OlsSalt

Don't know if you have already explored the Great Courses offering on early South American history, but this was one of our own favorites. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/lost-worlds-of-south-america We had to watch it several times, just sort out the new names of prior civilizations and their timelines. This had been an unexplored knowledge area for us before we started cruising into this area. We were left dazzled by what we learned, and even more by how little we had known about the sophistication of the prior civilizations, that got their start in this narrow strip of land between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. We had a fairly shallow history about the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas, primarily from our school years, but nothing much before that. The Olmec, the mysterious Nazca lines - all more sensationalized smatterings but without any real context. Had never even heard of the Chan Chan or Moche. We are signed up for the modest annual subscription rate for streaming Great Courses - Wondrium - through Roku. For us, that has to be the biggest bargain in life long learning we have found anywhere. Their range of courses are now always part of any pre-cruise planning. Hope you have a wonderful time exploring this rich area and looking forward to your report when you get back - all part of the many surprises when taking those long South Africa cruises, that go well beyond the more obvious and popular must see Machu Picchu.

Gateway port to many incredible pre-Columbian civilization archeological sites: Chan Chan as mentioned, as well as monumental Moche sites. Don't sell this port short, if you have any interest at all in the incredible layers of pre-Incan civilizations that thrived for eons in this area. One after another,

Late fixed dining in the upper dining rooms have tended to be dressier - by choice of those who like to dine later.

I correct myself - my own preference was for Hubbard Glacier over Glacier Bay, which is not even offered in this choice. Lost track of the various Alaska offerings, after too many trips up this way. In fact, I have never been to Tracy Arm, so please disregard my prior preference of this option. Though that small boat excursion at Tracy Arm sounds like a really good thing to do. Hope to get there someday myself.

Formal nights are as formal as you want to make them. Every time we read here that "no one dresses up"..... on Caribbean cruises......, on Mexican Riviera cruises......, Alaska cruises .... we find just the opposite . Plenty still do, and it is fun. Just nothing mandatory any longer, but no one has taken this fun aspect out of the cruise experience. Enjoy it.

Two trips down to this area - all drive-bys - but still fabulous, Saw lots of penguins from the ship on land, beaches and on icebergs, as well as "dolphining" penguins very near the ship. Tons of whales too. But the best walk among the penguins for drive-by cruises was on the Falklands Islands very rugged 4X4 adventure out to a rookery with thousands of tall, elegant King penguins, as well as others. The chicks were molting, looking very pudgy in their tattered raccoon coats. The sounds and smells of the penguins is not to be forgotten. There is also a shorter bus trip excursion across the Falkland Island to the Bluff Cove family farm which runs a smaller penguin reserve site, where they also had the very best penguin themed souvenirs - very high quality stuff. https://www.falklandpenguins.com/shop/ Sadly the downtown Super Penguin store in port is now all cheap Chinese made stuff, and pretty generic.

One benefit I always mention is when you pick another cruise line, you get to take photos of the beautiful HAL ships in the background of your Glacier Bay shots. Otherwise if you are on the HAL ship, you get stuck with some other brand's ugly duckling ships in your money shots. 🤢

On one long cruise going throughout the Indian Ocean, I picked up an eye infection. DH is a retired ophthalmologist so he went into a local pharmacy in Mauritius Island, and found they were willing to sell him a particular brand of RX medicated eyedrops, just showing his US physician ID card. That was a nice surprise. But the biggest surprise, that he never got over was how little the RX eye drops cost in Mauritius, compared to what US patients had to pay.

Depending on where you are traveling, you can often get many US prescriptions over the counter at very low prices in many parts of the world. Brand names or generics. That is also one back-up option if this meets your own comfort level. Considering today many of our US medicines come from foreign manufacturers anyway. Malta was one of the most comprehensive located right at the port, with full English language support. I had a real romp one very long cruise looking for a particular brand of contact lens cleaner -heavy and bulky to pack sufficient fluid supplies. Checked every port and was close to the end of the cruise in Malaysia and ready to give up. But I thought what the heck, and there it was finally. Bausch and Lomb. I lived in Europe a number of years, so using "foreign" purchased drugs are not a big problem for me. They like to be healthy too.

Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay in one cruise is a good deal if you want serious glacier viewing. We liked personally Tracy Arm better than Glacier Bay. So both would be fine choices. Go for the ship you like best. Nothing wrong with the Volendam, hard to really evaluate "negative reviews" - some seem so petty and even mean-spirited over some trivial matter. The smaller ship the better for us, since it is easier to get from one side of the ship to the other incase of any wildlife spotting. Also depends on where you are leaving from: Vancouver or Seattle? And are you avoiding the Sunday to Sunday 7 day crowds when multiple ships can be in port at the same time, or does one ship leave mid-week. I also like the enclosed glass dome Lido pool area on the Volendam for a warm viewing retreat. Plus the numbers of windows in the public passages and other public viewing spaces on HAL ships keeps you in close contact with Alaska itself. (MDR, CrowsNest.) Don't know about your other ship's open spaces and public viewing opportunities.

Even without mobility issues, we would take the elevator to one of the a public decks and use it traverse our way across the ship. Then take the closest elevator back to our cabin deck. We never felt the need to ever do this on the smaller ships. This obviously was a round about way to get around the Pinnacle class ship (Konigsdam), but we simply did not like trekking down those endless narrow hallways either. That was our fix when facing those long hikes. We did find the three banks of Pinnacle elevators were speedy, quiet and never required a long wait. Plus there were a remarkable number of room service trays left in the hallways, making one more impediment for anyone using a scooter. These could have been "covid cabin" trays, so this may be a new reality on all HAL ships now when they still require quarantine.

Just finished reading 'Under the Ice" about the recent high-tech discovery of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition ship the Endeavor, which sank over 100 years ago. Upright and much of it still intact, after disappearing through the Waddell Sea ice floes with only the crudest location reference points. The sinking of Shackleton's Endurance certainly created one of the grandest survival and rescue stories of the last century. A sobering reminder when one travels among these desolate south polar islands. How long could any of us last eating hard tack and boiled penguins meat? But they all did.

The South America -Antarctic cruise is one of our favorites. Even just the South America part is worthy of repeats. You are making a very good choice for yourself.

It is typically closed. And creates a wonderful, toasty sun room for viewing. Instead of passengers typically facing the pool, what you now see are their backs as now everyone is watching the outside view.

Have you been following the thread that is going on right now, from a Vista-class ship passenger who is doing a similar long Japan cruise from the West Coast? He is a very critical observer, so you will get all the high points and low points. (Zuiderdam is a similar Vista class ship.)

You are on to something. I see few more Goldilocks cruises are in your future, just to make sure you get it just right. 😁

Sorry, it does appear confusing right now, and I can't help out on how they are getting marketed. But I did want to add that doing only a "drive by" cruise, instead of a boots on the ground expedition cruise, is still and incredible adventure when it comes down to the large price differences between these various offerings called "Antarctica. One really does need to do a spread sheet because of the variables - where does the cruise leave from and return to; does it also go to the Falkland Islands, does it also include South Georgia. What are the extra costs if you do landings - what equipment do you need to buy or rent or is it included. It does take time to sort out all the options. So you are doing the right thing right now ....trying to make sense of what is out there. Bottom line, if you can fund an expedition cruise with actually landings, that narrows down the choices. But if you can be content with just a "drive by" then see what else is included and how deep you actually get to go into the "Antarctic" region. This would be two lists - (1) expedition and (2) drive-by, for the minimal level of initial sorting. There are some websites who help you sort this out too.

Had to try the Pinnacle class, after years mainly on beloved S and R class HAL ships. One and done. Zero appeal.

Agree, my error but too late to edit. Thank you.

