Flexibility. Flexibility. Flexibility. More than thermal base layers, waterproof pants, gloves and a nice warm hat, flexibility is the most important thing to pack for your expedition to Antarctica. This is not a sailing where a guest can feel entitled to launch a major hissy fit when they experience an unexpected change in itinerary. In fact, there’s no itinerary at all. Aboard the maiden voyage of Atlas Ocean Voyages’ World Voyager, our itinerary stated that we’d sail …
The Right Ship for the White Continent Since its debut only two years ago, Atlas Ocean Voyages, the luxury/expedition arm of Portugal-based Mystic Cruises, best known for its fleet of riverboats, has intrigued this small-ship fan. The line launched in 2021 with World Navigator and World Traveller followed in 2022. My sailing today is the maiden voyage of the line’s third yacht, the 9,935 grt, 198-guest World Voyager which, on Antarctica sailings, has a guest capacity of …
Are we there yet? My 10-hour nonstop American Airlines flight delivers me from JFK to Buenos Aires where, thankfully, Atlas Ocean Voyages has arranged a free overnight hotel stay at the lovely Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Conference Center. Tomorrow, our charter flight to Ushuaia, considered “the end of the world” thanks to its southernmost location, departs. My transfer to the hotel is punctual and I sip the bottled water provided as we speed along highways to …
Think Antarctica would leave you cold? Think again! The vista is a desolate and icy wilderness, barren and yet abundant. Drifts of snow stretch on forever atop craggy rock formations and across vast, glittering ice fields. Towering glaciers reach from sea to sky, blinding white to the deepest blue. Hulking icebergs jut up from the water’s surface like mighty alabaster sculptures, calved chunks of them floating lazily across the surface of the frigid turquoise waters. In the …
Explora Journeys’ Michelin-Star Dining Concept is a Taste of Perfection Explora Journeys’ EXPLORA I has just sailed from Boston as I enter Anthology for dinner this evening. The setting is a relatively narrow space done in tones of gray and white with chrome pillars and spherical ceiling fixtures casting a warm glow. The bustling kitchen is visible through framed plexiglass on one side of the venue while, on the other, sparkling windows provide an ocean view. Each …
Crystal Serenity stands majestically at her dock at New York City’s Pier 88–the first time she’s visited the Big Apple since the pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt. But for Crystal Cruises, that halt was particularly damning, with Genting Hong Kong, the line’s parent company, filing for bankruptcy and liquidation in 2022, moves partially triggered by the cessation of cruising. Crystal Serenity (along with sister ship Crystal Symphony) found herself dead in the water–literally–until Abercrombie …
Expedition and Traditional Cruising Combine for an Experience That Appeals to…Everyone! I am luxuriating in the steamy, bubbling waters of Viking Polaris’ thermal pool, a powerful jet trained on the sore hip that I woke with after dancing a bit too enthusiastically at the ship’s Living Room last night. On the opposite side of the deck, at Expedition Central, a group of my shipmates are huddled around an extensive collection of wildlife skulls, listening as one of …
” It feels as though all the beauty, wonder, charm and history of this largely undiscovered area are ours alone” Hebridean Princess sails gracefully beneath a sunset streaked with orange, purple and gold. I stand on deck and am captivated by the awe-inspiring beauty of the Hebridean Islands, one of the most remote outposts of the British Isles. Mountains, carved from Lewisian gneiss, the most ancient rock in Britain, reach to the sky while in the crystal blue …
I arrive in Civitavecchia to find it bustling with cruise ships but easily spot the newcomer among them: Oceania Cruises’ Vista, the first ship of the line’s new Allura class vessels. At 67,000 grt and holding 1,200 passengers and 800 crew, she is smaller than the behemoths that surround her, a streamlined picture of elegance. Yet, as I board the all-balcony newbuild, I find myself fearing change. I worry that, like so many other cruise lines, Vista …
Battlefields, Blues and Biscuits…A Beauty of a Riverboat “My mailing address might be elsewhere, but this is where I call home.” Those words were among the first I heard from my American Queen shipmate, Bill, a jolly Ohioan who has more than 20 voyages on the steamboat booked through the end of 2023. And he’s not alone in his devotion. From the moment I board American Queen in New Orleans for a 7-day “President’s Cruise” up the …
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