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Flying first class


der110
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I have chronic back trouble which pretty much requires me to fly first class. As best as I can tell, if you want to go ashore in Antarctica, you need to take a ship from the southern tip. But no planes fly there that have first class. Am I missing anything?

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I have chronic back trouble which pretty much requires me to fly first class. As best as I can tell, if you want to go ashore in Antarctica, you need to take a ship from the southern tip. But no planes fly there that have first class. Am I missing anything?

 

Not sure where you are flying from but we booked air in business class. Many of those flights have seats that go into beds. I always book business or first class. We are flying from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile via Houston on United. We overnight at a hotel in Santiago and then there is a charter flight that will fly us to Ushuaia where we get the cruise. We booked with Silversea.

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It is that charter flight that is the problem. That is all coach, right? And I could not find commercial flights down there with first class.

Just a thought, if you are not able to make a 3.5 hour flight in a coach seat, would you be able to get the medical clearance questionnaire document needed from your health care provider that the ship's require for Antarctica expeditions?

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Just a thought, if you are not able to make a 3.5 hour flight in a coach seat, would you be able to get the medical clearance questionnaire document needed from your health care provider that the ship's require for Antarctica expeditions?

 

Good question. Probably. The problem is being stuck in a small coach seat where I can barely move for hours. That problem would not exist on the ship. I wonder a bit, though, about bouncing around on an inflatable to go ashore. I might be better off taking a cruise line from Santiago that goes through Antarctica, even though it will pain me not to be able to go ashore.

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Sorry but there are many cruises from Santiago to Antarctica with shore landings. We were on Seabourn in Dec/Jan 24 days with five days (landings in Antarctica) and three days of landings in South Georgia Island and ending in Buenos Aires.

 

 

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Sorry but there are many cruises from Santiago to Antarctica with shore landings. We were on Seabourn in Dec/Jan 24 days with five days (landings in Antarctica) and three days of landings in South Georgia Island and ending in Buenos Aires.

 

 

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Thanks! When I checked, that did not seem to be the case. I must have looked in the wrong places.

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Sorry but there are many cruises from Santiago to Antarctica with shore landings. We were on Seabourn in Dec/Jan 24 days with five days (landings in Antarctica) and three days of landings in South Georgia Island and ending in Buenos Aires.

 

 

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I emailed my travel agent last night in regards to OP's post, to see if she knew of some options that could work, and when I woke up this morning I had similar information. She said Seabourn has several sailings a season that sail from larger cities on the South American continent that could work, such as Buenos Aires, Santiago/Valparaiso. She said the sailings are a bit longer, given the distances covered, of course. With Seabourn it will skew a bit higher in pricing but is top of the line.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Not sure how well your back will stand up to the crossing of the Drake passage!

 

Unless you have the type of crossing that we did with Celebrity this past February. Basically smooth sailing both ways. It was amazing and, according to several crew members we talked to, rather unprecedented compared to past trips they've been on.

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I have chronic back trouble which pretty much requires me to fly first class. As best as I can tell, if you want to go ashore in Antarctica, you need to take a ship from the southern tip. But no planes fly there that have first class. Am I missing anything?

 

Not sure which airlines you've looked at. We went with Aerolineas Argentinas and flew first class to BA. I don't believe you can fly any larger planes from there down to Ushuaia, which, as you pointed out, is where most ships depart from. Despite some rather poor reviews of this airline that are out there, we thought it was fantastic. I don't plan on doing any flights of 10+ hours anymore without going first or business class. Well worth it. And, what really made it nice is that the price was not all that bad compared to many other domestic airlines.

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We flew Aerolineas Argentinas (AR) from Miami to Ushuaia via a plane change in Buenos Aires (EZE). Business all the way; A330 MIA-EZE and 737-800 to USH. During peak times AR adds on an A340 between EZE and USH. EZE is the Buenos Aires international airport. Flights also occur from the domestic airport Jorge Newbury (AEP). If you overnight in Buenos Aires AEP is closer to downtown. Be careful booking since some "through" flight schedules entail a transfer between airports.

 

The AR flights were excellent. The A330/A340 have "angled flat" seats in Business which I find better for sleeping than the fully flat. The 737-800 is essentially US First Class. Big plus: reserve early and the cost can be significantly less than Delta for the same routing which puts you on the AR flight as a code-share.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Glad to hear someone else had a great experience with AR. I was truly hesitant since, as I mentioned before, there were so many people who posted bad reviews on places like trip advisor. It makes me wonder how things were back in coach class since those seats are the ones that people really had bad things to say about.

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