2011 South America Cruise

After an overnight flight, got into Miami early in the morning. Went through immigration after a very long walk (seems like it’s on the other side of the airport), and then picked up our luggage to go through customs. Customs was something of a joke, one guy sitting near the exit just collecting the forms, and didn’t really seem to care a whole lot. Outside the door, rechecked our baggage, then had to head to another terminal to catch our AA flight back to Detroit.

Got into Detroit, and stood around watching the luggage come onto the carousel, but our bags never appeared. That’s not good, just about every piece of clothing I own except for what I’m wearing is in the luggage :). Apparently 4 hours in Miami isn’t long enough for them to transfer the luggage after you drop it off after customs. Seems kinda ridiculous to me. AA said that it should be on the later flight that night, and that we’d get it sometime on Monday. Oh well, guess that means that I don’t have to do laundry tonight.

(And FWIW, it did indeed show up the next day.)

Today we’ve got a tour that was arranged by another member of Cruise Critic, where we’ll do some touring of the Valparaiso area. Most flights out of Santiago back to the US tend to be late flights, so it’s good to have a tour that takes up a good chunk of the day when you disembark the ship here.

We gathered with our group and got off the ship all at once. In Chile, they’re pretty strict about checking for foods when you get off, and have dogs sniffing the bags. So don’t try to take anything off that you shouldn’t here! The ship docks in a cargo area (like most of the ports on this route), and when you get off, you take a bus to the cruise ship terminal. Those without cruise ship tours (like us) collect their bags here, those that had cruise ship tours didn’t have to deal with them until they got to the airport. We did have a little bit of trouble here, only found 3 of our bags together. Finally found the bag off to the side, apparently the luggage tag had gotten torn off.

Next we headed outside the terminal to meet our tour guide. Had to wait a little bit for them to bring the bus in, where we did have a little bit of a entertaining time. The person that had organized the tour had checked with the company to make sure they could handle lots of luggage, and that we were 10 people. Well, the small bus that they provided was a little short on the luggage space (heck, we were 10 people, 8 of whom had been on the ship for 30 days, and us 2 that just don’t pack light, there was a lot of luggage). Oh, and the bus also had 9 seats in it. With a lot of creative effort, they were able to fit all but a couple pieces of luggage in, and sent the other two with another van from their company that had people that were going to the same hotel in Santiago as a couple of people on our tour. And we were able to squeeze in to make the seating work.

This tour was pretty good. We spent a while going around Valparaiso, seeing some of the sights. Stopped at one funicular that dated back to the late 1800’s, and visited a place that had some local crafts being sold. We then rode down a different funicular that was also pretty old. The funicular’s run about 60 cents each way.

We then headed up the coast to the Vina del Mar area, and toured around there some. We also stopped at a small restaurant here that overlooked the ocean. Very nice place, and for those that had the fish, apparently excellent fish.

Finally we started heading up towards Santiago. Along the way we stopped at a winery. There’s a valley type area between Valparaiso and Santiago that has a lot of wineries. The first one we tried going to was apparently closed because they were having a wedding, so we headed to the next one down the road. There we were able to get a short tour of the facility along with a tasting at the end. I’m not really a wine drinker myself, but found the Chardonnay to be fairly reasonable. The wine drinkers in our group weren’t all that impressed with the other wine that we tasted (can’t remember exactly what type it was).

Just a short note about our guide for this day’s tour, Javiar. Very nice guy, excellent english, although he was a bit soft spoken, so could be hard to hear at times in the bus. He also seemed to really be pretty knowledgeable, which wasn’t always the case on some of our tours. For those that were staying in Santiago for a few nights, he was also able to give some recommendations for restaurants that were reasonable near the hotels they were staying at, along with some info for getting around in Santiago.

We were the only couple in the tour that were actually flying out on this day (had to get back so Cathy could go back to work), so on our way into Santiago they dropped us off at the airport before they headed to the hotels for the rest of the people. We managed to spend a good chunk of the day on this tour, getting to the airport around 6pm or so, for an 11:55pm flight.

We were flying out of Santiago on LAN, which appeared to be one of the larger carriers out of Santiago. Unfortunately, that also meant that it seemed like everyone else in the airport was also flying out on them. We got into line right away because it was a *really* long line. Ultimately, it took us about two and a half hours to get through the line, and about 2/3 of the people behind us were helped out before us because they kept having to pull people from the lines for flights that were getting too close. It was a little frustrating, because meanwhile we were going nowhere in the line.

