Antarctica Holiday: EXPEDITION CRUISE

The Antarctic Peninsula Basecamp cruise offers you a myriad of ways to explore and enjoy the Antarctic Region. This expedition allows you to hike, snowshoe, kayak, go mountaineering, and even camp out under the Southern Polar skies all included in the price.

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Our Suggested Day By Day Itinerary

Antarctica

PACKAGE DETAILS

From £10,570  Per Person
Based on 2 sharing a Room

  • Price Includes:
  • Return economy flights from UK London/Manchester/Birmingham. Contact us for flights quotation from different countries.
  • All meals throughout the voyage aboard the ship including snacks, coffee and tea.
  • All shore excursions and activities throughout the voyage by Zodiac.
  • Program of lectures by noted naturalists and leadership by experienced expedition staff.
  • Free use of rubber boots and snowshoes.
  • Luggage transfer from pick-up point to the vessel on the day of embarkation, in Ushuaia.
  • Pre-scheduled group transfer from the vessel to the airport in Ushuaia (directly after disembarkation).
  • All miscellaneous service taxes and port charges throughout the programme.
  • Comprehensive pre-departure material.

 

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Business Class Flights Upgrades Are Available

Day 1 – Fly from the UK to  Ushuaia, Argentina

You’ll be met at the Airport by an English-speaking guide, for a private transfer to your hotel hotel.

 

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast

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Day 2 – End of the world, start of a journey

 

Your voyage begins where the world drops off. Ushuaia, Argentina, reputed to be the southernmost city on the planet, is located on the far southern tip of South America. Starting in the afternoon, you embark from this small resort town on Tierra del Fuego, nicknamed “The End of the World,” and sail the mountain-fringed Beagle Channel for the remainder of the evening.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast

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Day 3 – The winged life of the westerlies

 

Several species of albatross follow the vessel into the westerlies, along with storm petrels,
shearwaters, and diving petrels.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 4 – Finding the Falklands

 

The Falkland Islands offer an abundance of wildlife that is easily approachable, though
caution is always advised. These islands are largely unknown gems, the site of a 1982 war
between the UK and Argentina. Not only do various species of bird live here, but chances
are great you’ll see both Peale’s dolphins and Commerson’s dolphins in the surrounding
waters.

During this segment of the voyage, you may visit the following sites:

Carcass Island – Despite its name, this island is pleasantly rodent-free and hence bounteous with birdlife and many endemic species. Anything from breeding Magellanic penguins and gentoos to numerous waders and passerine birds (including Cobb’s wrens
and tussock-birds) live here.
Saunders Island – On Saunders Island you can see the black-browed albatross and its sometimes-clumsy landings, along with breeding imperial shags and rockhopper penguins. King penguins, Magellanic penguins, and gentoos are also found here.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 5 –  The seat of Falklands culture

The capital of the Falklands and centre of its culture, Port Stanley has some Victorian-era
charm: colourful houses, well-tended gardens, and English-style pubs are all to be found
here. You can also see several century-old clipper ships nearby, silent witnesses to the
hardships of 19th century sailors. The small but interesting museum is also worth a visit,
covering the early days of settlement up to the Falklands War. Approximately 2,100 people
live in Port Stanley. Admission to the museum is included.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 6 & 7 – Once more to the sea

En route to South Georgia, you now cross the Antarctic Convergence. The temperature
cools considerably within the space of a few hours, and nutritious water rises to the surface
of the sea due to colliding water columns. This phenomenon attracts a multitude of
seabirds near the ship, including several species of albatross, shearwaters, petrels, prions,
and skuas.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 8 – 11  South Georgia Journey

 

Today you arrive at the first South Georgia activity site. Please keep in mind that weather conditions in this area can be challenging, largely dictating the programme. Over the next several days, you have a chance to visit the following sites:
Prion Island – This location is closed during the early part of the wandering albatross breeding season (November 20 – January 7). From January on, the breeding adults have found their partners and are sitting on eggs or nursing their chicks. Enjoy witnessing the gentle nature of these animals, which possess the largest wingspan of any bird in the world.

Fortuna Bay – A beautiful outwash plain from Fortuna Glacier is home to a large number of king penguins and seals. Here you may also have the chance to follow the final leg of Shackleton’s route to the abandoned whaling village of Stromness. This path cuts across the mountain pass beyond Shackleton’s Waterfall, and as the terrain is partly swampy, be prepared to cross a few small streams.

Salisbury Plain, St. Andrews Bay, Gold Harbour – These sites not only house the three largest king penguin colonies in South Georgia, they’re also three of the world’s largest breeding beaches for Antarctic fur seals. Literally millions breed on South Georgia during December and January. Only during the mid-season do they peak in their breeding cycle.
There will be some young adult Elephant seals as well as this seasons ‘Weaner’s; the young
Elephant Seals that have been left to fend for themselves. Watch your step and stay cool when walking the beaches during this time.

