On a big cruise ship you don't get to go off the ship onto the ice, but the cost is about a third of the price, so we thought we'd try seeing Antarctica this way and if we really needed to touch the ice, we could do the expedition ship in a few years.

We were not disappointed. Captain McBain took us to places not even on the itinerary, and we had a blast doing them. We got to within a couple of hundred feet from the continent so we were more than happy to stay warm in the luxurious surroundings (compared to the expedition ships down there) and pop outside as we needed to, to take photos and just watch the beauty and to steal a line from the iconic Aussie movie 'The Castle', to watch 'the serenity of it all"!

Princess did a fantastic job of entertaining us and showing us the continent. We were lucky to have had calm seas both ways on the Drake Passage and only the first day was foggy in Antarctica (cleared up mid afternoon and from then on it was great). Read more