Post-Antarctica Thoughts
February 1st, 2012Antarctica advice
It is certainly not cheap to visit this continent, and people should expect to pay at least a few thousand US dollars for the cruise alone, in addition to any airfare getting to/from Ushuaia, Argentina.
However, I quickly discovered from other passengers that cruise prices can vary dramatically. I paid slightly over $6000, while I met many who paid closer to $4000. My booking company, Polar Cruises, was a great company with excellent customer service (especially when our original cruise was cancelled), but I would encourage people to look around for the best prices.
But the best advice I learned is that for the lowest prices, be flexible. Because of work obligations, my travel dates were essentially fixed. If you do have flexibility — meaning you have a few days or weeks of wiggle room — fly to Ushuaia and look for deals there. There are great deals to be found at the countless travel agencies there, especially on last-minute deals. And there are lots of these deals. Most of those tickets were between $3000-$4000. Not bad.
Travel Insurance
Get it. After my cruise was cancelled, I was lucky that the replacement cruise had almost the same dates as my original one. But they were still off by two days, and so I had to book a few new flights. Not having bought travel insurance, I had to eat the cost myself. Luckily again, these new tickets cost me only $300, but some people had to pay as high as $2000 for changing around their (international) flights.
There is much uncertainty with trips like this that deal with very harsh weather conditions, so play it safe and purchase travel insurance.
Anti-American sentiment
People really have a dim view of the US. While most non-American travellers are very polite and do like the American people, they think we know nothing about the world or its geography. OK fine, they may be right, but still.
Case in point, there was a really annoying Scottish passenger on the ship who only talked to me about how obnoxious and narrow-minded Americans are. At one point she was squawking about how I probably thought no country in South America was important. I replied “South America?? I thought we were in Mexico.” Finally … I then got some silence out of her.
…
OK people, until next time, goodbye.
