tammyjw305

I have to post a few more pictures from the drive from Puerto Chacabuco from my phone

Thanks for writing this review. We are on the Sun for a cruise in the same direction in Feb 2019.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your posts.

It's a great cruise!

I did not take as many notes from tonight. We went to the Argentinean tango dancers show. I had not sold my husband on seeing them in Buenos Aires, so I had to see this. They were very good. After someone tall sat in front of us, we moved to the far side, where I think the opposite side is reserved for suite guests. These were annoying seats with a bar that goes across eye level. We had to lean on it or look under to see. Weird design.

Here is our first towel animal. Before we left home, my husband noted on deck 4 (not across from balconies) we would not have towel animal priority. I thought he was crazy, but he was right. We only got 3 or 4 towel animals on a 15 night cruise. Our room steward came by once and met my husband. I never met him. He kept us in ice, which is good. I had trouble keeping our third towel -- my hair towel. I left a note one night for an extra, one night my husband went out to get one, and one night I did. When I did, a maintenance guy was walking by, so I asked him if I could have another towel. He was fine with it :). On future cruise, I will need to ask at the beginning.

Here is the red bridge that you need to get off the minivan from Puerto Chacabuco after passing. We took this picture from the bus stop (there was a bus stop here) where we caught the minivan back to Puerto Chacabuco. The first minivan was very full, so we waited for the next.

After returning to the three dome tents, we had to catch the port shuttle. The port was not far away, but it seemed secured that one has to enter on the shuttle. Though I do not remember if they looked at our ship key cards before letting us on the shuttle. We stopped to take these pictures, and they seemed to be keeping an eye on us that we did not roam too far. The cruise ship with a beautiful mountain backdrop.

View from the ship

Looking back at Puerto Chacabuco from the ship

Coyhaique is down there

In Coyhaique

We ran into some of our CC roll call friends in Coyhaique. We got the last two seats on the bus back. We were not together; I guess we should have waited. However, there was not much open on Sunday. My husband was entertained by his seat mates. He was in the very back.

March 12 - Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

This was also a tender port; we were in port from 10-6. We arrived on time, so tendering was less crazy. However, I think we decided to get in line just as they paused the tender operation - doh. We had planned taking the bus from Chacabuco to Aysen and the on to Coyhaique. The trip was the destination; I ride through the Andres Mountains.

After tendering, there was a quick xray security. We tried the terminal wi-fi when arriving and leaving and did not have any luck getting on. From the terminal, we loaded a big coach that takes one outside the port gates to the three white dome tent shopping area that others mentioned. We did not go in.

We started looking for the bus to Aysen and started asking people. We caught it walking from the tents, back toward the port gates, and toward the water. There is no bus stop sign or any indication and the bus is really a minivan that people pile in and out of -- it was an interesting experience. It was a $1 US each, and on the way back, we paid in CLP, though I don't remember how much, guessing 500 Pesos. We just handed the driver money when we got off, and we had to ask them to stop when we wanted to stop. We read to get off after passing the red bridge (picture coming). We went a little further before we ask them to stop. Another interesting detail is that stop signs in Mexico say "ALTO", but in S. Amer., they said "PARE". Either probably works with the bus driver.

In Aysen, almost everything was closed because it was Sunday. We had read about 2 bus companies that went to Coyhaique; one was open on Sunday. We found the office (from looking at Google maps street view before) of Buses Suray and bought tickets. Also on our bus from Chacabuco was another couple from the cruise ship, so we looked for the office together. I read to be sure to buy return tickets when you buy your to Coyhaique ticket to be sure to get a seat. As far as we can tell, they could not sell the return ticket; though it may have been our lack of Spanish skills. We paid in CLP, which we planned about $6 / person for a round trip.

This was a big coach with assigned seats, though sparsely labeled, so hard to tell which seat was really which. We had to move once to get to the right set. And, sorry I have pictures from a bus...

The pretty scenery

Granite wall

From my research notes, I believe this waterfall is called Virgin Waterfall

One more note on Puerto Montt -- the tour lists an optional trip up the mountain on ski lift, weather permitting. I wanted to do this and mentioned in email to the tour guides. I found the lift's web site, and it was pricy as far as planning money needs. I contacted them from the web site to ask if they took credit cards. They quickly replied that they did. With the weather and late arrival, we did not get the oppty to go up; sharing if others get the chance.

One more from Puerto Varas

Our guide noted the volcano just got snow the night before. We were on the Pan American highway during the tour.

Then we headed back to port. I forgot that we earlier stopped for lunch before it stopped raining and the clouds cleared. We had empanadas -- beef and chicken. We paid USD for the tour; we collected crisp, unwrinkled and non-written on US dollars. I organized money needs into port labeled envelopes.

