gq_dq

Exactly, everything's rock-bottom right now. My one-ways BUE-USH either way (AEP or EZE) for Oct-Nov 2024 are clocking in at around $87 including a free checked bag! This feels a bit like the exuberance before the 2001 Argentina financial crisis and the 2008 US market crash. I remember Dec 2000 on my way to my first of several Antarctic cruises when the peso was pegged 1:1 to the USD! Felt surreal... and I could almost feel the financial tsunami coming. But those threadbare US$15 T-shirts which looked like they really should retail for 50 cents were a joke!

Anyways... my AA flight from MIA to EZE lands at 7:05 AM (as of now) so I just ticketed a 9:45 AM departure from EZE to USH which gives me 2:40 to make the flip. Separate tickets for sure, so no protection. I don't expect to be checking bags (they'll have rubber landing boots on board for the South Georgia-Antarctica cruise) so doing carry-on only. There are two later departures at 12:45 PM and 3:45 PM but are both from AEP. And I'm trying to be a bit slothful and not have to traipse into town on Manuel Tienda Leon... but there are so many IFs. IF there's not a sked change on my AA flight to make it get in later... IF there's not a sked change on my EZE-USH segment to make it leave earlier.... and the biggest one is that even if there's not a sked change, IF my AA from MIA gets in too late then I'm hosed... OK we're still 8-1/2 months out so the world can change between now and then but 2 hours and 40 min is what I am hanging my hat on at this time...

Maybe I should book one of those other later two as a refundable backup just in case?!!

M60_to_LGA

I would make sure you give yourself at least a day between your arrival into Ushuaia and the departure of your cruise. There are so many things that can go wrong and are out of your control - thunderstorms or mechanical problems delay your AA flight by half a day or more (happened to me a year ago), strikes or protests or whatever else in Argentina shut down operations at the airports for a while or snarl traffic, making it impossible to get between EZE and AEP when you need to, AR itself has been known to randomly cancel flights or change the departure times by several hours too..

My personal suggestion would be to arrive in Buenos Aires two days before your cruise, spend a night in the city, then fly to Ushuaia the next day and spend the night there before getting on the ship. This sounds like a wonderful (and expensive) vacation, and you're coming from the other side of the world - I'd leave plenty of buffer time to make sure any unexpected mishaps don't mangle your plans. But maybe I just have an unusually low risk tolerance.

TBD

Carry-on only for an antarctica cruise? Wow.
My jackets alone would require a big checked bag.

gq_dq

Absolutely... seen wayyy too many instances of this scenario... including a passenger stranded with wedding gifts at a connecting airport cuz their flight got cancelled and they didn't give themselves a buffer day before the wedding (not theirs thank goodness! ... that would have been bad)... and the most head-shaking was when I was flying intra-Alaska and seated next to me was this group whose travel agent had booked them on an early morning connecting flight which landed in Seattle 2 hours before their cruise departed ... of course their first flight got cancelled, the ship left, they didn't have insurance... so rather than lose everything they were trying to play catch up over the next few days trying to hook up with the ship at any subsequent Alaskan port where possible. And the most jaw dropping part was staying adamant and trying to convince me that the early morning flights were the only ones they would choose because getting in a day earlier would be a $1,000 more!! Well they would have had a lot of time to do the math when they were on planes to nowhere...

Well yes ideally it would be good to spend a night in each of BsAs and Ushuaia and frankly it's not that consequential to the budget... my night in USH is less than US$45 for the entire apartment in the heart of town a block from San Martin and two from Maipú. I've taken three cruises out of USH and generally get there the afternoon before... and ther're just so many amazing restaurants that I could do a whole week just binge-hopping.

gq_dq

At the risk of waxing eloquent about my wardrobe preferences 😊 I’ll simply state that the first time I hopped on an Antarctic cruise in the Year 2000 and being quite green when it came to traveling light, I had loaded myself up with 2 huge suitcases... on my subsequent Antarctic and Cape Horn cruises I started to try downsizing. Fast forward 25 years, my cold weather comfort now consists of a thick winter coat and a couple of packable down jackets which hardly take up any space and working as layers are very warm even below freezing. Underneath those, my preference is for quick-dry polyester long sleeve shirts which almost literally can fold micron thin!

