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We are with HX on the MS Fridtjof Nansen currently crossing the Drake Passage where it’s somewhere between Lake and a gentle Shake.
So far very impressed with HX. Night before in Buenos Aires, airport transfers and charter flight all included. Arrived in Ushuaia and were taken to a hotel for lunch then had just over an hour to take photos and buy penguins in the town.
Cabin is Skandi chic . My first cruise without a balcony but the window is huge and I’m watching for wales from my bed. 403 passengers on board and plenty of space. WiFi, mini bar( inc 3 full size bottles of wine) decent coffee bags all included. All standard drinks are included, wasted on me as a non drinker but my husband and our new friends seemed to enjoy this last night. Passengers are a mix of Brits, Germans, Australians, Americans and a few French. We chose HX for its environmental credentials and for the price of course. So far so good. We have to enter a lottery for the chance to do 3 hours of kayaking (€199 ) and camping on the ice (€500 I think )
Seems a lot when I have a comfy bed with underfloor heating but when in Antarctica… I won’t be devastated if we do not win that lottery . More later .Sounds amazing. Antarctica is definitely on our list to do.
What’s the food like on board? And if you don’t mind looking, are menus (and the buffet if there is one) allergen marked? We both have to be gluten free, so unfortunately need to do far more research into food than we every used to have to do!
Food is good, so far. Yes allergens are all marked and there was a gluten free section at breakfast.
Coming to the end of two days crossing the Drake passage. The time is filled with talks from the expedition crew, resident and guest scientists. We are learning a lot. Just attended a great lecture on penguins where the French and Germans were baffled at the first 4 slides about chocolate biscuits.
That’s funny about the penguins! Did you take any seasickness meds? I did a cruise over Xmas which sailed bay of biscay and English Channel in fairly stormy seas and I held up ok by just taking sturgeon. But looking at videos of drakes passage I wonder if that will be enough🤔
You should be at the white continent now how exciting.
We are learning a lot. Just attended a great lecture on penguins where the French and Germans were baffled at the first 4 slides about chocolate biscuits.
Q – Why don’t polar bears eat penguins?
A – Because they can’t take the silver paper off.
Coming to the end of two days crossing the Drake passage. The time is filled with talks from the expedition crew, resident and guest scientists. We are learning a lot. Just attended a great lecture on penguins where the French and Germans were baffled at the first 4 slides about chocolate biscuits.
That’s hilarious!
Thanks for info on food, sounds great.
A – Because they can’t take the silver paper off.
That dates you! They’ve had plastic wrappers for years and can’t even be called chocolate biscuits any more. The world is a sadder place.
@davefl they don’t contain real 🐧 🐧 🐧 either!
I took sea sickness meds for the first time ever. I’m not normally sea sick but figured the Drake Passage might be the time to take such a precaution. I wasn’t seasick but incredibly woozy and light headed. Wont be trying them again.
I can’t begin to describe Antarctica. It’s simply breathtaking. This mornings kayaking was cancelled due to wind but we were able to go out in the zodiacs . Saw thousands of Gentoo, Adeli and Chinstrap penguins. Swimming around the boat and jumping on and off the icebergs. Many had chicks. I keep expecting David Attenborough to appear. Our first landing will be this afternoon. I have to keep pinching myself.
Hi Annie,
In São Paulo on the way back from 20 days in the Antarctic, Falklands and South Georgia.Will write a report for your thread.
Ps. We were on Seabourn Pursuit and Mrs Mack is gluten-free. Crew very helpful, Mrs MacK very happy!
Glad you enjoyed it Colin. I am more and more mesmerised with every hour that I’m here.
Hi Annie,
In São Paulo on the way back from 20 days in the Antarctic, Falklands and South Georgia.Will write a report for your thread.
Ps. We were on Seabourn Pursuit and Mrs Mack is gluten-free. Crew very helpful, Mrs MacK very happy!
Good to know about the gluten free, thank you.
Friends of ours did the Antarctic on Seabourn and now are obsessed with the cruise line. Oh to have their money, they do 3-4 big cruises a year with them! I look forward to reading your trip report.
We saw 3 humpback whales this morning from the zodiac and then kayaked amongst the penguins and seals.