Grytviken – In this abandoned whaling station, king penguins walk the streets and
elephant seals lie around like they own the place – because they basically do. Here you
might be able to see the South Georgia Museum as well as Shackleton’s grave. In the
afternoon of day 10 and depending on the conditions, we will start sailing southwards in
the direction of the South Orkney Islands.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Days 12 – Southward bound

 

There may be sea ice on this route, and at the edge of the ice some south polar skuas and snow
petrels could join the other seabirds trailing the vessel south

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 13 – The scenic vistas of South Orkney

Depending on the conditions, you might visit Orcadas Base, an Argentine scientific station
on Laurie Island in the South Orkney archipelago. The personnel here will happily show
you their facility, where you can enjoy expansive views of the surrounding glaciers. If a
visit isn’t possible, you may instead land in Coronation Island’s Shingle Cove.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 14 – Legendary Elephant Island

You‘ve now completed roughly the same route (albeit in the opposite direction) as Sir Ernest Shackleton did using only a small life boat, the James Caird, in spring of 1916. Watching Elephant Island materialize on the horizon after crossing all that water, it’s hard not to marvel at how he and his five-man crew accomplished that feat.
The purpose of Shackleton’s crossing was to rescue 22 shipwrecked members of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Endurance Expedition, who were stranded on Elephant Island. For four and a half months, Shackleton undertook this legendary rescue.
Conditions on Elephant Island are severe. The coastline is mostly made up of vertical rock and ice cliffs highly exposed to the elements. If possible you will take the Zodiacs to Point Wild, where the marooned members of Shackleton’s expedition miraculously managed to survive.
  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 15 –  Along the Antarctic Peninsula

If ice permits, you sail into the Antarctic Sound at the northwestern edge of the Weddell Sea. Here colossal tabular icebergs herald your arrival to the eastern edges of the Antarctic Peninsula. Brown Bluff is a potential location for a landing, where you may get the chance to set foot on the continent.
  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 16: Scenes of South Shetland

The volcanic islands of the South Shetlands are windswept and often cloaked in mist, but they do offer subtle pleasures: There’s a wide variety of flora (mosses, lichens, flowering grasses) and no small amount of fauna (gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels).

In Deception Island, the ship plunges through Neptune’s Bellows and into the flooded caldera. Here you find an abandoned whaling station, and thousands of cape petrels – along with kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns. A good hike is a possibility in this fascinating and desolate volcanic landscape

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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Day 17 – 21: Onward into Antarctica

Gray stone peaks sketched with snow, towers of broken blue-white ice, and unique polar wildlife below and above welcome you into the otherworldly expanse of Antarctica. You enter the area around Gerlache Strait, venturing into one of the most beautiful settings Antarctica has to offer.

Sites you may visit here include:

Neko Harbour – An epic landscape of mammoth glaciers and endless wind-carved snow, Neko Harbour offers opportunities for a Zodiac cruise and landing that afford the closest views of the surrounding alpine peaks.

Paradise Bay – You may be able to take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where there’s a good chance you’ll encounter humpback and minke whales.The aim is then to head south. If conditions allow, sites you can visit ‘over’ the polar circle  include:

Crystal Sound – Your journey takes you south along the Argentine Islands to this ice-packed body of water, and from here across the Polar Circle in the morning.

Detaille Island – You may make a landing at an abandoned British research station here, taking in the island’s lofty mountains and imposing glaciers.

Pourquoi Pas Island – You might circumnavigate this island, named after the ship of the famous French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot. This location is known for its tight fjords and lofty, glacier-crowded mountains.

Horseshoe Island – This is the location of the former British Base Y, a remnant of the 1950s that is now unmanned though still equipped with almost all the technology it had while in service.

As with all of our Antarctic trips, conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast

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Day 22 – 23: Familiar seas, familiar friends

Your return voyage is far from lonely. While crossing the Drake, you’re again greeted by the vast array of seabirds remembered from the passage south. But they seem a little more familiar to you now, and you to them.

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  • Breakfast

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Day 24: There and back again

Every adventure, no matter how grand, must eventually come to an end. It’s now time to disembark in Ushuaia, but with memories that will accompany you wherever your next adventure lies.

  • Board Includes:
  • Breakfast

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Latin America Holiday Specialist

Speak to our Antarctica travel expert today

Jeremy Snelling

Latin America Holiday Specialist

Speak to our Antarctica travel expert today

Jeremy Snelling

Tailor Your Tour - Potential Highlights

With our in-depth knowledge we will provide you with the best advice on every detail of the tour.