Rothko1

Yes, but just barely to the west. When you leave the airport you immediately connect to I-95 and can go south. I will say that traffic between WPB and FLL is absolutely terrible most days. Give plenty of time if you are going by car.

Hi. I was just on the Silver Endeavour in Antarctica. You board the zodiacs from the side of the side (as opposed to the Silver Origin in the Galapagos where you board at the back of the ship on the marina deck). The Captain turns the ship so that typically you will be on the lee side when using the zodiacs. There will always be at least 3 crew assisting you on and off: two people on the ship and one in the zodiac. You do the "sailors grip" which is grasping the forearms; it is very secure. Backpacks or bags get handed in or out after you finish boarding or de-boarding the zodiacs. They put a box in the zodiac which you step onto. Once onboard the zodiac you sit down and then scoot down towards the back of the zodiac to let more people on. Frankly, you never want to be the first people on the zodiac because then you are back near the engine and it will be harder to hear the zodiac driver. Plus, you get better views if you are near the front of the zodiac. So let others board first. When you make a "wet landing" at the shore, you scoot up to the front of the zodiac and they have you swing your legs around first and then exit the zodiac. They usually have boxes there as well for boarding the zodiac. Lots of crew to help you with the wet landings and boardings. The crew is very very experienced at assisting passengers on and off. They will make sure you are fine. There was an older gentleman who could barely walk with a cane, and he was going on the zodiacs with very little problem. You should go on the Endeavour. It is a magnificent ship, and you will have a wonderful and safe adventure.

Just personal, but if it were me, I'd go with 617. Elevator will not be loud, and you are closer the everything.

Yeah, going to Versailles is like going to the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. You just have to do it. After that, you can go explore other options.

West Palm Beach airport is so much nicer and easier than Fort Lauderdale.

Just got back from the Antarctica Bridge trip on the Endeavour. I completely understand the comments about taking the longer cruise and going to the Falklands and South Georgia Islands. But, not having to spend two days on the Drake going over, and two days coming back, was definitely worthwhile. Flying into King George Island can be dicey based on the weather. There was a couple onboard who had been booked on an earlier Bridge cruise who had it cancelled because the planes couldn't land at King George due to weather. Fortunately for us, the weather did cooperate pretty nicely. We were originally told our "window" for flying out was going to be the next day in the afternoon, and then after dinner we got texts and emails that the "window" had moved to 7:00 a.m. in the morning rather than the afternoon and we needed to be downstairs before 5 a.m. A few of the younger folks who were out at a bar in Punta Arenas drinking because they thought they could sleep in the next day got caught off guard by that! The Expedition Leader on the ship showed us wave activity maps that indicated for both a trip over and trip back on the Drake we would have had seas up to 6 meters! It was money well spent avoiding that!

We had the "horizon balcony" on the Silver Origin, and really enjoyed it. It gave us a lot of interior room for the large majority of the cruise when we kept the window up. We would put it down during the daytime for short amounts of time. It worked fine. We weren't bothered by having the outdoors into our cabin, or anything like that. Frankly, we weren't hanging out in our suite much during the daytime - the open decks above were just too lovely. But I do recall several occasions of just lowering the window to look out at the scenery, or the water, or whatever. The part of the room where the balcony would be still had the teak wooden deck, so I remember putting water shoes and other stuff out there to dry, even when the windows were closed. It's an interesting concept, and something you should consider. But to each their own.

Hi. I stayed in 607, so I wasn't near the Stairs/Elevators. But the ship is so small, and there are so few passengers, I very much doubt you will hear much noise from people using the stairs or elevator. On our cruise, everyone was crashing and going to bed right after dinner, so there were no late night partygoers or anything like that. Everyone was too tired to stay up late.

Thanks for all the great information. We are on the Feb 4 trip on Endeavour (Air bridge!), so we are very excited to try out this new ship. Got assigned Cabin 653, a Deluxe Veranda suite, so I am very happy.