We were very excited to be going to the Antarctica and had some 18 months or so to plan our trip from when we first booked it. We decided to take advantage of several "must see" areas of South America and left home on 9th December 2010 for Santiago Chile (LAN flight).

After a couple of days in Santiago, we headed up to Cusco for 5 days, then an 8 day cruise around the Galapagos Islands, a few days at Iguazu Falls followed by several days in Buenos Aires prior to boarding the Star Princess.

The days leading up to the cruise went by quickly and it seemed that in no time at all, we were queued up at the Marriot Hotel for pre-cruise check in. While this process took some time due to the number of people trying to take advantage of it, it did save time at the terminal. The following morning, we met up with our friends and boarded a bus to take us to the cruise terminal which I thought was miles away. It was actually only a 10 minute ride from the Marriott at the San Martin end of Florida Street/Avenue which is actually a Mall. Read more