Sea Days - And a 2009 Adventure?

Three lovely sea days. Time to catch up, experience a bit more of the ship, and relax. They've been wonderful. Yesterday dawned a bit foggy, and stayed that way most of the day into evening, but it didn't lessen one of my favorite sights - a full moon at sea. Today is clear, warming and calm. I know I keep repeating myself, but the weather we've experienced has been incredible. We've truly been blessed.

I just looked outside my window and saw at least a half dozen Albatross of different species surrounding the ship. Lovely!

The nice weather has followed us, but definitely hasn't been universal down here. From Punta Arenas, an excursion is offered through Princess for a flight to and landing in Antarctica. Unfortunately, they were unable to go as the weather at the station they were heading to was snowy, socked in and windy. According to the shore excursion lecturer, Joe May, that's the case about 80% of the time. On average, only one Princess flight during the season actually makes it.

I'd researched doing a similar flight on my own (as the Princess cost as you can imagine is rather steep) and my research revealed the same issue - they are cancelled outright about 50% of the time, and when flights are able to take off, a good portion of the time they're turned back before they reach Antarctica. If they are fortunate enough to land, many times their return to Chile is delayed or diverted to another airport. In other words, a really bad option to book independently unless you're on a land vacation and have several days in which to make the attempt. This is the perfect example of an excursion which should be booked through the cruise line.

The cost was about $2,400/person, and if it is cancelled, there is a $200 penalty as there are non-refundable costs associated with chartering the flight. They do offer this excursion on all their South American sailings which go to Punta Arenas, not just those with the Antarctica itinerary as we had, and it sells out almost immediately. If you're interested in it, watch the Princess Cruise Personalizer daily when you get to about 4 months before sailing, as you'll need to book it within a day or two of its release.

Speaking of shore excursions, I believe I mentioned that those who waited to book onboard were somewhat disappointed in the remaining selection. Because of the limited availability of vendors in ports such as Port Stanley specifically, they were truly sold out through pre-sales, either online at the Personalizer or through mailed or faxed requests. If you don't already utilize online resources and you prefer to book shore excursions through the ship, it's time to get familiar with them, and not only with Princess. More and more, the cruise lines will be moving to this medium, and people waiting to book onboard will be extremely disappointed. If you're reading this blog, you're somewhat computer comfortable, and should have no problem with taking care of your excursion bookings in this manner. Especially with Princess, it's risk-free, as you're not charged for the excursions until you board, so you can feel free to book a couple excursions in each port immediately when they become available, then take a bit of time to decide which you really want. Better to book and cancel later than to be disappointed. If you cancel, you'll make someone on the wait list very happy, so no harm, no foul.

But one factor on this ship which made the lack of Princess excursions easier was our port lecturer, Joe May. He's sailed around South America 108 times, visiting the ports many, many times. While he's not as familiar with Antarctica, only having crossed Drake Channel 8 times, including the 2 on this sailing, that's what we had another lecturer to help us with.

Many times on a cruise, you'll have someone extremely familiar with the ports, but they're either doing just shopping lectures or pushing the ship excursions. Not in this case. In each port, he's given options if you wanted to go into town on your own, or see the penguins on your own, etc. He provided a restaurant recommendation for me in Ushuaia (unfortunately that particular restaurant was closed since it was Sunday, but the menu looked terrific), and was on hand at the shore excursions desk for any questions people had. I usually ignore the port lectures because of the shopping push for the recommended stores, but they were nothing like that on this sailing and I looked forward to them. Kudos to Princess for changing the style of these lectures and working with someone the quality of Joe May.

As good as Joe was, he was overshadowed by two other people onboard providing information to us throughout the cruise - Ice Captain Bob Parsons and Antarctica and Penguin researcher, Dr. Bernard Stonehouse. First Captain Parsons. He's a retired Coast Guard captain who worked on ice breakers, even working on their design. He's worked in the Great Lakes, Alaska, Antarctica and other areas. He spoke about navigational issues through ice, the composition of the ice (a really great lecture entitled "Ice is Nice") including how it's formed, breaks off, and its "life" including movement in the water. As I mentioned before, I felt very comfortable with him aiding Captain Pickford when we were in the vicinity of ice. Together they handled this ship beautifully and in ways I'd not have expected they could.

But the highlight was the information given in lectures, and when we were in Antarctica itself, by Dr. Bernard Stonehouse. Originally a meteorologist, a plane crash in Antarctica many decades ago led to his becoming a penguin and Antarctic expert and researcher. I believe I mentioned he discovered the 4th known colony of Emperor penguins, and he as found several other colonies over the years. His background is fascinating, and his delivery style is charming, understandable and amusing. Currently associated with Oxford University, he has the style of a British lecturer which at first seems a bit slow and halting, but as you get familiar with it is extremely effective.

Speaking almost continually when we were in the major areas of Antarctica, giving commentary about what we were seeing (as were Joe May or Captain Parsons when appropriate), he educated us about a variety of topics to help us understand what we were seeing when we were seeing it, such as the Shackleton history when we sailed around Elephant Island and saw their landing and wintering site, information about the Arctowski base when we visited them, educating us about the glaciers and geology of the beauty we observed when sailing in Gerlache Strait and Neumeyer Channel, and alerting us to penguin, whale, dolphin, bird, seal and other sightings as we sailed along. This commentary was broadcast on the open decks and available as well on the cabin television, but was not in the public areas of the ship so if you weren't interested, you weren't accosted by it. Personally, I wish they had also broadcast in areas such as the dining room and buffet at lunch, but that's me.

In addition to the commentary, almost every day he also had a lecture which complimented the information he'd touched on while we were viewing, or educated us in aspects of Antarctica such as ice research, penguin colonies and life, and even his days as a dog sledger across the ice fields. Fascinating!

