It has almost been a month since we arrived back home from this adventure. We have had time to ponder our experience and have a few thoughts to share as we officially bring this trip to a close after this post.
First up is Stephanie’s health. She has fully recovered from her bout with Covid, and we are hopeful that there are no long term side effects from having it. She was ill for about a week before she was able to test negative on a rapid test, which we took to mean it was now safe to be around each other without wearing masks. We were both diligent about wearing masks at home while she was sick, and did not spend a lot of time being close together unless we were enjoying some unusually nice warm February weather outside on the deck.
The worst art of her illness was how tired she was, there were a couple of days where she spent most of the time sleeping. Part of that could have been how tired we were from the long trip home, but most we attributed to Covid.
Luckily, I was able to stay well, and did not catch Covid from her. I did spend nights in an upstairs bedroom, and we did not spend a lot of time together for the most part during the daytime.
It was ironic that we spent more time wearing masks at home during Stephanie’s illness than we would ever have done if we had worn masks for the flights home. Of course, we can’t say that she caught it during the travel home, it could have been on the last couple of days of the cruise. But, it did make us realize that maybe we could have been a little more mask diligent on the travel home, especially in the long lines leaving Argentina.
We did spend some time monitoring the next couple of cruises for the Viking Octantis to Antarctica, there were two more cruises scheduled after our cruise before the Antarctic season concluded for the Octantis and her crew. We were a little disappointed that both of the cruises after ours crossed the Antarctic Circle, something we had hoped we would do on our cruise. We learned from the Viking Antarctic Expedition Facebook site that the very last cruise went farther south than the Octantis had ever gone in the two seasons it has been in Antarctica.
One thing that we also learned was that the cruises are totally different each time. We had not though to follow the actual routes of the cruises on a website called Cruise Mapper, which shows the location and route of every ship in the Antarctic region. Here is a link to the Port of Ushuaia in Cruise Mapper. From the map of the port of Ushuaia, just scroll southward and/or zoom out on the map to be able to see Antarctica and all of the expedition ships there at any one time (only valid during the Southern Hemisphere Summer months). We were both surprised to see just how many expedition ships are in the area at a time, which helps to explain some of the uncertainty in the ports that are visited during any of the Viking cruises there. We only saw a couple of other ships during the day, and once at night, but there are about 10-15 expedition ships in the area at any given time. From the map, you can select individual ships on current expedition cruises, and see the different sizes and capacities of the particular vessels doing cruises here, as well as their routes.
Certainly, that us something we learned, there is not a lot of consistent repetition on the port schedules visited for each Viking expedition cruise, and certainly, no consistency in the order even for repeated stops from one cruise to the next. It is the difference in visited ports that surprised us the most. We expected there to be some variance in the order of ports visited, mostly due to what we thought was weather related changes. Now, it is my opinion that the order and location of port stops may be dictated more by the schedule of other expedition ships than anything. There is limitations set by the governing body for these expedition tours, IAATO (International Antarctica Association of Tour Operators). The self imposed rules that are put in place are to try and protect the environment in Antarctica, and these rules probably include limitations how many ships may be in any area at a time. We know that there are limitations of 100 persons ashore at any one time for landing sites. Having multiple ships at the same stop would also take away from the solitude and beauty we experienced at each area. Here is a link to the IAATO Website.
In lookin back at our experience, we certainly did see a lot and had a great trip, other than some health issues Stephanie had. This would probably be an impossible trip to try and repeat, there would be too many comparisons to be made, and the cost is a little bit prohibitive. That makes it a little disappointing because we have done some other cruises over again, such as Transatlantic Crossings, but they were much less expensive. However, there are other expedition cruises we would like to experience in the future, such as the Galapagos Islands. This trip certainly gave us a flavor for expedition trips on smaller ships, so we might better know what to look for on other expedition trips, and probably do more research on selecting a tour operator based on what we want to see and on the ships themselves.
As far as our ship, the Viking Octantis was wonderful. We were a little surprised to see from the Cruise Mapper website mentioned earlier that the listed information for Hurtigruten ships we had initially seen on the Smithsonian Channel special, that had inspired us to go to Antarctica, are shorten in length than the Octantis (460 feet vs. 666 ft), but carry a lot more passengers (600 on Hurtigruten vs. 378 on the Octantis), and are quite a bit more expensive than Viking. It was certainly nice to have the extra space on the Octantis, it never seemed crowded except for on Deck A when we were waiting in line for excursions!
Like everything else, there are lessons to be learned from each individual experience, and we were grateful to have been able to make this trip.
On a final note, we added a Favorite Expedition Photos Album of our favorites from the cruise, a mixture of images from only the Antarctic Expedition portion of the trip.