Passport checks and security weren’t all that bad here, the lines for this weren’t too long (oddly, given the length of the lines at the ticket counters). Once through security, there were really only a couple of places that you could get food from. (And of course, everything is listed in Spanish, so trying to figure out what the food was could be entertaining). One thing that I thought was a little odd was that for a country that doesn’t really eat dinner until very late, everything in the airport, including the places selling food, seemed to be closing down around 9pm.

Flight was apparently oversold by a fair number, and to be honest, I didn’t feel that LAN was doing all that good of a job of handling that. They waited until very late before the flight before anyone came by to start servicing the flight, and then spent a long time just kinda timidly going around asking a few people about taking the same flight the next day. Wasn’t an option for us, and since we had seats assigned, wasn’t really a problem for us.

Last two sea days of the cruise. Back in the Pacific for these two days, but it’s calmed down out there, so really not a problem. Ship’s casino was closed during the time we were in Chilean waters, but it’s back open now.

Basically, this meant two days of relaxing and not really doing much of anything. Still on the cool side, although on the last sea day it was a little warmer. Finishing up packing, which is already entertaining, since there’s always more to go into the luggage than there was coming down.

Most of the day today was spent cruising through the fjords of Chile. Just as well, because what time we spent outside the fjords in the Pacific the ship was definitely moving, probably the most noticeable movement of the ship during this entire cruise.

Unfortunately, the weather isn’t really all that great. Fairly low-hanging clouds, and some intermittent rain really put a damper on the scenic viewing, just not really all that easy to see much. Also still fairly cold.

Not much else really, other than it’s time to start thinking about packing. End of the cruise coming up soon unfortunately.

Punta Arenas is really the final port for our cruise. We’d booked a tour through the ship to go see the penguin colony at Magdelana Island. This involved meeting very early in the morning for our tour. The ship was about a half hour late getting into port this morning because of some adverse currents in the high speed run. We were the second group off the ship (after the folks travelling to Antarctica, at $4k a person). Tendered in to shore where we’d been told we’d need our Chilean immigration papers (turns out for all the ship was insisting we needed them, nobody there wanted them). Then we got on a bus for a short trip to another spot where we got onto what turned out to be a car ferry (one with some inside seating for people). This ferry trip was 2 hours of sheer boredom inside in a stifling seating area. It’s only going about 20 miles, so it’s not exactly the fastest boat afloat.

But wow, when we got there, this penguin colony was pretty impressive. I had been a little worried about how much we’d see since this was another magellenic penguin group, which make their nests in holes in the group. Not to worry, as soon as the boat had docked, a welcoming committee of penguins came down to investigate. Their are thousands of penguins here. (I think the brochure we picked up said something like 39 thousand nesting pairs of penguins?) Here there’s a trail staked out with ropes that eventually leads up to a lighthouse at the top of the hill, and you have to stay on the trail. But no worry, the penguins are constantly waddling across the trail, or standing right at the edge watching you walk by. We only get an hour on the island, but man is it pretty neat. I’d been impressed in the Falklands, and almost thought of cancelling this tour since we’d managed to see penguins already, but that really would have been a mistake.

Unfortunately, then we had to get back onto the 2 hour long ferry ride, and no, it didn’t really improve on the way back. After we got back into town, we wandered to the main square and looked through the craft market that was set up there. Then it was time to head back to ship.

We did leave port somewhat late today. This time it was due to that Antarctica trip running a little late. Apparently, when you pay $4k for an excursion, the captain’s going to cut you a little slack about showing up a little late :).

That’s it though, from now on all we have are sea days for this cruise. Some of that time is going to be spent in the Chilean Fjords, but sometime tonight the ship is going to exit the Strait of Magellan (which we’re in as I type this) and briefly enter the Pacific Ocean. The captain did warn us that when that happens things could get a little rougher. Apparently we’re looking at 12-15 foot swells out there.

Ushuaia is today’s port. It’s in an area that’s really very pretty, with snow-capped mountains all around. We hadn’t had anything planned for this port. Among other things, I’d read sorta mixed reviews about the various tours, so we thought we might try just getting off the ship and seeing what we could pick up. Got off the ship around 7:30, and pretty much discovered that the town just doesn’t open until about 10am. There were a few cabs trying to sell their services right outside the port, although English definitely didn’t look like it would be a strong point. There’s also a handfull of booths that are set up to sell a few tours, with many of them being Beagle Channel tours on smaller boats (the boats Princess uses for this tour are pretty decent sized, and their tour seemed kinda short compared to what these places were selling). Even most of these places weren’t open yet. Moral of the story, if you’re not going to do a ship’s tour and have nothing planned, unless you plan on getting a taxi guide, there’s not much point in getting off the ship early. (Most of the Beagle Channel trips were for 9:30 or 10am, so the booths must have opened not too much longer after we went through.)

