Ship/cabin choice for Antarctica cruise

[Wildcat85]

4 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

 

The only point I was trying to make here is medical evacuation is impossible until you are in helicopter range of South America so it does not matter what insurance you have.  

 

So part of my frustration is that I paid for evacuation and repatriation insurance costs based on a location of Antarctica — not Ushuaia. A location of the latter would have brought the cost down. These cruise lines should make clear these details and tell you that the ship will turn around if someone - anyone —is seriously injured and no one will be air lifted off the ship or the Pennisula.  They should tell you repatriation would be from South America. Btw I did see a helipad on a Quark expedition ship docked at Ushuaia. 

[CDNPolar]

2 minutes ago, Wildcat85 said:

So part of my frustration is that I paid for evacuation and repatriation insurance costs based on a location of Antarctica — not Ushuaia. A location of the latter would have brought the cost down. These cruise lines should make clear these details and tell you that the ship will turn around if someone - anyone —is seriously injured and no one will be air lifted off the ship or the Pennisula.  They should tell you repatriation would be from South America. Btw I did see a helipad on a Quark expedition ship docked at Ushuaia. 

 

I agree with you fully on what you are saying.

Yes, some ships have helipads on them, but you are only able to evacuate within flying range of the ship to South America, and only if weather permits.  The typical distance a helicopter can fly from land for evacuation is about 200 miles.

 

Where we typically cruise in Antarctica there is no airstrip close enough to manage an evacuation.

 

With our evacuation, they first wanted to evacuate the passenger by helicopter but the winds were too high.  Then they were going to try ship to ship and the waves were too high.  We had no option but to return to Ushuaia.

[CDNPolar]

The cruise line should be more specific about evacuation insurance.

[PghCruiser84]

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

 

The only point I was trying to make here is medical evacuation is impossible until you are in helicopter range of South America so it does not matter what insurance you have.  

 

Oh, and to the best of my knowledge, all ocean going passenger cruise ships are required to have body bags and a morgue capable of storing a body for minimum of one week.

Didn’t know that, but I guess it makes sense. 

[CruiserNovice123]

A few other questions (a bit off topic to original question about cabin choice, but still related to Antarctic cruise on Hurtigruten) :

 

1) Either on the way in or way out, do you get a tour of Ushuaia ? We are consider opting out of flight back to BA and spending some more time in Patagonia. If we did that, we are wondering if we should stay a night in Ushuaia before pushing on, likely to El Calafate or leave the evening of our retuen to Ushuaia ?

 

2) We will  travel to Torres del Paine after the cruise, likely through El Calafate which is near the glacier Perito Moreno.  Should we go see Perito Moreno or will it be underwhelming when we have just returned from Antarctica

 

3) What are laundary turn around times on the ship; wondering about how many change of clothes we need to pack ?  We are booked on a suite, for what its worth.

 

4) Any thoughts on skipping the flight back to BA and setting out on our own ?  Any complexities that perhaps I am not thinking of ?  Or should we come back with Hurtigurten to BA and then continue on (we are headed for TDP in Chile, so we could go to Chile and then on to TDP from there).

[CDNPolar]

We arrived in Ushuaia very early as we were a 6am flight from BA.  All we got was a bus ride through the town and then dropped off.  We found our own restaurant for lunch and basically walked around.  We were far too early for embarkation and had to return to the bus by a certain time and driven to the ship which was a stones throw, but we were told in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS to NOT walk to the ship, only go with the bus.  I don't think they want you on board before a certain time.

 

Cannot answer most of your other questions...

 

The flight back to BA from Ushuaia is part of the cruise fare, so you could forego that but you won't get any refund or discount.  I guess that it really depends on whether you want to spend time in BA or not and whether the flight or transport to Chile is more from Ushuaia or BA?