Help please........

[PaulaJK]

We are once again trying to get to South America!

We seem to get stumped w. the air routes. Would

appreciate all comments re:

 

1.Cruisng from Buenos Aires to Santiago...the fjords, glaciers,etc

-Any worthy ship's excursions?

-Do we miss alot by not setting foot on Antartica itself?

-Any warm weather on this itinerary?

 

 

2.We wish to continue on to Manaus and explore the Amazon.

Recommendations for hotels or programs?

 

3.The air arrangements seem difficult at best. We thought of purchasing

a RT EWR-EZE-EWR and adding SCL-MAO and MAO-EZE...also

tried other routings. Very, very expensive. Any ideas?

[Jim B]

We only did Segment #1 Fort Lauderdale to Manaus but realized that

the airfare was expensive and difficult to try and do on our own so we

went with the Regent Air. Was a smart move because they had two charter

Air Miami planes sitting there for us. Direct flight from Manaus to Miami

[WesW]

Paula, suggest you visit the south america ports link here on cc. there are many guide suggestions (penguins, BA, Santiago, puerto montt, etc) and many cruisers share there experience (good/bad) on the excursions offered. Also, some posts will describe the weather in February...btw...we are also booked on this segment...for air, we used 190,000 ff miles for rt tickets...good luck!

[SnoBirdCruiser]

We did the Buenas Aires to Manaus in Feb.and we also used Regent;s air program due to the problems getting in and out of Manaus.We also did an air deviation using Air canada on a direct flight from Toronto to BA. Regent did a great job.... no complaints from us. Pat.

[SnoBirdCruiser]

Oh forot,we booked Regents pre cruise trip to El Calafete in south Argentina to visit the Perito Morena glacier...an ADVANCING glacier. The weather was hot almost 90 and windy windy windy.Patagonia is really worth visiting.

[RachelG]

If you have FF miles, this would be a great place to use them.

[PaulaJK]

---I would use Regent's air for Manaus. Unfortunately, this cruise embarks in Santiago and debarks in BA. We are trying to go on to Manaus and see some of the Amazon on our own using some day trips and local boats. I couldn't find any Amazon cruise for our Feb-Mar time line.

 

---Thanks for the port reference. Silly me, I had looked for Brazil and Chile...never thought of 'South America'. That topic has a wealth of info.

[Roland4]

-Do we miss alot by not setting foot on Antartica itself?

 

That depends on how adventurous you are. We did the Antarctic landing off Crystal Serenity in February 2007. It is cold and it is windy and there is a lot of walking over very rugged terrain. Our trip also included a Zodiac ride in very choppy water to a penguin rookery, so it was also rather wet. The terrain is about what I would expect the surface of Mars to look like. Having said all that, we are glad we did it. "Tourism" is heavily restricted in Antarctica (for good reason!) and not many people can say they have been there. My wife did end up with a nasty cold though.

[regent traveller]

Try www.kayak.com for suggestions. We ended up using Copa via Panama City to BA and the prices were less on expedia than through the Copa website.