Landing in Antarctica

[dottie50]

Would like to know if anyone has successfully landed on Antartica by plane from Punta Arenas Chile. This shore excursion is offered by Princeess, and we will be there in February 2008. So many others have indicated that this flight often does not run, or make it to Antartica. We would like to do this excursion but worry that if it is cancelled we will be scrambling to book another tour at the last minute. We would not be interested in the optional tour of a national park tour offered by Princess. We would rather go to see penguins, but those tours likely fill up fast. Help!

[Keith1010]

We recently came back from a World Cruise with Crystal Cruise Lines which included South America. As background our cruise included the opportunity for people to book an excursion that landed in Antarctica and our cruise also included sailing close to Antarctica for almost three days. The sailing around a portion of Antarctica was breathtaking.

 

My wife and I did not take the flight to Antarctica but we spoke with another couple who did. Their opinion was that we saw much prettier scenery during our three days off the coast of Antarctica than they saw on their excursion. Evidently, the plane lands in an area that has been covered over with gravel not only for the planes but so that people could walk around the area. They were not very impressed with the excursion and given the cost, the three hour plane ride each way, etc, etc, they were not recommending it.

 

You are correct. There is high probability that the excursionn would not go. Theirs did not go the first day where it was supposed to leave from but the cruise line was able to work with the tour operator to get it rescheduled from a different port of call.

 

On a related note, on another South America trip that we did a couple of years ago we saw the Penguins in Punta Arenas and that experience was fabulous.

 

Keith

[Aussie Gal]

My sister and brother in law did a similar trip when they were down in Punta Arenas on the Amsterdam back in 2005. They had already been to Antarctica and were taking the plane trip as an add on.

 

They only were 2 hours into their trip when the pilot had to turn back as it was just too windy and dangerous to go any further.

 

It it were me, though I too have been to Antarctica and seen the wonderful wildlife and scenery, I would take a tour to Otway Bay and see the penguins. We were there in January last year and there were just so many of them. It was a great experience as we had missed out on two ports due to bad weather. The first was Puerto Madryn and the second was the Falklands so by the time we got to Punta Arenas the whole ship was so looking forward to seeing them up close.

 

Jennie

[getmefive]

Great may i know how much the trip cost and what are the facilities available there ?