It is clear to me that Argentina does not welcome tourists, particularly Americans. I have never seen so many security lines--it took four hours from arriving in BA to the ship. And Americans have to pay a $160 reciprocity fee to get into the country. This is apparently because they are po'd that the U.S. requires Argentinians to get a visa. The website to pay the fee is abysmal. Some people reported spending three hours to get it to work. Then you are asked to show it a million times. God forbid you lose the stupid thing. And don't try to use your cell phone. Argentina and Chile are the only countries in the world that don't offer a discounted cell phone plan for travelers.

If you can get past all that, the trip was fine. Not wonderful, but fine. The Penguins were amazing. Definitely go to Puna Tomba and to Bluff Cove in the Falklands. The National Park at Ushaia was nothing special. Montevideo is a depressing city, but mildly interesting. Don't take the Princess tour to the volcano and the waterfall. The waterfall had a million people and the stop is so rushed it's not worth it. In fact, don't take any Princess tours. You can get small-group tours easily online and they are much nicer and cheaper.

The ship was not up to the standards of Princess. We had virtually no information on where we were or what we were seeing. We even went to the "library" to see if they had a map, but no luck. The library was actually just an internet site with a few books. The weather report was always off. I always went online to get a real weather report--even though the wifi was horrible and expensive. Read more