caledonmango

I’ve just sent you an email to see if your offer is still available. Since it’s from a hotmail account, it may go to your junk email.

Thanks. We’re so fortunate we can travel to essentially the ends of the world, and still hope to reach home in 24 hours with no more than two connections. 😉

We are taking our first Seabourn cruise in June. It is the June 20 Svalbard Experience on Venture that arrives in Tromso on June 30. We are making our own flight arrangements, as we are doing a tour of Scotland before the cruise. I need advice from anyone who has done this cruise whether it is possible to make an 11:25 flight out of Tromso, which gives us the best connections for getting back home. Thanks.

Thanks so much. We will ask the concierge what taxi app to download. Since we have 3 days I think we will do the HOHO bus day 1 (glad we can just walk to it), and book a Valparaiso tour one day, and a winery tour the last day. Will probably just book with Viator as they all sound very similar. I’ve been looking forward to this since January and really hope to see a penguin. Glad you enjoyed your trip. It’s so wonderful to finally be traveling again!

Thanks, this is so helpful. We will be there next week before leaving for Antarctica, and will definitely try the Pizzeria Tiramisu. Silly question, but are we safe to eat the lettuce salads there? We’re really careful about using only bottled water. I know the hotels are generally safe for ice, etc, but just wondering about restaurants.

I know this is off topic, but we are on the Dec 2 sailing, and no one has contacted us yet to pay the balance for the cruise. Have they sent you a bill yet? I booked directly with Silverseas - first time cruising with them, but maybe using a TA would have been a better idea in retrospect. I’ve reserved at the MO, but I guess I’d better book at the Ritz as well.

We booked economy seats with Delta using our credits, then were offered a cash upgrade to Business for the long-haul portion of our trip (Atlanta to Buenos Aires) for a decent price - considerably less than if we had booked our whole trip in Business. When we had to change over to Santiago, we were able to get the credits we had used back to apply to Santiago, but the fine print says that cash upgrades are not eligible for refunds or changes. However, I’m not faulting Delta. This will be the 4th time we’ve tried to fly with them. They’ve been the best airline out of 4 we’ve dealt with for Covid cancellation issues over the last couple of years. I did look into just taking a flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, but just felt 2 connection, both outbound and inbound, with lengthy layovers, and increased probability of lost luggage was worse than biting the bullet and taking the loss. And we are really, really looking forward to this trip!

It's now the 16th of September and I still do not know what hotel will be used in Santiago. We booked directly with Silversea, and when I contacted the TA who booked the cruise, she replied it would either be the Mandarin or the RItz. Since we booked our air on our own (lots of credits for cancelled covid trips we need to use up), we won't book extra nights through Silversea. I've booked at a good price with the Mandarin, and I guess I will also book at the Ritz, and then just cancel one when we find out. However, it is a bit frustrating, and this is our first cruise with Silversea. We were also out a couple of thousand dollars in air upgrades when Silversea switched from Buenos Aires/Ushuaia to Santiago/Puerto Williams. (sigh)

We are on the Dec 2 Silver Cloud Antarctic expedition cruise. Does anyone know what hotel Silversea will use in Santiago, as we want to spend a couple of days there on our own pre-cruise, and would like to book in at the same hotel.

Sounds like you are having a wonderful trip! All of the information is so useful. When you were in Denali, had you booked all of your excursions and dinner show ahead of time, or did there seem to be ample availability to book once you arrived there?

We are really enjoying your pictures and descriptions. We are sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam on June 19, followed by a 6 night land tour, so the descriptions of the hotels, meals and tours is very helpful! Looking forward to reading more, especially since this is our first trip to Alaska.