jpalbny

Lirio, is that you? You look different from the last time I saw you in Svalbard, all bundled up in your winter clothes. I guess the tower climb would be even more difficult in a Silversea parka! Thanks for the pictures. I always enjoy your posts.

They still have that Delta Pinot Noir, I see. Not bad withbfood, but a little less polished that my preference. What did you think? Hope you get some nice sightings at the convergence!

Wow! I can almost feel the intensity of the wind from your videos. Thanks for posting. Never!

Bubbulz - have a great trip! Lots to do in Milan, and Lake Como is just gorgeous. We haven't been to Lugano yet but it's on our list! We visited this area in June 2022 on our own for a week. I have pictures in my SmugMug albums. The cathedral climb in Milan is fun, and you can see the architectural details up close and personal. So if you have time to fit that in, go for it. We booked the Last Supper viewing on our own, but of course it's easier if someone else takes care of it for you. There is so much else to do in Milan that it's hard to list everything. We spent three days and never ran out of things to do. Museums, wandering the streets, wine shops, nice meals... The town of Como itself is OK, but the real beauty is when you get out on the lake, and go to the small towns elsewhere around the area. Even taking the funicular up to Brunate is a beautiful change of scenery, and there are some great restaurants where you can have dinner in a beautiful setting. One day we drove to Varenna and hiked up to the Castello overlooking the lake. The other day we took the ferry to Bellagio and got lost in a wine cellar, tasting for hours, and missed the fast ferry home. It was worth it though; the slow ferry was more relaxing. If you have room in your suitcases, can we come along? 😄

It's a G-rated statement without them. She was just maintaining the decorum of Mysty's thread!

Since you asked - I didn't want to intrude. The plunge at Deception Island was challenging. You wore your bathing suit under all your other clothes, and when the time came, you stripped down on the beach, then ran into the water as fast as you could before you froze to death from the wind chill. This gentoo was very casual about the whole process. This tourist may have been too shocked to know what just happened. The top layer of water is warm but once you're this far out from shore, it's bracingly cold! Deception Island is still volcanically active so the snow is constantly being melted by the heat from the ground. That results in hot water running off into the caldera. So, your first step into the water is deceptively warm. That tricks you into going out too far! The best part was the hot tub afterwards! The staff dug a hole in the sand and let it fill with volcanically heated groundwater. In fact the water was so hot, that they had to keep dumping cold water from the caldera into the hot tub, so we wouldn't cook past medium rare. After reluctantly extricating myself from the hot tub, I dried as quickly as possible then put my freezing cold outer clothes back on for the zodiac ride back to the ship. It was so fun that I've done two more plunges, but those were the less exciting kind from the side of the ship.

We have not yet been to Japan, but we have sailed with Ponant twice and have two more cruises booked. We enjoy the new ships and the onboard experience. The itineraries are really intriguing; in fact there are several in 2025 which are calling to us. We have cruised Celebrity and Oceania in the past but not in about 15 years. Our current line of choice is Silversea, and we find Ponant similar in many ways. Ponant expedition cruises compare very favorably to those on Silversea. One difference you will find, if you're used to the bigger ships with multiple specialty restaurants, is that the food selections are more limited. The quality is quite good but you will not have the same variety of selections that you'd have on the larger ships. If that is a problem, you should be aware. I think some of us have posted menus in our trip reports (I have a few links in my signature). I hope you have a nice cruise, whatever you decide! Feel free to ask any specific questions, but the board over here is a little less active than the other boards you may be used to.

All I know is that they are the successor of Alitalia. Haven't flown them yet but they are a SkyTeam partner so you'll have to let me know how they are!

Is that Victoria Salem? She's great! Chris and I met her on our first SS cruise, Prince Albert II to Antarctica, in December 2009. After a long and late night in the bar she convinced me that I "had" to do the Polar Plunge the next day. So, I swam with the Gentoos in the caldera of Deception Island (as per my previous post)! She was also our historian on a subsequent cruise - I think it was in Iceland for the 2019 circumnavigation but can't remember 100%. At any rate, please give her our best regards and make sure you tie her to the ship so she can't escape until we get on board in June!

Love the videos and pics! Thanks for posting from one of my favorite parts of the world. And why didn't any of you join the gentoos in the surf? Please keep Cloud in tip-top shape, as there are only 107 days until we embark in Darwin!

Silver and Les - I'm wondering how things will be on our June expedition cruise, and then on the upcoming WC segment that we have planned for early next year. Our two post-COVID cruises have been very nice, but it does seem that there's a lot more room for improvement lately. But, if there's a real deterioration it does not bode well for them. Ponant has some fantastic itineraries and we've got two more of them booked. The 2025 itineraries on offer through Ponant are definitely giving them the edge; we'll need to be retired in order to do all the ones that Chris has found! And since Ponant matched our Silversea status, it's a very viable option for us to jump ship. Time will tell, I guess. Safe travels home, Silver!

You definitely need to time your steps correctly, when entering the zodiac in rough waters. I usually wait for the crest of the wave, and then step quickly and confidently! Thanks for continuing to post about this unique destination! So far, our stops and your stops have not overlapped. Which can only mean that we have to go back for more! Cool coelacanth, by the way. Would love to see a specimen. A "living fossil" thought to have been extinct since the age of the dinosaurs, but rediscovered less than 100 years ago.

Elevensies are much better there, I heard.

Definitely visit Pere Lachaise! It is very atmospheric. We visit cemeteries in tourist cities all the time.

I first tried reading The Hobbit when I was 10 but couldn't get into it. By high school I had read the entire series. I read them again when the movies came out. Love those books! And the Dan Brown books also.

Oh no! That does happen. I've learned to do "select all" then "copy" before I submit my post. It's super annoying!

The opportunities are many. Obviously the train system puts much of France within reach for even a day trip from Paris, unless they are on strike. Some thoughts off the top of my head: We loved Rouen and would go back there any time. Even Bordeaux is only a 2h train ride away from Paris. Loire Valley is closer, maybe an hour to reach Tours? Lyon and Geneva are within striking distance (2-3h). Any of these could provide a fun day trip if you want to get out of town for a bit. Closer to Paris, check out the Basilica St-Denis, where the French royalty are interred. And of course, Versailles is a bit out of the city, but easily accessible via the RER.

You're sure making up for lost time! Enjoy every minute of it.

You need to bring your boots, parkas, and waterproof pants (any outer layer) to a biosecurity inspection prior to landing in Antarctica and/or South Georgia. There are strict biosecurity measures in place, for good reason, in both places. Your outer clothing must be completely free of foreign material such as seeds, soil, etc. You can make it really easy by just wearing the parka that's provided, as it's new and there's nothing stuck in the velcro. Rain pants are the worst - the velcro really holds on to organic material but on the plus side, your pants end up really clean! We brought brand-new boots on our last cruise so they were fine for South Georgia (we didn't rent). We had to make sure they were clean again before landing in Antarctica and yes, they provide the tools to clean them. You do NOT need to use your fingernails; that would be ridiculous. They provide brushes and sometimes if there's a stubborn piece of junk stuck in a tread you have to pick it out with a paper clip or something similar (they provide this). The expedition staff will inspect your boots and they are happy to help you if you miss something. They staff love these places and want to protect them. If you don't take this seriously and do a sloppy job and expect them to do it all for you, that's a different story, and rightfully so. The expedition staff are there to help you enjoy your visit to Antarctica, not to clean your boots for you. And if you land in South Georgia, the local authorities will come on board and THEY will inspect your boots before they let you off the ship. Rental boots may not be new so they do need an inspection and I suppose there may be stuff stuck in the treads that needs to be removed. The good news is you only have to do that once. After every landing you will clean your boots in the mud room with a brush and a hose but they won't need to be inspected again unless you go to a different region. We all have to do our part to ensure that these pristine places remain as pure as possible, and to ensure that we really leave as small a footprint as possible while visiting there. It's really not a big ask. Please do your part for the flora and fauna of the Antarctic region.

I second this. Our friends who lived in Sydney took us there one day. Just watch out for the gulls - they will steal your food!

I like your assessment - and I agree. Both worth seeing. If I hadn't seen either, I'd stay in Vienna and just do everything independently. Schönbrunn is very easy to get to on the UBahn, and you don't need a guided tour. Plus there's a ton of other great stuff to see in Vienna. Bratislava is a cute little town but you can make the circuit in about 2 hours tops. A bus tour there from Vienna is less appealing (to me) than stopping there on the boat, because of the (wasted) travel time. PS can you do both? If Bratislava is truly a half-day tour, you could buy your own tix to Schönbrunn and take the UBahn there when you get back from Bratislava, to visit the palace in the afternoon. One trick: most of the Schonbrunn tickets require you to specify the time you'll arrive and it's binding. BUT the Sisi ticket DOES NOT require you to make a timed reservation. Even though the Sisi ticket is more expensive, in this case it may be helpful.

LOL. We'd still let you be the host even if you grew a beard. The absence of a suit, however, could be a deal breaker! I love getting the (very occasional) notification from the DL app that my bag has been loaded onto the plane. Usually I just load it myself! No app required. Though on our epic flight back from Victoria Falls, I was never so happy as I was when I saw that our checked bags were following us. We did an interline check-in at Livingstone, Zambia, all the way home, and I had great trepidation about doing so. However, it was the best choice because of the limited carry-on allowance on the first flight, and if I had only checked them in for that flight, I would have had to clear immigration/customs in JNB, only to just leave again. No way did I want to go through that. So we checked the bags from LVI-JNB on South Africa Airlink, and the excellent agent interlined them to JNB-CDG on AF, then to CDG-ATL-ALB on DL. The DL app had the bags in the system as soon as they were checked in, in Zambia, but when they were actually loaded onto the plane at CDG... We had another glass of bubbly to celebrate!

Glad that the airtags lied, and all of your bags made it! At least it was on the way home though, so not as big a deal. Unless you had a few bottles of wine in that bag...

We used Barossa Exclusive Tours for that region and they were great. If you're interested - https://barossaexclusivetours.com.au/ I'm sure there are plenty of options though!

It's actually not a new offering - we took a Silversea charter in 2011 to LYB for our Arctic cruise on Silver Explorer. I don't remember anything special about the flight, but it doesn't matter now as things are probably very different. The itineraries at the time were ten days, one-way between Tromso and LYB, so a charter was needed between Oslo and LYB. Every 20 days they had to pick up a group from Oslo, fly them to LYB, then fill up with disembarking pax and bring them back to Oslo. The one odd thing that I do remember, is that even though Svalbard is administered by Norway, it's outside the Schengen zone. So from Oslo, you have to exit through passport control and fly out of the international (non-Schengen) part of Oslo airport. Makes sense, but it surprised me at the time. Unless they've reconfigured the Svalbard treaty, that part will not have changed for your journey.