Carry-on only? On flights, I hand carry the big coat and I can stuff my gloves and faux fur warm hat into the button/zip pockets so they don’t fall out. Even my scarf can go in. And actually even the packable jackets are so thin that they can be worn “nested” inside the big coat. So this entire compact contraption of like 8 articles of clothing doesn’t constitute a carry-on item. If they complain… I’ll just go LCC video-esque and wear it all!

The rest of my stuff I can fit inside a stroller + medium backpack which are my personal item and carry-on. On the ship, even on this 3-week cruise which will include the Falklands and S. Georgia, I should be able to make it work. Now if I needed a dinner jacket and all that jazz, that would be a whole ‘nother ballgame – but I’m not on Ponant’s Commandant Charcot! I will say I took a winter driving trip about a year ago to Alaska and the Yukon for about 10 days and used only half of the clothes I carried in my stroller (I still had to fly there), so I don’t think 21 days on the ship will be unmanageable… we shall see!

LXA350

How is AEP airport, in case you fly Premium Economy on AR is there any priority check in / security lines? Planing to come to the airport 90 minutes before fiight departure, is this enough? In light of the above, any risk the airline will be on strike or any other things to worry RE long delays etc?

M60_to_LGA

I've never had priority with AR, but I've always found AEP very easy and quick to deal with. If you have to wait in line at the check-in counter for whatever reason (like checking a bag), it might take a little while, but they usually work through the line at a pretty fast clip. I can never recall having a problem with long lines at security.

I'd probably aim to get there two hours before departure, but that's just me. Depending on where you're coming from and what time you're traveling, I'd also keep in mind traffic. One time there was a giant protest on 9 de julio (where I was staying), which meant that traffic was completely jacked everywhere in the vicinity. I ended up jumping on the Subte to get around the protest underground, then got off at Retiro and grabbed a bus to the airport. Made it with plenty of time, but it's just an example of what adventures might await in Argentina.

TBD

AEP does have priority check-in, but I don't recall seeing priority security. There was almost no line when I was there, but maybe that was just luck. Premium econoomy does not get lounge access. I think I was through check-in (incl bag check) and security in maybe 15 mins. YMMV

I remember being confused by the check-in areas, though. They were divided between North and South destinations. I was flying to Mendoza, which is ... west. We had to ask which desk to visit.

LXA350

Thanks for the information

higham44

Happy to say that each of the four flights operated as scheduled. My experiences with the airline was very positive throughout - efficient check-in staff, luggage offloaded swiftly, well organised boarding (unlike the scrums we so often experience with BA), smiling and helpful cabin crew. Based on this standard of operation, I would have no hesitation in using them.

M60_to_LGA

Yeah, having flown AR many times domestically, I've never had a real problem with them. They generally function as well as or better than any other institution in Argentina.

YYCCL3

I'd aim for 2 hours before departure to keep it less stressful. You never know what can happen... I arrived 1h40min before flight departure to USH at the Southern Destinations desk and it took half an hour to get through to the priority check in desk recently - which appeared to be because there was no space for checked bags from the priority desk to go on the belt, since it was at the end of the belt AFTER all of the economy counters. This caused them to be super slow in processing pax. The priority line was huge by the time I finished checking my bag.

LXA350

Thanks for your feedback, ok will aim to arrive 2 ours before to be on the safe side

higham44

From my recent experience of AEP (including a 3.5 hr layover en-route to Iguazu from El Calafate) it is a comfortable, albeit smallish, airport to wait for your flight. There are several places to grab a coffee and/or bite to eat while waiting for you flight.

M60_to_LGA

Aaaaarrrggghhh... about a month after I booked my AEP-USH flights, AR decided to unilaterally put me on new flights, including an outbound flight leaving out of EZE .

I'm now trying to get them to put me back on a flight out of AEP and also to put me on a USH-AEP flight that's closer to the times I originally booked. Apparently those flights are a different fare code, though, so I'm told I would need the airline to make an "exception" for me.

Adding to the fun, I booked the ticket through Expedia (I needed to use up a bunch of points that were expiring).

Fingers crossed this gets sorted out this week. At least the Expedia guy I spent close to an hour on the phone with this afternoon seemed competent, and he sent a very thorough email to AR, ccing me, in which he explained the specific flights that I wanted to be on. Frankly, I'd rather have him be running interference with the airline than me having to do it.