NCL Sun 11/19/16 Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14 days, "around the horn"

A little background about us: We are Joyce and Mike from Southern California in our early 60's. We booked this cruise for the itinerary and to celebrate my birthday, even though my birthday didn't actually fall in the dates of the cruise.

We have been on about 11 cruises now. We book through Casinos at Sea. We booked this cruise fairly early about 9 or so months ahead and got the UBP and the UDP.

We enjoy the Sun mostly for the crew, but honestly I prefer the newer, bigger ships with all the things to do and the entertainment. This trip was all about the itinerary though and I'm so glad we went to South America. The trip was wonderful!

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So we flew to Santiago via Houston. We had a red eye from Houston to Santiago. After going through customs, Mike's colleague/ friend picked us up and took us to our hotel. We went to a nearby park and mall waiting for our room to be ready. We booked a winery tour and tasting for the next day to Conch y Toro winery.

Our friend took us to his home where we met his lovely wife and family. She made us a home cooked Chilean meal and we had Chilean wines with dinner and desert. It was there springtime there, the bougainvillea were in bloom everywhere, they have a beautiful house, garden and pool, we ate outdoors. Fabulous.

Next day after breakfast, we were picked up at our hotel for the winery tour. They took us by bus to Conch y Toro winery.

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That night our friends took us out to dinner at a cute little area where they have several shops and restaurants along the River in Santiago. We ate at a traditional Chilean restaurant. We had seafood. They had Chilean dancers. I had my first (and best) Pisco sour drink, a drink that is a specialty of Chile.

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Our friends picked us up and drove us to the coast to Valparaiso to embark on our cruise. We stopped for a scheduled wine tour and tasting at Veramonte winery in the Casablanca valley. Had a beautiful tour of vineyards and their winemaking. It was the most comprehensive wine tour ever with a knowledgeable guide that spoke great English. Great fun.

Chilean wines are great!

Then we continued on to Valparaiso. I was shocked when we drove into Valparaiso. It was very crowded and the traffic was a mess. We got a little lost and asked a local how to get to the terminal. This port was unlike any embarkation I had ever been on. So we found our way into the building and did a pre check in. We said goodbye to our new friends. We boarded a bus to get to the ship. They took our luggage. We rode the bus though a working loading dock. They had hundreds of containers waiting to be loaded on cargo ships. They let us off and walked up the gangway to the ship. We actually officially checked in on the ship in one of the main dining rooms. They also take your passport away until you reach Argentina. We were late to board for us, (but well within the timeframe to board). So check in was a breeze.

We had a lovely balcony.

Bags arrived, had our mandatory drill. I went back to room to take a nap which is unusual for me. I guess I was a little jet lagged.

Here are some pics of The Sun: (these were taken spring of 2015 on our Alaska trip).

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More pics:

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That night we had dinner at La Cucina

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The next day was a day at sea. We had our meet and greet, latitudes party and ship activities to do.

Our cruise critic roll call was very active. Our CC hostesses were great. They did so many nice things for us and were very well prepared. The M and G was very well attended and the officers introduced themselves and answered a lot of questions (a lot about tendering).

Our hostesses also arranged many private excursions that were very good and saved a lot of people, who chose to book shore excursions with them, a lot of money! Thanks Iliana!

After the M&G, we had our gift exchange, which was really fun, and the retired teacher who ran it was great!

Went to latitudes party and won a spa treatment! Yay!

Off to casino:

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Our first port was Puerto Montt. It was a picture perfect day. I'll have many photos. This excursion we booked with Iliana who used Dennis Purtov. Our guide was Nellie. She was great, she spoke excellent English. It is a German town. The Chilean government brought in many German people to settle in and homestead the area and in return the Germans would acquire land. But only the boys in the family. Interesting history. We were in the town only for a short time, then off to the beautiful countryside we went

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The Volcano is the Orsono volcano. The llamas are pronounced "jammas"

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The prettiest part of the day was the waterfalls, and the waterfalls plus the Volcano. Just gorgeous.

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https://vimeo.com/198806974

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Then we went to a cute little town by a huge lake for lunch and had time on our own:

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Puerto Chacabucco was the next day. We went on an NCL excursion: Best of nature and the tastes of Chile. This turned out to be a wonderful day, but there were way too many people and not enough guides. Very unorganized at first.

We went to a bus, hot and old bus by the way. (You are not in the bus long though). This port had the least amount of infrastructure and the people spoke decent English here.

