This was our 16th cruise, 9th on Princess. We sailed from Valparaiso, Chile around Cape Horn to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We flew into Santiago Chile and spent one night in Valparaiso before boarding the ship. Embarkation was very chaotic. A strike by port workers that day prevented taxis from entering the port so we were dropped at stop where a shuttle bus would take us into the port, which was all a little confusing. Once in the terminal building confusion reigned. It was unclear where to leave your bags. Lines were not well defined and there weren't many staff available to clear things up. There was one other ship in port and I think both ships were delayed disembarking because of the strike and that was affecting our boarding process. After getting checked in, we then had to wait for another shuttle bus to take us to the ship. Overall it took us about 2 hours from arriving at the terminal to board the ship.

The Pacific was fairly rough when we were out in the open sea. The first 2 days were probably the worst. When we were in channels protected by islands it was fine, and the Atlantic side of the cruise was very smooth.

Our first port was Puerto Montt and there was another unannounced strike at this port as well. Picketers were blocking vehicles from leaving the port area. Eventually they did start letting 2 or 3 buses go at a time. We sat on our bus for over 2 hours before we were able to get out, and our excursion was cut short a bit as a result. Read more