I know many people looking at this itinerary, with a full week of sailing between the Falklands and our next landing in Ushuaia, are concerned they might be bored. I mean, how many ice bergs can you look at and be interested? The twice daily lectures, plus the running commentary, made the days sailing very different than a typical day at sea. If you love natural beauty, are interested in aquatic or air critters such as those found in Antarctica, or simply want to continue to learn about an area of the world which is largely forgotten in mainstream exploration, you'll want to take this cruise. On a ship such as Star Princess, it is extremely comfortable, but you do absolutely get an Antarctic experience, even though you don't step foot on the Continent. It's simply amazing.

To give you an idea of the daily lectures, from the various sources, here was the line up, in order of when they were presented. All of them were under the heading of Scholarship@Sea Enrichment Lectures:

Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - Where are we going, what will we see?
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - The Falkland Islands: The land and the people
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - Southern Oceans Wildlife
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - Who Owns Antarctica? (And who wants it anyway?!)
Capt. Bob Parsons, Joe May, Senior First Officer Tim Wingate - Antarctic Navigation (overview of anticipated routes, maps, history of Antarctic explorers)
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - My friends the penguins
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse - The Shackleton Story
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse and Capt. Bob Parsons - All About Ice - Ice is Nice. Sea ice, and the record of history in glaciers and icecaps.
Dr. Bob Parsons - Antarctic cruising, scientific support & US Coast Guard activities
First Officer Mario Tani - Behind the Scenes of the Navigational Bridge
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse, Capt. Bob Parsons and Joe May - Where did we go, what did we see?

Of course, there were the compliment of normal activities onboard as well, and other Scholarship@Sea offerings such as ceramics, bridge play and others. I've talked before about the excellent computer classes offered. Social groups met onboard every day, with the normal service clubs, Friends of Bill, Rainbow GLBT/Friends of Dorothy and similar, along with arranged get-togethers for photographers, scrapbookers, and bird watchers were particularly active, and the cruise director staff was very open to putting together ad-hoc get togethers when requested. Today I watched a Pacific Rim DVD put together from a Sapphire Princess sailing late in 2007.

A special note to all my solo travelers. This sailing was extremely solo friendly, with get-togethers EVERY night at 7:00PM, along with designated nights up in Skywalkers and other activities. I've never seen such support for solos on a mainstream line, especially since there weren't any gentlemen hosts (Princess doesn't provide them). This is absolutely a sailing which would be appropriate for solos, and don't forget that Princess offers reduced single supplements for inside and oceanview cabins.

The passengers have been diverse, and extremely interesting as a whole. The overall age was on the younger side for this length of sailing. Many, many people in their 40s and 50s, though the older set were also well represented. While there were a few new cruisers onboard, with only a couple cruises under their belt who were attracted mostly by the adventure, most were pretty well traveled overall, and often frequent cruisers. In fact, there were so many past passengers they had to have the Captain's Circle party held two different nights! Have had so many fascinating conversations during lunch, in the lounges, and out on deck while sailing. Everyone onboard has a bit of the adventurer at heart, from those like me who regularly explore the unusual, to those who were in wheelchairs, scooters or on oxygen, and it's been a fabulous experience for all.

Okay, think it's probably time to let out a little secret I've been holding back. Was going to wait until the end of this saga, once we had returned from the post-cruise stay in Buenos Aires so you had the entire picture, but I think now is the time to let the penguin out of the bag so to speak. If you've been following this journey and thought you'd love to do this itinerary and are fascinated with what we've seen, another agent and I have arranged for group space on next year's January 17, 2009 Star Princess Antarctic sailing. And yes, we will be escorting the group personally. Next year's itinerary is slightly different in that instead of it being a round trip from Buenos Aires, it will instead disembark in Valparaiso Chile, the port for Santiago, opening up post-cruise opportunities there.

This means not only will you have my regular assistance in booking and planning your cruise and giving you information on the ports, but I'll be assisting in arranging private excursions in the ports, going with you on some of the options (of course I can't be everywhere at once), joining you on deck when in the viewing areas and assisting in explaining what we're seeing, pointing out interesting sites, giving you my super-secret viewing areas on the ship, and even if desired some photographic and Photoshop assistance, not to mention the advantage that my associate, Susan Combs, will also be co-leader for this group so you'll be well taken care of throughout the journey. While I can't promise weather like I experienced this year (the experts have said they've not had this many days of this good weather on a single sailing - and the experience of calm both ways on Drake Passage, getting in effect "Drake Lake" both ways is almost unheard of), I can promise excitement, adventure and PENGUINS!

I'll also be arranging pre-cruise for those interested in Buenos Aires or Iguazu Falls (I'll be going up to the Falls again) and post-cruise in the Santiago area, probably going to an Estancia (ranch) and/or vineyards in the area. Other options pre-cruise also include an Estancia, Tango show and all the fun and excitement of Buenos Aires. You can also opt for the pre-cruise options through Princess, of which I've received nothing but praise from the passengers who opted for it, which consists of arrival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, flight up to Iguazu Falls, stay there, then flight down to Buenos Aires and another two nights there. Excellent option.

While I'll not be back in the US until the 29th, and not fully back in the office until January 30, if you're interested in this group, go ahead and contact me now. I can provide pricing for you and hold a cabin. The most popular cabin options are already being booked for next year, so now is the time to put in your request and secure the cabin which will give you the best experience!

Tonight is the last formal night onboard, and tomorrow is our final port - Montevideo, Uruguay. With all the rush of a port day, packing and disembarkation, you won't hear from me again until at the earliest late Saturday night after the tango show in Buenos Aires.

This blog isn't yet over for this sailing, as I'll report after Uruguay and in Buenos Aires and of course any adventures and final thoughts from the trip home. Hope you keep reading!