{"id":4323,"date":"2009-08-18T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T11:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/?p=4323"},"modified":"2009-08-18T11:38:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T11:38:00","slug":"cruise-weekly-comment-life-in-the-freezer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2009\/08\/cruise-weekly-comment-life-in-the-freezer\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise Weekly Comment: Life in the Freezer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These are interesting times. For the first time in many years, there is availability on deep Antarctic cruises. A quick phone around yesterday turned revealed most operators still have a few cabins to fill.<\/p>\n

NZ\u2019s Heritage Expeditions<\/a> were the fortunate recipients of most of Aurora<\/a>\u2019s passengers from their cancelled program. I\u2019m predicting these two established niche operators will be working closely over the next few years at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Spirit of Enderby<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Dave Bowen, new GM at Heritage, said there were still some opportunities for last minute bookings. Heritage operate \u201cSpirit of Enderby\u201d, a 50-berth ex-Soviet oceanographic vessel of the same class as Molchanov and Shokalskiy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, Heritage has been oversubscribed for all their Antarctic expeditions. We still have one or two cabins available for this season\u2019s Ross Sea, but I expect they will fill shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 4.5 star Orion<\/a>, whose departures are always guaranteed, still has a couple of spots left for the Commonwealth Bay and Ross Sea voyages departing Invercargill NZ and Hobart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kapitan Khlebnikov<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Quark Expeditions<\/a>, newly partnered in Australia with TUI stablemate Peregrine Adventures<\/a>, are sending the mighty icebreaker, Kapitan Khlebnikov, south as usual. Their Emperor Penguin safaris are always heavily in demand, but long-time Quark representatives Adventure Associates<\/a> assure me there is still space available for the Weddell Sea and the month-long Epic Antarctica voyage, which would have to be the prize sailing for 09\/10.<\/p>\n

Luxury adventurers, Hapag-Lloyd<\/a>, make occasional diversions to the deep south with either of the expedition vessels, Bremen or Hanseatic. Gerd Wilmer of Landmark Travel tells me neither will be back there until 2011\/12 at earliest, having made their last trip in 08\/09.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve seen it written here before, but I\u2019ll repeat it again; Deep Antarctic is not for the faint hearted. It\u2019s a full-on expedition crossing some of the wildest oceans on the planet. Travellers will need to be hardy and determined to make this voyage, but the rewards are enormous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Emperor Penguin and chick<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The \u2018excursions\u2019 to the Peninsula, while rewarding on their own, pale by comparison. You\u2019ll sea wildlife like Emperor Penguins, Leopard Seals and whales normally reserved for coffee table books. \u2018Life-changing\u2019 is a term becoming overused, but this is where it started.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve dreamed of this ultimate voyage, this year may be the only time you can make a spontaneous decision. I won\u2019t list prices because you may want to do some arm twisting, but expect starting prices in the region of US$15,000 per person. Interrogate each operator thoroughly, choose your ship and itinerary carefully and set off on the journey of a lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are interesting times. For the first time in many years, there is availability on deep Antarctic cruises. A quick phone around yesterday turned revealed most operators still have a few cabins to fill. NZ\u2019s Heritage Expeditions were the fortunate recipients of most of Aurora\u2019s passengers from their cancelled program. I\u2019m predicting these two established […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}