Antarctica - Antarctica Tours

I am planning an Anartica tour for January, 2008. I will be travelling with a friend and neew a cabin with two twin beds and ample storage. Has anyone sailed on the ship Orlova? With OAT or Elderhostel programs? Any tips on booking flights to Ushuaia from the States?

Thanks

I didn't go on the Orlova, but I did go on one of her sister ships, the Akademik Shokalskiy with Quark Expeditions. Bear in mind that unless OAT buys out the entire ship, it'll be Quark Expeditions that will run the trip. Quark wholesales their trips out to various agencies, and the agencies sell berths on the various ships to their clients. Sometimes an agency will buy out an entire voyage and put their own expedition staff onboard, but more likely, they're just selling spots.

When I booked to Ushuaia, what I did was book a RT Award ticket to Buenos Aires, and then used a domestic airline, Aerolineas Argentina, to get me to Ushuaia. I've been told that internal flights can be a lot cheaper if one is an Argentinean or books through an Argentine travel agency, but this was more work than I was willing to put in and just bought the tickets over the internet.

Buenos Aires is a nice city to visit as a pre/post extension to your trip.

I didn't go on the Orlova, but I did go on one of her sister ships, the Akademik Shokalskiy with Quark Expeditions. Bear in mind that unless OAT buys out the entire ship, it'll be Quark Expeditions that will run the trip. Quark wholesales their trips out to various agencies, and the agencies sell berths on the various ships to their clients. Sometimes an agency will buy out an entire voyage and put their own expedition staff onboard, but more likely, they're just selling spots.

When I booked to Ushuaia, what I did was book a RT Award ticket to Buenos Aires, and then used a domestic airline, Aerolineas Argentina, to get me to Ushuaia. I've been told that internal flights can be a lot cheaper if one is an Argentinean or books through an Argentine travel agency, but this was more work than I was willing to put in and just bought the tickets over the internet.

Buenos Aires is a nice city to visit as a pre/post extension to your trip.

I am thinking about booking with Quark for next year. How would you rate the whole experience?

I am thinking about booking with Quark for next year. How would you rate the whole experience?

I would rate it excellent.

The pre-departure information was pretty good, and they did offer some pre/post trip excursions, though I found them to be rather expensive. I tend to prefer independent travel when practicable, so I booked my own side trips. I did get hit with a fuel surcharge a couple of months before the trip when the oil prices went up considerably. I dealt solely with my travel agency to book and arrange the trip, so I don't have any experience in dealing with Quark directly.

Upon arrival in Ushuaia, I met up with a representative at the hotel who was greeting Quark passengers and getting them registered. The hotel is within walking distance of the dock where the ships are moored, and sees a lot of passengers on other ships. Registration went smoothly.

The ship I was on, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was one of their smaller ships - holding only 48 passengers. We only had 36 for my departure, so it was a relatively small group. Most ships are in the 100 passenger range. The crew is in two parts - you had the expedition staff and the ship's crew. The ship's crew was in charge of running the ship, doing the housekeeping chores, handling the cooking, logistics, etc... The expedition staff is composed of the various guides and zodiac drivers. Some crewmembers did double duty - the chief engineer of the ship also drove a zodiac on occasion. We also had a ship's doctor. Both groups were very good.

In terms of the ship, common areas, and accommodations - they were quite comfortable. Bear in mind that this isn't a "cruise ship" in terms of the luxury cruise ships that ply the Carribean, Mediterranean, or Alaskan Inside Passage. Quark's ships are converted Russian research vessels - so while the accommodations are comfortable, they were designed for working scientists in the Soviet Union. So, no grand atriums, casinos, swimming pools, "Lido Deck", or floor shows. If you manage your expectations appropriately, I think you'll find their ships clean and comfortable. These really are expedition-type ships. I think the larger the ship, the more facilities that you'll have, though I found the smaller ships to be more intimate and easier to interact with your shipmates.

They carry a number of zodiac boats, and are fairly efficient in getting people in and out of the boats. Housekeeping was good, there was plenty of hot water in the showers, and food was excellent. The food was a very pleasant surprise - I did not expect it to be as good as it was. The ship's bar and gift shop was a bit expensive. $3-4 for a can of coke is too much. This is easily solved by going to a grocery store in Ushuaia and bringing on board a supply of any beverages (soda/alcohol) you might want.