Polar plunge this afternoon !Annie,Colin can I ask who you used for travel insurance ? I’m finding it difficult to find a company that will insure for more than £10k cancellation. That’s just the price of cruise let alone all the flights and hotels etc
How was the polar plunge?
Annie,Colin can I ask who you used for travel insurance ? I’m finding it difficult to find a company that will insure for more than £10k cancellation. That’s just the price of cruise let alone all the flights and hotels etc
How was the polar plunge?
Nationwide Flexplus (packaged bank account) cover up to I think £5k per person as standard but you can pay for extensions for more expensive trips.
Hi all,
This is the start of my review. This section will be the planning. Happy to answer questions:
We have thought about Antarctica for a few years, but two things put us off: the price, and the cold (we usually have a month away in winter to enjoy the heat – or avoid the cold! – since we work seven days aa week in the summer.)
But we are now reaching 65, and although it is another 23 months until HM Govt add £1,000 a month each to our holiday fund (so £46,000 out of pocket compared to those long-ago pension plans!), we have assessed our finances and lifestyle and decided: spend!
I am a Scotsman, so still seek a bargain. But I also seek value – a totally different thing!
The traditional trip is a flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and then down to the Antarctic peninsula. Sometimes seven days, often 10. But then you look at the itinery and there are only three or four days at the peninsula: get a couple of days of grey, dreich weather and one would be distinctly underwhelmed! And grumpy at £10k each!
But longer trips, via the Falklands and South Georgia can be £20k per person. For some, that might not be an issue: it is the price our son just paid for a car. We, on the other hand, have just paid £4,000 for a car, the most we have ever spent.
So, looking at bargain cruise site vacationstogo.com six months ago in August 2025 we saw similar to the prices showing for the coming winter: $17,000 for late November, $29,000 for just before Xmas – both for 21 day trips with a week on the peninsula.
And when we talked to V2G, they said there had been some cancellations for the 20 December sailing, and Seabourn had given them the cabins to resell at the same price as the November ones! That was a deal!
We didn’t even bother cross-checking with cruisecompete.com.
Visiting the Falklands for three days was a big bonus (a friend who was a Falklander died earlier last year, more to be revealed later) and three days in South Georgia a massive bonus too.
So now to book the flights: five months out, there were no avios opportunities to South America. So Google flights came up with Lisbon to Sao Paulo in business for £1800 each. Or straight through with LATAM to BA for £6k. Instead, we paid for the LATAM leg in refundable Premium Economy (ie Business) and went hand-luggage only so we could connect airside. If our flight was really late leaving Lisbon, we could rebook. TAP allows two overhead cabin bags, LATAM just one. But it turned out they weren’t enforcing gate checking – maybe because we were in PE?
We had to stay in South America for an extra week to get the cheap business class fare over the festive season with TAP, so on the way back we had two days at Iguazu Fall, two days in Brasilia and a day in Sao Paulo. As it turned out, all our internal flights in S Amer got cancelled or drastically retimed, so had to be rebooked on alterntive airlines just eight weeks out!
Finally, insurance: We had Nationwide, so we were covered for £10k each. The total cost of our trip was around £40k – but all the land options were cancellable, and I believe there was a reasonable change fee for the cheap TAP ticket. So we would have been about £10k out of pocket if something forced us to cancel. I also took out a business Amex Plat just before we left, not sure what that might have covered.
Risk and reward: I have heard of passengers having heart attacks two days out after crossing the Drake Passage and ships turning back to Ushuaia – so people getting just two days on the peninsula. I have heard of people having days of bad weather and not being able to get ashore. So you have to remember this is not the Costa del Sol!
Size of ship: There is a limit of 100 passengers at a time on land in South Georgia and Antarctica. But no limit on numbers in a Zodiac cruise! If you have more than 500 passengers, landings are not allowed.
Some ships have just 20 or 30 passengers, some 200 passengers – such as Ponant. Others have almost 500. If there are that many pax, you might just get one landing a day.If there are just 100 passengers, you will not have as many experts on board and might find there are passengers you can’t avoid!