So we wandered up and down streets for a while exploring, looking for places that might get us some decent views of either the harbor or some of the mountains. Basically got a bunch of walking on hilly streets done. Then we headed back to the ship for an early lunch. After that, headed back out into town now that things were open. Wandered through a lot of stores just kinda souvenir shopping. There’s also a small handycraft market right near the pier, although even later in the day only about half the stalls in there were open, although some of the things being sold were interesting.

I think the captain is starting to get annoyed with people being late getting back to the ship, because he made some comment about people using sundials for keeping track of time (and it hasn’t really been that sunny). There were defintely a few people missing at time to sail, and I honestly don’t know if they made it or not. The captain basically said that because of the nature of the distance that we needed to sail to get to the next port, we really didn’t have time to wait around for them.

After leaving Ushuaia and travelling further down the Beagle Channel, we’d been told that we’d be passing some glaciers along the way, and that the port lecturer would be talking about them as we did. Unfortunately, they really didn’t do all that good of a job of letting us know about what time that would be. As a result, we headed to dinner and missed a little bit of the beginning. (I think basically all we really missed was one that came right down to the waters edge, and we did even see that right as we left dinner). We did see a bunch of the other glaciers. Really kind of a narrow channel, and the terrain really reminds me a lot of the type of terrain you see in Alaska.

Obviously it wasn’t the earliest morning in the world for us today, and I think that was probably true for a large portion of the ship. Sticking our head out the balcony in the morning, and it was definitely pretty cool out. The only real thing for today on the agenda was the scenic cruising of Cape Horn, and that wasn’t scheduled until later in the afternoon.

Cape Horn is actually on an island, specifically the Isla Hornos. The captain told us the plan was to go in and sail around the island in a counter-clockwise direction. Weather was, well, probably fair for this area of the world. Seas were minimal, and all we were really getting was some wind and rain/sleet/snow mixture from time to time. Part of me almost feels a little cheated that we didn’t get the true Cape Horn experience as a result.

Italian night in the dining room, which means a pretty so-so menu, but it also means limoncello, which makes Cathy happy. Oddly, tonight the dining room seemed noticeably busier than it normally is that early. Yeah, we were a little later than normal because of the Cape Horn viewing, but still, at worst it was we entered the dining room around the time we’d been leaving it before, and never saw it that busy then.

Falkland Islands today, and our trip to the penguins. This was the one port we’d really wanted to make it to, and it can be iffy at times because of the weather. However, we lucked out and ended up with some absolutely perfect weather. In fact, as we sailed away at the end of the day, the captain said he’d been coming to the Falklands for 30 years, and doesn’t remember having weather that good ever before. We had pretty clear skies, high around 60 degrees. In fact, we ended up not using some of our layers of coats because it really wasn’t necessary.

We’d booked with Patrick Watts for the Volunteer Point penguin trip, and managed to get off on what was probably the second tender of the morning. At first it was looking like we were going to be in the 4×4 with Patrick himself, but because he’s the organizer, he was still trying to wait on a few more people that hadn’t showed up (and apparently never did), so he passed us on to one of his other drivers. Our new driver was Caris, and this turned out to work out pretty well. She was able to give us a lot of information about living on the islands as we went to and from Volunteer Point. It also seemed like half her family works as drivers for the various tour companies that do this trip (they seem to work somewhat interchangeably for Patrick or FIC depending on need).

Now, for this trip they load you up 4 passengers to a 4×4. For the first part, you’re on the main road on the island (there’s apparently 1 main loop road) that varies between occasional patches of tarmac and mostly gravel. After a little while on that, you get to the sheep farm that Volunteer Point is on, and the rest of the trip is cross country, basically following previous tracks they’d taken. It’s pretty rough, and if it was wet at all I imagine it would be pretty iffy, because most of the trip is over areas of peat. All this is done with the drivers personal 4×4 vehicles, and I’ve got to think that the maintenance has got to be pretty brutal. We heard tales of getting bogged down in the mud, broken axles, various other broken parts. At one point when we crossed a small wooden bridge (ie, basically some boards that were laid down over a ditch), some wires on the back of our vehicle caught the boards up and started dragging them along. (Caris said the previous owner of her car had a boat, and it was the trailer wires that had gotten caught up in this). When doing this trip, the groups travel in a convoy, so that if something happens, at least they have the ability to stop and help each other out.