The expedition staff was excellent. In addition to the expediton leader, we had an ornithologist, glaciologist, whale expert (don't know what you call these guys), and a few other zodiac drivers. The guides did double duty sometimes in driving the zodiacs. During the passage to and from the Peninsula, they would give lectures on various natural history topics relevant to Antarctica - including slide shows and documentaries. On shore, they would be available for questions about the various sites and the fauna we encountered. They also watched out for our safety, and made sure we adhered to the IAATO regulations for visiting the sites. There weren't a lot of structured activities - they tended to let us roam at will within carefully delineated areas at each site, and simply made themselves available to us if we wanted. The staff was knowledgeable and personable.

The expedition leader was in charge of deciding on landings and our itinerary. When they state that itineraries are not set and dependent upon conditions, they really mean it. Our expedition leader was working the radio every night trying to figure out where we were going the next day. One of the problems is that the Antarctic Peninsula has become very popular and so there are lots of ships out there. They all try very hard to stay out of each others way, and schedule their landings appropriately. You can only have one ship at a time at a landing site, and only 100 people can land at any place. Our leader was pretty flexible and seemed to manage things well - he was a bit aggressive in slipping into landing sites whenever possible, which I appreciated. However, sometimes, he would slip us in only for a couple of hours to a place when I wanted to stay much longer. That was a bit frustrating, but I don't know that I can blame him for that given the number of ships in the area. On the other hand, we were cruising through one passage, saw a bunch of humpback whales passing through, and he made the on the spot decision to stop and ship, get us loaded on the zodiacs and race out there. It was fantastic.

The staff was also very attentive to passengers with health or mobility problems. We had one gentleman who would have had lots of difficulties on one particularly rocky landing, so our expedition leader arranged for a zodiac cruise for him instead.

They warned us that when we hit the peninsula that they would run us ragged, and they were right. There was just so much to do and so much to see, that none of us wanted to miss anything. It was a fantastic trip, and Quark did a great job.

If you're looking for something a bit more luxurious, then I would suggest Lindblad as an operator. Otherwise, Quark was excellent.

Quark has an excellent reputation; I wold book with them directly, as opposed to using OAT - as I recall, they have drawn criticism for cancelling or changing trips at last minute when not enough people signed up, etc. (International Travel News has had a number of OAT complaints, as well as a few kudos, but OAT have changed considerably since they went from an adventure travel outfit under Judi Wineland to an organization catering to older people's group travel - and I say this as an older person.)

I agree with most of what escog has said, but the ice-hardened hull 90 meter M/V Orlova (http://www.adventure-life.com/antarctica/mv-orlova/antarctica-cruises/16/) is definitely not a sistership to the 65-meter Shokalskiy, built in Finland for Russian research. (I would consider a trip on ther Orlova, but the Shokalskiy and sisterships can get into more restrticted areas and allow for closeness not allowed by larger vessels.)

The Akademic Shokalskiy is iirc more of a sistership to the Grigoriy Mikheev, Professor Multanovskiy and Professor Molchanov. These are all sturdily-built Finnish ice-rated vessels built for the USSR Hydrographic Institute, with two monhts or more of loiter time, a good thing to have
just in case."

Other vessels groups are the Akademik Ioffe and Akademik Vavilov, just over 100 passengers - as large as I would like to go - engaged in "hydroacoustic research" (meaning they were spying on US submarines!) The Ioffe had some interesting stuff - a "stealth" sailing sloop that could lay listening devices, two eliptical "sails" to allow stealthy movement (that accroding to the Russian crew did not work well,) and an interesting array of listening devices.

When I sailed on her some years ago they had not removed all of these items, and I got some very dirty looks on tour from a Russian sailor. When I asked the captain, he told me the comrade was an Afghan war veteran and did not appreciate the Amerikanski eye......g what had been top secret equipment; I told the captain as a Vietnam veteran, I understood. Next time I saw the sailor, I got a warm "tovarich!" and high five.

Trivial fact: the Ioffe was named after a Russian top notch nuclear physicist who happened to be Jewish - no mention of the fact his full name was Akademik Abram Fedorovich Ioffe... fired from his work during the Stalinist persecution of the '50's.

<Edit> Ah, hah, I found this Adventure Life link (http://www.adventure-life.com/antarctica/antarctica.php) with descriptions of a number of the vessels. If you want a real adventure trip, try the Noorderlicht (http://www.adventure-life.com/antarctica/noorderlicht/antarctica-cruises/22/), I guarantee an adventure of a lifetime. ;)

Just a point of clarification - when I called the Shokalskiy a sister ship, I only meant it to mean that both the Shokalskiy and Orlova are owned by Quark, not that they were in the same class as each other. I apologize for the imprecision in my statement.