Seabourn Pursuit (and Venture) have around 270 passengers max, so hit that sweet spot. Two outings a day, no rush and plenty of space.Our trip was 5 full days in Antarctica with at least one landing per day plus zodiac trips, kayaking, snow shoeing and even camping. Some of the landings required quite strenuous hikes up icy paths but most people were able to manage. Lots of guest scientists on board and the opportunity exists to join them on the science boats. We did need to stop occasionally to recover sound recorders etc which was really interesting. The resident experts are amazing and have added so much to our journey. I really recommend HX . Our ship is hybrid powered and there’s a huge environmental focus. We are round 300 passengers and the crew join is in the evenings in the bar which has been such fun. The kitchen staff have a band which we all really enjoyed.
The polar plunge was rather cold but I did it and I have the certificate to prove it.
Just about at the end of the Drake Passage now and about to enter the Beagle channel.
We thought this would be a once in a lifetime trip but we now feel sure we will be back at some point. It’s really not possible to describe it other than to say it’s truly breathtaking, the scenery, the wildlife, just the entire experience.
Travel insurance is with Admiral and I confess I didn’t check the cancellation coverage. The ship which returned to Ushuaia was the Nansen. Several people on our sailing were on the one where the guy had a cardiac arrest . The doctor got him back and the ship went back to port after a day in the Drake Passage. He survived ! The ship then did a short sailing to the Falklands. All the people on that sailing were given either 125% refund or another trip and many people on our sailing took the new sailing option and were very happy with that.
We have booked whilst on board with HC for the Galapagos next summer. I will never go on a large ship cruise again.@Annie – sounds like you’ve had an amazing trip. I went on the HX Santa Cruz II around the Galapagos last October. Our ship had a maximum of 90 passengers and it was just over half full. It was a wonderful experience which I’m sure you’ll enjoy too. A lot of our passengers had already been to the Antarctic with HX or were about to. Apart from a family of 12 from Uruguay and around a dozen passengers from US, NZ and Europe, the rest were Brits. All the crew were excellent. We had a number of passengers who had special dietary needs. On day one the catering staff spoke to each person individually to understand exactly what they could eat and they went out of their way to ensure they had correct catering at every meal. We didn’t always sit at the same table and have the same waiters, so they looked out for these passengers. Unlike the Antarctic cruise, we didn’t have to go into a ballot for any of the expeditions. The difficulty of the walks was shown and explained clearly the night before, so we could decide which level we felt was appropriate.
Have also done this trip but with Oceanwide – 200 passengers so at least one landing per day, and sometimes 2, and plenty of experts on board (I didn’t find we were avoiding passengers nor bored with the people there with that size of ship). After doing research and comparing others, we thought spending the little extra to get a ship with 100-200 passengers was worth it based on the experiences we would be able to have. Cannot recommend Oceanwide highly enough for anyone who’s shopping around.
Thanks for all the extra info much appreciated! I’ve booked with Ponant I’m treating my Son and his wife so I’m paying for 2 cabins 😱 and they didn’t charge a single supplement which at over £10kpp I’m grateful for. It was cheaper to go with an agent I choose Panache who have been good so far. We are flying in to BA a week before and last week I booked 3 nights at AWASI Iguazu, this is my last big bucket list trip and I’m going all out before I stay on my little island (IOW) watching the ships sail past I have the best sea view you could wish for. I think for BA I’m going to book airb&b as we need two rooms and a compromise had to be made with me booking AWASI and I thought I’d just book couple extra days so we can leave most of luggage before we go to falls etc. I’m planning on flying Lufthansa 1st out as I’m paying I want to do 1st but I’m still researching that. We are planning on going to Ushuaia for 2 nights as want to go penguin island and couple of other trips again I’m booking airb&b for us. Our ship holds 260 passengers I think not sure how my school french from over 50 years ago will hold up but I’m told English is widely spoken.
Really enjoying the sharing of experiences. Antarctica and the southern ocean are on my bucket list (not that I really have a bucket list) but I’d assumed we’d need to put aside £40k+ for the two of us.
Masaccio, I think that’s a good realistic starting point re cost.
We are going to Madagascar with Ponant in March and if they are as good as the reviews will look at Antartica. When are you going to @To dare is to do ?
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