Total time out to Volunteer Point seems to be a little over 2 hours, and over half of that is the off-road portion of the trip. Then you finally arrive on the top of a hill over a beach. And there’s lots of penguins. This area has 3 types of penguins: king, gentoo, and magellenic. There’s a variety of lines marked out with either sticks or white rocks, and the general rule besides don’t go past the lines is that you’re not supposed to go within 20 feet of the penguins, but the penguins are allowed to approach you if they want. (There were a fair number of people that weren’t really paying much attention to this rule, but the wardens weren’t giving them a hard time about it either).

We were late enough in the season that most of the penguin chicks had already had a chance to grow some, but many still retained large patches of their baby down. For king’s especially, once they shed that they’re hard to distinguish from the adult penguins, because they’re already close to full-size by that point.

We had about an hour and a half to wander around the area and watch penguins before getting back in the 4×4 to head back to Stanley. Wandered around briefly and looked through a couple of gift shops before heading back to the ship. BTW, Stanley has a population of around 2000, and the entire islands have a population of about 3000, so when they get a large cruise ship in like ours, it basically doubles the population.

Oh, one other update, apparently our late passengers from Buenos Aires may have made it on the ship somehow. The people in our 4×4 said that they’d heard that. And apparently some of those missing passengers may not have been first offenders on being late back to the ship. I imagine they might have gotten into a little trouble.

Since it’s New Years Eve, tonight’s formal night. I doubt it would normally be a formal night because of the port day (with so many sea days, there’d be no reason to do it on a port day). A little weird, because you could tell people definitely didn’t start dressing up until somewhat later in the evening. (Of course, that could also tie in with how late people tend to eat on this trip. I think we finished dinner shortly before 8PM or so, and the dining room was still mostly empty.) Watched the hypnotist show largely to kill some time, and it was ok. He did have an issue where partway through the show they announced a “Code Sierra” for a cabin number, and that seemed to wake up some of his volunteers.

No idea what a Code Sierra is, but it seems to be something involving security. The cabin was on the same floor as us, and I could see security personel hanging around near that end of the hallway. Cathy also says someone she talked to had problems getting to her cabin going one way, because there was a number of security personell not letting people through (and apparently, the next morning there was still a security person outside the cabin door).

On this ship, all the New Years stuff was happening indoors. I guess they must have decided it was too cold to do things outside (plus maybe too windy). Seas have started to pick up a little, so we’re moving more than we had up to now on the ship. It’s not quite the same experience to ring in the new year when you’re not out on the top deck, and made for a much more crowded experience. They did do baloon drops in the piazza and a couple of the lounges. Off to bed after that.

Another sea day. This ended up being laundry day. Unfortunately, still haven’t cruised enough to start getting the free laundry (man, I look forward to that). Machine prices seem to have gone up, they were running $2 each. Still, was able to get the laundry done before lunch, and I think that should carry us through the rest of the trip.

Weather today was definitely a little cooler. I think the high was supposedly around 59 or so. I did notice at the noon update today was the first day that we’re actually further south than how far north we live. Still, not all that shabby. If we can get similar weather for Stanley we’ll be doing good.

Watching out the balcony I’ve noticed that we seem to have picked up a few albotrosses (or is the plural still albotross?). They’re taunting me though, every time I go out to try to take pictures, they back further away from the ship. Looks like we have more than one type, one’s a larger one that has a lot more white to it, while the other is smaller and is mainly grey or black. The smaller one seems to actually have to flap its wings sometimes, while the bigger one just seems to skim along, and I’ve never seem it flapping its wings. No idea how they manage to do that.

Captain’s Circle party tonight. Room was pretty crowded, but unlike some comments I’d seen recently, they were still doing it in multiple sessions in the Vista lounge, with the usual free “drinks”. Our captain, Captain Kent, I think is working on going into a second career as a stand-up comedian.

Seas have picked up a little, and we’re doing a little more rocking tonight, but still nothing of real significance. The captain did say we might run into a little more movement sometime tonight, but that things were looking pretty decent for the Falklands. However, it also sounds like we’re going to be headed down to Cape Horn right in front of a big storm, and it could get a little more entertaining for that. After all, we are going to one of the places that can have the worst seas in the world.