Keep in mind the passenger mix may also vary greatly on the shorter cruises to the Caribbean, no matter which HAL ship you take when compared to the passenger mix you will encounter on a longer HAL cruise.. The longer HAL cruises will attract older, quieter, more self-contained "travelers" who are more itinerary oriented; than just short term destination oriented. These longer cruises do earn the more sleepy reputation for HAL ships. They also have many more at-sea days too -which again is another element that will not be replicated when trying out any HAL ship on the shorter- more port intensive runs. The newer larger ships have a higher onboard active entertainment value, but for me that would wear very thin on a 50 day cruise commitment if it were even offered. One needs to have a pretty keen interest in where one is going on the longer cruises, and be more content with enrichment lectures and even films as substitutes for more active onboard entertainment. Which 50 day cruise are you looking at? Any Trans-Pacific cruise will have very long at-sea stretches. Though heading north across Alaska to Russia Far East and Japan has fewer vast ocean passages. Trans-Atlantic ones, not as much as Tales of the South Pacific routes where they cannot be avoided. The longer full South America cruises again have more port stops. The 50 Day Holland to Singapore was such a vast sweep of civilizations that grew up along its shores, any at sea days were in fact welcomed.

I second liking Grand Turk - mainly for what it does not offer - it is very low key, very local, and yes, more than a little run down but with some charming historic architectural remains of its past colonial life. There are beautiful beaches and views along the way into town --but this does require getting outside of the purpose-built port recreation facilities. We walked into the main town from the port - took a taxi back, but there are fun little golf carts to rent as well outside of the port. You see the wild burros, wild desert-type landscapes and even the Mercury space capsule which landed nearby, in the early days of the US space age.

Since you are doing thorough research on this choice, one other consideration is to track "who is in port" with each ship on your itinerary. Various online websites track this port calendar information. If you like crowds or if you hope to have a more quiet port experience, this can differ greatly, if you are sharing Caribbean ports with some of the other behemoth ships from other cruise lines.

Unfortunately you will have very different HAL experiences on all three ships, so doing a trial run before committing to a later 50 day HAL cruise will not be instructional. I assume the 50 day cruise will be on one of the smaller HAL ships, so I would pick the smaller Zuiderdam to get the best feel of what to expect for a much longer HAL cruise commitment. We personally will always chose the smaller (older) HAL ships and the longer cruises over the newer ones which often do the shorter runs. We now have over 600 days under HAL's care, so that is my own bias. But you do give up a lot of more glitzy onboard amenities on the smaller, older ships. While other quieter charms of the older ships have been taken away on the newer larger ones - missing on the newer ones are the full 360 wide promenade decks, ofter with loungers, the onboard libraries, smaller easier to navigate deck plans, more sense of intimacy and interaction with staff and crew, ability to access more remote ports, more quiet nooks and crannies onboard to explore. Good question, and one that would have been easier to answer in the past, but the range of onboard experiences now on HAL ships is too varied today - from newer and larger ships, to the older more traditional ships - one size no longer fits all within the family of HAL ships.

If you get to small town Homer Alaska, be sure to visit the Nomar shop - we still use the market bag we got several years ago - excellent stuff - which they call their 'Laska luggage" . Only a few sites to see on the school bus "shuttles" they run when cruise ships come in to this very small town, but one school bus stop is close to Nomar - what a find: https://nomaralaska.com/collections/laska-luggage

How about this one - we stopped cruising one higher end line because the service level was too high to the point of being annoying and intrusive. And the food was too rich and fussy, to be a waste if we did not eat it all. Such a problem, eh? The line was just more deluxe than was our own tastes and comfort levels. So we did not stop cruising with them because they were bad; just the opposite - they were "too good". (And much pricier for those extras, that we simply found we did not really want or even like.) Bonus, we got to cruise probably three to four times more days with HAL than had we stuck with the higher service line. That was our value-added tradeoff.