I travelled on the Orlova 2002 and did two trips with Quark Expeditions (the other one to the North Pole). I'd rate Quark Expeditions 6 out of 5 stars.

I would rate it excellent.

The pre-departure information was pretty good, and they did offer some pre/post trip excursions, though I found them to be rather expensive. I tend to prefer independent travel when practicable, so I booked my own side trips. I did get hit with a fuel surcharge a couple of months before the trip when the oil prices went up considerably. I dealt solely with my travel agency to book and arrange the trip, so I don't have any experience in dealing with Quark directly.

Upon arrival in Ushuaia, I met up with a representative at the hotel who was greeting Quark passengers and getting them registered. The hotel is within walking distance of the dock where the ships are moored, and sees a lot of passengers on other ships. Registration went smoothly.

The ship I was on, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was one of their smaller ships - holding only 48 passengers. We only had 36 for my departure, so it was a relatively small group. Most ships are in the 100 passenger range. The crew is in two parts - you had the expedition staff and the ship's crew. The ship's crew was in charge of running the ship, doing the housekeeping chores, handling the cooking, logistics, etc... The expedition staff is composed of the various guides and zodiac drivers. Some crewmembers did double duty - the chief engineer of the ship also drove a zodiac on occasion. We also had a ship's doctor. Both groups were very good.

In terms of the ship, common areas, and accommodations - they were quite comfortable. Bear in mind that this isn't a "cruise ship" in terms of the luxury cruise ships that ply the Carribean, Mediterranean, or Alaskan Inside Passage. Quark's ships are converted Russian research vessels - so while the accommodations are comfortable, they were designed for working scientists in the Soviet Union. So, no grand atriums, casinos, swimming pools, "Lido Deck", or floor shows. If you manage your expectations appropriately, I think you'll find their ships clean and comfortable. These really are expedition-type ships. I think the larger the ship, the more facilities that you'll have, though I found the smaller ships to be more intimate and easier to interact with your shipmates.

They carry a number of zodiac boats, and are fairly efficient in getting people in and out of the boats. Housekeeping was good, there was plenty of hot water in the showers, and food was excellent. The food was a very pleasant surprise - I did not expect it to be as good as it was. The ship's bar and gift shop was a bit expensive. $3-4 for a can of coke is too much. This is easily solved by going to a grocery store in Ushuaia and bringing on board a supply of any beverages (soda/alcohol) you might want.

The expedition staff was excellent. In addition to the expediton leader, we had an ornithologist, glaciologist, whale expert (don't know what you call these guys), and a few other zodiac drivers. The guides did double duty sometimes in driving the zodiacs. During the passage to and from the Peninsula, they would give lectures on various natural history topics relevant to Antarctica - including slide shows and documentaries. On shore, they would be available for questions about the various sites and the fauna we encountered. They also watched out for our safety, and made sure we adhered to the IAATO regulations for visiting the sites. There weren't a lot of structured activities - they tended to let us roam at will within carefully delineated areas at each site, and simply made themselves available to us if we wanted. The staff was knowledgeable and personable.

The expedition leader was in charge of deciding on landings and our itinerary. When they state that itineraries are not set and dependent upon conditions, they really mean it. Our expedition leader was working the radio every night trying to figure out where we were going the next day. One of the problems is that the Antarctic Peninsula has become very popular and so there are lots of ships out there. They all try very hard to stay out of each others way, and schedule their landings appropriately. You can only have one ship at a time at a landing site, and only 100 people can land at any place. Our leader was pretty flexible and seemed to manage things well - he was a bit aggressive in slipping into landing sites whenever possible, which I appreciated. However, sometimes, he would slip us in only for a couple of hours to a place when I wanted to stay much longer. That was a bit frustrating, but I don't know that I can blame him for that given the number of ships in the area. On the other hand, we were cruising through one passage, saw a bunch of humpback whales passing through, and he made the on the spot decision to stop and ship, get us loaded on the zodiacs and race out there. It was fantastic.

The staff was also very attentive to passengers with health or mobility problems. We had one gentleman who would have had lots of difficulties on one particularly rocky landing, so our expedition leader arranged for a zodiac cruise for him instead.

They warned us that when we hit the peninsula that they would run us ragged, and they were right. There was just so much to do and so much to see, that none of us wanted to miss anything. It was a fantastic trip, and Quark did a great job.

If you're looking for something a bit more luxurious, then I would suggest Lindblad as an operator. Otherwise, Quark was excellent.