Then we went to a small nature center where there were lockers. They split us up into 3 large groups. We walked through the forest on a fairly level path for about 1 1/2 miles total. It was nice and shady. There were bridges and quite a few steps. Our guide told us about all the flora and fauna along the way. We had a nice rest stop about 3/4 of the way through. There was a beautiful waterfall at the end of our walk.

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Great review so far! Your pictures are absolutely beautiful!

This cruise is definitely on our wish list. :)

I'm really enjoying your review. Wonderful pictures!

Thanks for sharing this review and a special thanks for going the extra mile and adding photos! This is one itinerary I would love to do someday so I will enjoy reading about your adventure.

Seeing your ship photos also gets me excited because we will be on the Sun in May when she sails from San Francisco to Alaska. :)

Thanks all for your interest.

Arymay I think I read a great review of yours about Alaska.

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Thank you soooo much for the infos.

There isn't much about the Sun "around the horn", so all the infos you can provide us is welcome.

Great pictures. Can't wait for this photo experience!!! Hope we have nice weather in March, like you did.

Thanks all for your interest.

Arymay I think I read a great review of yours about Alaska.

 

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Yes...our first cruise to Alaska was so wonderful that we are now planning our second trip...and this time it is going to be a 14-day cruise on the Sun!! :)

Puerto Chacabucco continued:

After our nature walk, we walked up a steep hill. (They had a bus there to take you up the hill). There was a beautiful large dining room/cookhouse BBQ area. We were seated close to the BBQ, and it was pretty hot. We had pisco sours to cool us down. [emoji41] They had red and white wines too.

Then the show started: Traditional Chilean dancers.[emoji1494]. Beautiful! Loved the guys big gaucho boots. We ate the lamb, salad, vegetables, bread and desert. Then we had free time; we took a bottle of red with us and sat on the grassy slope in the dappled sunshine under a tree. (This totally cancelled out the rough start of the trip).

Back to the bus and a quick return to the Sun. Mike was tired and took a nap. I sat out on our wonderful little balcony basking in the sunshine. I was so grateful to be here in South America, enjoying the Andes, the ocean, the scenery and the weather. " I am a lucky girl".

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Next day was a Sea day. These days at sea just seemed to float by. Sometimes I participated in activities but most times I didn't. I liked the lectures on history and cultures; and info on Shore excursions, what we might see the next port day, Spanish classes. I liked the information lectures about the ship and the floating hotel. Our hotel Director Brian "the legend" was great and seemed to be everywhere; asking if our food was good, asking if we were ok.

Every announcement was made in English, Spanish and German. We were sailing not to capacity and were carrying 1700 passengers.

We bought the unlimited internet package. The ships internet was painfully slow. I don't think I'd buy the package again. Waiting for things to load, or waiting for things to send took up a lot of my valuable reading time. We spent a lot of time napping or wildlife viewing on our balcony.

We play a lot in the casino and made friends with all the folks and bartenders who work there. We made friends with our casino host and she showed us videos of her home town in South Africa.

As this was a 14 day trip, the casino was pretty slow on most days, the action picked up in the evening. There were a lot of "regulars" there.

The entertainment was really good. Different show every night. Examples: Tango show, flamenco guitarist, pianist, Beatles tribute, staff talent show, comedian etc.

Our cruise director (?) his name escapes me was from Italy. He was funny. His asst. cruise directors ran many game shows in dazzles lounge.

Normally, I take a ton of pictures of food. I'll insert some from our Alaska trip on the Sun to Alaska 2015.

The food was mostly excellent everywhere on the ship. With the UDP, we ate at Cagnys twice, la cucina, teppanyaki, le Bistro, Moderno. We ate at MDR seven seas about 3 times. We were always happy with our table location, we got lucky and usually they sat us at a window table.

We skipped dinner a couple of times and would sometimes grab a late snack or dinner at the sports bar.

Our favorite place for breakfast was the great outdoors. I liked the fresh cooked eggs and I'd ask for 1 egg over easy on top of country potatoes. I like this better than an omelette, as I can never finish an omelette. The setting is beautiful out there and most days there was little wind, if it was too windy we would take our breakfast into the sports bar to eat.

Usually we were full with just 2 meals a day. The best lunch are the outdoor BBQs. Very fun atmosphere too. We also ate lunch once in the other MDR. Very nice and sophisticated.

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More Sun and food pics:

A lot of the la cucina food pics were from our Alaska trip

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More Sun pics:

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