When we got back to the port, we tried a call to the kids on hangouts over the port wi-fi. It was Saturday, and they had moved to my parent's house. They were gone to McDonalds with my Mom to eat and play. I talked briefly to my Dad, and it was so hard to hear on both sides so would not have been a good call.

Back on the ship, we had dinner in the MDR; we shared a table with two ladies. I had chicken cordon bleu and volcano cake; my husband had crab and fish cake and a mexican brownie. We played the Majority Rules game and tied for 2nd.

The tour was very good; the scenery was amazing.

We stopped at Puerto Varas, a German community. Here we had free time to explore on our own.

Yay -- the volcano and a bird

A few more of the water fall.

The full time our guide kept up optimism that the mountain would come out. I thought he crazy, but look what is peeking out --

Now, clear skies with just one cloud on top

We stopped at various mountain vantage points as it peeked out.

One more from the green lagoon with my water-proofed husband

Next, we went to the waterfall. It is running through black lava. It was very beautiful with lots of rain

March 11, 2017 - Puerto Montt, Chile

We had a shared group tour booked with www.puertomontt-excursiones.com/en, tour http://www.puertomontt-excursiones.com/en/excursion_OsornoVolcano_Petrohue_TodosLosSantos.htm. The tour provider kept a list of those that had signed up (we did not have to get a group committed or pool money to make one payment -- both were nice to not be in charge of). I did post the tour on our Roll Call after signing up. Some others signed up; we were not all in the same tour. The cost of tour depended on how many were in your group.

In the M&G, we coordinated a time and place to meet with one in each group getting tender tickets. The tour provider provided names and room numbers for those in our group -- if the person agreed to provide that info. For those not in our M&G that we had room numbers for, I called to coordinate or left a vmail.

We got up and met early with an expected 8am arrival. The ship did not make up all the time from the late departure from Valpo, so we waited and waited. The crew provided little cups of water and orange juice. Once they began calling tenders, we were all off and met the guide quickly. It was probably 10 or 10:30 am when we met the guide. There was a covered, enclosed area where we did baggage check and waited. Our guide directed us to the wi-fi details, so we could check on things back home, while we waited to met everyone. There were 2 couples from Canada, one from Scotland, and a family from France.

After we had our group, we had a group of 16, we went out to board the minibus.

It was also rainy, and I very much wanted to see the Osorno volcano with its conical top like Mt. Fuji.

Our first stop was this church

Next up, and I believe we got to take a restroom break here, were our wet alpaca friends

Then we went to the green lagoon

Yes -- it was a great cruise! Your cruise sounds great; I want to do the Panama Canal some day. It is a longer one too, so we have to determine when we can with kids.

We were on NCL. They were collected and stamped with Argentina, Uruguay, and Falklands (we departed from Chile, so were stamped at the airport), but not from Cape Horn. There is not much on Cape Horn; one Chilean station. We were lucky enough to get a certificate about rounding the Horn from the cruise line and they collect Horn water to pour over willing passengers' heads.

Nice pictures! Hope you continue to feel better!

Thanks! We only had one more rough sea day. That time the Captain warned us, and I was prepared and did not have an issue. After that, we had great seas and good weather.

Since I mentioned the Captain, I noticed that I only saw him on the second to last night at the crew introduction session at the goodbye show in the Stardust even though this cruise was twice as long as my normal. I expected to see him at the silver/gold/platinum party and around the ship. He may have been at the q&a with the officers; we did not go to that. I don't know if the route was that much more difficult that he cannot leave the helm as much, maybe he just prefers not to be out and about, or maybe others saw him :). It does not matter either way -- he safely got us to all ports -- just an observation.

Starting the Puerto Montt review tonight.

March 10, 2017 - Sea Day

We woke up to a rocking ship. I quickly took my Meclizine. We went to breakfast at the MDR. After we ordered, I started feeling seasick. Our food came; later our waiter, Rommel, came back to ask if my food was not good. I mentioned not feeling well. He offered to bring me green apples or ginger ale. I accepted the ginger ale. I had eggs over easy, hash browns, and bagel. With the ginger ale and medicine, I was able to eat some. He was my vacation hero (NCL crew member recognition program) since he kept me from getting sick on vacation :).

Next up, we had the CC M&G. It was in Las Rambles. Our organizer created a trivia game based on the posts in our role call; it was fun. The Officers introduced themselves, there were snacks out, and we went around the room to introduce ourselves. Then we had time to meet the people we had planned tours with on the roll call and plan meeting points. Our itinerary had 9 ports, counting both embarkation and disembarkation ports. I'm used to 3 or 4. So, a lot more research was needed, and planning with CC roll call members was great.

I did not take good notes on the afternoon. We like to play trivia and met people playing. We also did some cruise director staff crafts. Today, my husband did martini tasting, and we met new people that we got to hang out with several more times during the cruise.