How about stability of smaller vessels during the Drake Passage crossing?

Even a large vessel may experience some gut-wrenching times if the crossing is rough. It's basically luck of the draw - unpredictable. As the site "Cool Antarctica" says:

"It is the place where not only are there high and strong winds that blow most of the time, but where the 'Circumpolar Current' is squeezed through its narrowest gap. This is a Westerly flowing current that flows around Antarctica powered by Antarctic winds. It flows at the rate of around 140 million cubic metres (tonnes) of water per second, the equivalent of 5000 Amazon rivers or four times the size of the Gulf Stream.

The Drakes passage has been described as the roughest stretch of water in the world, it is what must be navigated when rounding Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego - the southern most tip of South America."

As mentioned, I've crossed it when you could have had a tranquil voyage in a rowboat, and when it was modestly rough, not the norm. It's not a trip, it's an adventure.

One thing that could make a difference is hull shape: genuine icebreakers (as opposed to ice-rated vessels,) are round-bottomed and can roll like a drunken pig. It's not just size...

How about stability of smaller vessels during the Drake Passage crossing?

How about stability of smaller vessels during the Drake Passage crossing?

Crossing the Drake Passage can be a nightmare (and probably will be) no matter if the vessel is small or not.

Good Executive Summary! ;) IMO, my advice is to be prepared for the worst (take plenty of Transderm Scop, Meclezine, ginger, or whatever you use for motion sickness, when you depart Ushuaia place breakables like cameras on the deck and secure everything,) and be pleasantly surprised if you don't get it.

Crossing the Drake Passage can be a nightmare (and probably will be) no matter if the vessel is small or not.

Does anyone know of a way to see South Georgia without doing a twenty day cruise?

We took a 23 day cruise on the Marco Polo a few years ago that did the semi- circumnavigation of antarctica and the expedition leaders we talked to all agreed that South Georgia was the best place to see penguins in large masses.

Is there a way to get there from the Falklands?

Thanks.

Does anyone know of a way to see South Georgia without doing a twenty day cruise?

We took a 23 day cruise on the Marco Polo a few years ago that did the semi- circumnavigation of antarctica and the expedition leaders we talked to all agreed that South Georgia was the best place to see penguins in large masses.

Is there a way to get there from the Falklands?

Thanks.

Unfortunately not.
The one exception I can think of - fly to the Falklands and board the ship (which starts from Ushuaia and stops in Stanley) there. You'd save 2 days but it doesn't make much sense :)

Does anyone know of a way to see South Georgia without doing a twenty day cruise?.

Peregrine at some point (not sure if they still do) had a 12 night South Georgia in Depth trip that goes directly from Ushuaia to S. Georgia, specifically geared for people who have already been to the peninsula. It may be worth checking them out to see if they still have this trip.

I went to Antarctica in 2000 aboard the Orlova when it was chartered by Marine Expeditions (now defunct.) The ship is relatively small and the cabins spartan, but you really don't want anything glitzy around you anyway while crossing the Drake. All the drawers and cupboards come with keys for locking - not because of theft but to keep them closed during the rougher rides. Our crossing was very rough - so rough that the drawer on my bedside table came shooting out and flying across the room even though it had been firmly locked.

The crew was very nice, although there wasn't a whole lot of interaction since they spoke Russian and the passengers (mostly Americans, Canadians and Japanese) didn't. The crew's doctor was called in to treat me when I came down with pneumonia two-thirds of the way through the trip, and one of the dining room waitresses had to serve as interpretor. Other than having to spend the final week confined to bed, it was glorious trip, and I would do it again in a heartbeat just to see what I missed that final week!

Loved Orlova. Went on it in 2000 with Marine Exp. and 2004 with Quark. 2004 - they had upgraded amenities and the food was oh my good so good.

Loved Orlova. Went on it in 2000 with Marine Exp. and 2004 with Quark. 2004 - they had upgraded amenities and the food was oh my good so good.

What amenities? :eek:

Made the decision. I am booked on the now named Ocean Nova (Formerly Sarpik Ittuk). The progranm is Classic Antarctica. For those that have traveled with Quark, is the pre-trip barbecue worth it, or should I spend my time in town.

Made the decision. I am booked on the now named Ocean Nova (Formerly Sarpik Ittuk). The progranm is Classic Antarctica. For those that have traveled with Quark, is the pre-trip barbecue worth it, or should I spend my time in town.

I travelled two times with them but no pre-trip barbeque. :confused: