told we were on bus 28. There was no bus 28. They'd switched the order and we were on the boat first. The whole 20 mins was totally pointless.

If they have to skip somewhere, it should be Punta Arenas. The excursion we did there, which NCL substituted for the one we actually booked, wasn't worth doing. The fort is a reconstruction made out of wood, but the original fort was actually adobe and only stood for about 10 years anyway. It's not exactly historic. Then we did a "hike", which consisted of a 2km walk, though admittedly this did prove a challenge to some on the trip. And all for the a mere $150. Mind you, if you didn't book one of their excursions, you were lucky to get ashore by 11.30am and you had to be back by 2.30.

I believe NCL have done this cruise 4 times this summer and haven't done the full itinerary once. The first two times, they didn't make it into Punta Arenas. The 3rd time, they skipped the Falklands and now they've skipped Antarctica, which I find incomprehensible as it was certainly the main reason I booked the cruise. I would imagine a lot of people would feel the same.

I was on that trip. We were told the problem was the weather which was clearly a lie. Plenty of other ships managed to dock that day.

I was on the Norwegian Star at the time. The reason the captain gave for not going to the Falklands was the weather which was clearly nonsense. Then there was an onboard protest which required security to get involved and he held a meeting the following day where he came up with a number of excuses. Our previous tender port had been Punta Arenas and the transfers were shambolic. We were an hour late for our Norwegian booked tour. After the protest, the internet mysteriously stopped working completely for two days so I couldn't recheck the weather or which other ships had docked. I certainly won't be booking anything with NCL again.