Tonight was formal night; I wore a new dress that I got for Christmas especially for cruising. We went to the MDR. These were the only pictures that we took that day.

With the rocky seas, the Captain was trying to catch up after we left so late the day before, so sailing fast and I heard without the stabilizer bar. We had slowed down by dinner time. My husband had clam linguini, and I had the Caesar salad, N.Y. strip steak, and the volcano cake. The Caesar salad now has chicken. I'm not normally a fan of cold chicken on salad, but it grew on me. It also has both crotons and a slice of crusty bread -- very good. The volcano cake is also my favorite and was on the menu each night! When it was on the menu on the past, it did not come with ice cream, so I would request it added. Now, it comes with "Stracciatella" ice cream, which I was going to google when I got home but have not. It had chocolate flakes and was very good. I requested no strawberry syrup each time; I'm bad and don't each my fruits and vegs. It was the best!

Us at dinner

Thanks so much for this boarding info. We will be doing the same in Feb. 2018 for Valpo to Miami on NCL Sun, so this is very helpful!

Great! Hopefully port strikes are rare, and you will have better luck. If not rare, bring snacks and water! There was a place in the terminal selling food; the cruise line was not providing snacks, like I have seen in the past. Talking to someone else, they had received an email or text that there was a delay and to come later. We did not know until after we were checked in and heard the first announcement.

Our room was ready since we boarded so late. From the bus, it looked like our luggage was still sitting there. However, it did not take too long to get our luggage--we had it after dinner, so it must have been another wave after us. We were starving, so we went up to the buffet for a small snack to hold us over and enjoy on the deck at the Great Outdoors. I had the Moderno (Brazilian steakhouse) reserved for dinner at 6:30 pm. My thinking was that we would not be full yet from too much cruise food everywhere and would be hungry. We were hungry. We went to check the reservation since we were not sure how the delayed schedule with muster drill needed would impact it. They noted that we were reserved and did not seem concerned about the muster drill. My husband planned to wear what he was wearing, and I had my dress in my carry on. We went to our dinner reservation and were the only ones there the full time, which is a little odd for a Brazilian steakhouse since they normally walk around with meat on a stick and use the "go" and "stop" bringing more signs. They just brought us two of every to our table. We read about the cod in the banana leaf; my husband requested one. After we tried everything, our waitress, who spotted us and said hi several other times during the cruise, asked what our favorite was, and she brought us each our favorite. My favorite was the garlic beef. Filet is normally my favorite but not here. I was not a big fan of the rib, both pork and beef. My husband like the beef ribs. He had the papaya dessert. I skipped dessert after eating so much meat. It was good. We finished just in time for the muster drill announcements. Our waitress was pulled away before we left for the drill.

Muster drill was in four languages, which made it longer. Other than that it was fine. One of dancers was running our station and kept it light and amusing.

After the drill, we unpacked and then walked the promenade. At about 10:30 pm, they still had lots of crates to load on the ship -- onions, sodas, mattresses, etc. We went to bed about 11:15, and we had not left yet. Someone mentioned 11:30, so not much after.

Since this was our 4th time on the NCL Sun, I did not take many ship pictures. If you have questions, I can try to answer them or may be able to find a previous picture, if you want to see something in particular.

This embarkation was the worst that we have had. The bus arrives, and others had arrived and were waiting too. Our luggage went in the back, and off to the terminal we went. At the terminal, we did not see the porters to drop our luggage, so we went inside to look around. We were directed to the other side of the building to drop our luggage. Normally, I thought they put it on the crates that were lifted onto the ship later, but it was all lined up on the pavement (in the heat) by tag color. We went back inside to check in. We completed the health forms where there was a huddle and a bunch on a table. We hoped for a gold/platinum check in, we asked some people, no one knew of one. We got in the line with about 6 rows of turns and overflowing past that. I saw a person with a clipboard; we were not on the list. Someone else we talked to was platinum and had a suite, so we guessed it was suites and above only.

They do take your passports as others have warned. All was fine with them. That is the first time that we have had our passports taken. Compared to the customs experience and wait in Russia, this may have been the better approach. After check in, she handed us boarding number 8 with no indication of where to go or when we might board, so I asked where to go and if they had platinum priority boarding. She motioned in the general direction of nothing. We left and found two empty chairs and found an empty spot to put them and wait. Finally later, they announced that the ship did not have berth; a container ship was in the berth. They had tendered some previous guests off. Maybe another hour before it had the berth. We heard later it was a port strike, so there was no one to complete the container ship work and move it. All seemed operational the night before when we ate dinner there; we saw semis taking away big spools that were craned off the container ship.

When it was able to dock, they had to get the other 1500 guests off. Then we were in the way of guests trying to find their luggage. It was warm in terminal with an occasional breeze and sometimes smokey breeze from the open doors. When they started boarding us, they called group 1 and 2. After much silence, there was another announcement, only in Spanish this time, that we heard "uno". Wait...uno has already been called...did you mean tres??? No more announcements; my husband started walking around to ask people that looked like they might know. No one did. Others were being told that they were boarding group 6 and walking over to the boarding. The boarding area was a huge huddle of people; I don't know why they did not ask those not in the called group number or the group number that they thought they were currently boarding to go sit down.

We got to the terminal about noon. We had not had lunch; we had some snacks from the grocery store while in Vina del Mar. We have a tradition of have lunch in the MDR right after boarding. We did not get on timely this time and in our previous cruise in Alaska departure, was scheduled so late that they did not open the MDR for lunch. This tradition is taking quite a hit :(!

We had not gone through security yet; from our experience, this is at the terminal to entrance. So, it seems like this portion could have been completed already. We finally just went to the huddle to try to find out what was happening. We started talking to someone; her husband had gone to ask someone. He learned that they got through group 7 and now just letting everyone board. Oh fun, a free for all... We were now in a pack... After security, waited for bus and rode to the ship. It is a crazy port; traffic jams driving around stacked containers, forklifts, and semis moving containers. Finally onboard at 5:30 pm.

Flower clock

We found a Metro station closer to where we had walked -- it was getting hot at this point -- and rode back. We looked for the path to the cruise terminal when we went past Baron Station, where we read to get off. We went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage; this worked well. I had asked on CC before going if we should leave it at the hotel or if we could drop it off at the cruise terminal before going to Vina del Mar. Leaving at the hotel was the right advice.

Now the train back to Baron Station. The train was still not crowded; this time we handled back the Metro card and handed over luggage. There was a couple from Germany also going to the ship. Walked through the path; it looks under construction but maybe it always looked this way. We starting walking toward the the direction of the terminal, which one could not see for the construction. A guard stopped us and directed us the other way. A group on the other side noted a bus coming in 10 mins. My husband decided 10 mins is code for they do not when the bus is coming. They were very accommodating offering chairs and space under their canopy for shade. They really did not have much room in the shade though. Lots of buses came through, and we were not convinced that we were in the right place. They seemed to be selling something too; though maybe they were representing some group travel looking for those that had signed up. It did take a long time for the bus to come. I took this picture of the Albatross in the bus waiting area:

Continuing our walk on the coast

The ship getting fueled

Wulff Castle

Egret maybe?

I wanted to see the Easter Island head at Museo Fonck (this is the only authentic Moai on display off of Easter Island) and the Flower clock. Following offline google maps, off we went.

In one of my previews of the post, I lost the blue font on the header. However, I have received criticism from both my husband and 8 year old that in blue and underline, it looked like a link. So, I just left it black.

Thursday, March 9, 2017 - Embarkation day

We set our alarm to be able to get. Today was embarkation day, but first we had a trip to Vina del Mar planned. I borrowed a plug adapter from the hotel for my curling iron. Ours were not the right one. They had in their room documentation that they loan them; though hard to request in English. We ate some of our trail mix for breakfast.

We got all packed up, and the hotel held our luggage for us. We went out to the port area, where we had eaten our empanada the previous day, to look for the cruise ship. No cruise ship in sight, and finally, we found it floating in the middle of the ocean in the distance. Hum, okay (more on that later). See it in the distance:

We then went to the mall to use the ATM and buy our subway pass. Our ATM card refunds ATM fees and did kindly refund the crazy fees in S. Amer. For the Metro pass, we determined how much we needed for two people to get to and from Vina del Mar and then to the port from the hotel after picking up luggage later. This is where the Metro card itself was more than expected from our research, or they cheated us...who knows. We planned for 2000 for one Metro card; we read we can scan in one person and pass it back for the second person to scan in. This worked fine. The cost of the ride is based on where you get on and get off and maybe also time of day like Santiago. And we planned that we needed 2526 total for rides. The exchange rate was 650 CLP (Chilean Pesos) to $1 when we went, so the total is big number that is hard to catch in Spanish. In several places, they typed the total on a calculator and showed it to us. This seemed low tech, but was affective.

This Metro was not very crowded and much more pleasant. It ran above ground (vs. Santiago's underground) along the coast. Ship from the Metro on the way to Vina del Mar:

After a short rest at the hotel, we headed out to Ascensor Concepcion. It was closed for construction, so we walked up stairs instead. We read the Ascensors are an experience not be missed, but oh well. It is a city built in layers. There were more stray dogs and views of the Pacific. We got baked empanadas from a street vendor and ate by the water. We also stopped at the mall and got some groceries, particular bottled water. Our hotel was very close to the mall with grocery store and a metro station. Now, it was time to go back to the hotel, call the kids with hangouts over wi-fi, shower, and sleep -- yay!

Comandancia en Jefe de la Armada

This was crazy; does not see up to code.

Plaza Sotomayor