Falklands / South Georgia / Antarctic in October - wonderful idea or terrible mistake?

[RyanJCanada]

55 minutes ago, machotspur said:

 

Hi RyanJCanada

There are some truly awesome accounts that have been posted already, from experienced Antarctic cruisers in response to your enquiry, so I will not attempt to augment them.

 

Mrs machotspur and I embark Silver Endeavour this time next week, commencing the Falklands/South Georgia/Antarctic Peninsula itinerary you are looking at.

 

In truth when considering 'when to go' we went round in circles.

Like you Falklands & South Georgia were more important to us than several landings on the Antarctic Peninsula (although like you we must have at least one Antarctic landing). I am a 'Shackleton fanatic' so would be devastated if we didn't get to at least see Elephant Island and to raise a glass at his graveside in South Georgia.

In the end - and I know it sounds shallow - but the thing that swung it for us was that a quite new ship - Silver Endeavour - was to be our home for 18 days, rather than more dated ships.

We felt that with the whole ecosystem being far less predictable than a couple of decades ago, we should just make a decision and go for it. 

 

I will let you know how we are feeling in 4 weeks time 😉  

 

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!

[Stumblefoot]

5 hours ago, jpalbny said:

We got a nice zodiac ride, close enough to Point Wild to see the plaque honoring the ship that rescued Shackleton's crew, and then later in the morning the fog lifted so we could see the snowy peaks from the ship. Magical.

That was the day and location I learned to walk on water.  A good skill to know when your zodiac driver floods the engine and the waves are pushing you closer and closer to the sharp rocks everywhere in that little bay.

[RyanJCanada]

5 minutes ago, Stumblefoot said:

That was the day and location I learned to walk on water.  A good skill to know when your zodiac driver floods the engine and the waves are pushing you closer and closer to the sharp rocks everywhere in that little bay.

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.

[jpalbny]

Not for long!

 

 

ETA: sorry for the hijack, Ryan. Stumblefoot and I were on the same January 2020 cruise.

Edited October 25, 2023 by jpalbny

[Stumblefoot]

4 minutes ago, jpalbny said:

Not for long!

You took a pic of me in the pool?  Creepy! 😳

 

I like this shot better in the middle of Silver Queen and Silver Princess.

 

Agree with JP, Ryan.  Just having a little fun tonight. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Stumblefoot

[whirldcruzrs]

On 10/23/2023 at 4:50 PM, RyanJCanada said:

This seems likely to us too, unfortunately...

Quite concerning. Best to go sooner rather than later.  

[labrasett]

22 hours ago, RyanJCanada said:

Thanks, @drron29! Appreciate you weighing in while you're on a cruise of your own... the pictures are great, and are making us wish we'd already confirmed. Hoping we can get that done today.

 

We'll be going to Galapagos this summer, so I'm hopeful that our kids will be able to see some young penguins then. I think they'd find it a bit distressing to watch the young getting snatched up by Skuas, so I'm not too disappointed that we'd be missing that.

 

Interesting to hear that it may well be volcanoes increasing the loss of sea ice in the west - if so, then it would seem likely that we'd have good access to the peninsula early in the season.

 

Seems unlikely that we'd be able to get to visit Mawson's huts, but we're excited by the prospect of visiting Elephant Island. Just finished "Endurance" by Alfred Lansing, and we're eager to retrace the footsteps of the Shackleton expedition. Such an incredible story.

 

Anyway, it's always tough to make these decisions but it helps to be informed, first, and I definitely feel like we're getting the full range of opinions here.

 

(Also, I'm glad of the excuse to go back and re-read yours and others' trip reports.)

I hope you know you wont "visit" Elephant Island, it is extremely rare for a landing on the island but you should be able to do a zodiac tour very close to the shore which gives you a really good idea of what it must have been like to be stuck on there.   As for skuas taking baby penguins, this is not too much of an issue, the skuas hang around the edge of the colony and only usually get a chance to snatch an occasional poorly chick, there are lots of chicks which hatch but dont actually live and the skuas gorge on easy meals when they can.   There are so many penguins in the rookeries that an occasional raid by a skua is easily missed even by the keenest young eyes!   Just book it and go your young folk will remember it forever (and so will you).

 

[labrasett]

12 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

You took a pic of me in the pool?  Creepy! 😳

 

I like this shot better in the middle of Silver Queen and Silver Princess.

 

Agree with JP, Ryan.  Just having a little fun tonight. 

Love the bobble hat in the pool!!!

 

[Stumblefoot]

1 hour ago, labrasett said:

Love the bobble hat in the pool!!!

 

Duct Tape taught Silver Princess that trick on her first cruise when she was 11. 💛💚💙

[JandKsVistas]

January!

 

[LouChamp]

Aloha. Have been blessed to visit during different seasons and while the prior posts provide various details I will say that if you can go when it is best for you just go! The voyage will be special. Yes, cruise lines are pushing the shoulder seasons probably because they are getting incentives and docking fee reductions.  One destination I know they are pushing is Bermuda.  They have an extremely short season and since it is primarily a beach, golf destination and no longer a shopping mecca, I would only go during the summer.  Have been going there by air and sea for decades since the 1970s but would never go in November. But you will have a great time. Keep us posted.

[Aussieflyer]

We cruised Montevideo to South Georgia and then the peninsula in early November 2018 - lots of penguins around and being early in the season the 'penguin pong' had not developed yet. Also the snow was beautifully clean. Remember to take a credit card onto South Georgia as the little shop has some lovely things. 

This looks blurry but it was snowing and gorgeous ice/

 

[RyanJCanada]

On 10/28/2023 at 1:49 AM, Aussieflyer said:

We cruised Montevideo to South Georgia and then the peninsula in early November 2018 - lots of penguins around and being early in the season the 'penguin pong' had not developed yet. Also the snow was beautifully clean. Remember to take a credit card onto South Georgia as the little shop has some lovely things. 

This looks blurry but it was snowing and gorgeous ice/

 

These are fantastic photos - thanks for sharing!

[RyanJCanada]

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.

Edited November 8, 2023 by RyanJCanada

[taxatty]

Given the current breakout of avian flu in South Georgia, this may be a moot issue if it becomes closed to visitors for an extended period. We're not happy about this as we're supposed to be on the Wind going there early in 2025. If Silversea removes it as a port stop, as we've already been to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, we'll need to find a different experience.

[RyanJCanada]

16 hours ago, taxatty said:

Given the current breakout of avian flu in South Georgia, this may be a moot issue if it becomes closed to visitors for an extended period. We're not happy about this as we're supposed to be on the Wind going there early in 2025. If Silversea removes it as a port stop, as we've already been to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, we'll need to find a different experience.

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...

[RyanJCanada]

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?

[taxatty]

57 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

Still hoping to get some feedback as to whether we should be on Deck 5 or Deck 6 - any thoughts?

In general, as rough seas in that part of the world are a definite possibility, the rule of thumb is to be as low and amidships as possible.

Edited November 9, 2023 by taxatty

[Nuka]

18 hours ago, taxatty said:

Given the current breakout of avian flu in South Georgia, this may be a moot issue if it becomes closed to visitors for an extended period. We're not happy about this as we're supposed to be on the Wind going there early in 2025. If Silversea removes it as a port stop, as we've already been to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, we'll need to find a different experience.

Endeavor has had to cancel 4 stops there this week and the on the last one they did a zodiac tour and not a landing due to thr Avian flu. A passenger said they didn't go on the zodiac tour as they warned they would see dead birds and seals. Pic from FBook.