Great itinerary to the South Atlantic and Antarctic. Looked forward to the great food, helicopter ride and submarine. The ship is in fact beautiful and very comfortable.

Unfortunately, I received an email as I was packing for the trip informing us that the sub was broken and not available. We were selected for a helicopter ride at the same time as our first kayak opportunity- we asking to move to a later helicopter ride but never heard from them again and never made it to the top of the list again - no helicopter. In order to experience the chef’s tasting you must be in a top suite or a frequent Scenic traveler - we never got an invitation. The cooking demonstrations, wine tasting and whiskey tastings are limited to 16 people were all full by the time we heard about them. I did get one cooking demo (excellent) and a whiskey tasting (not top shelf and not very knowledgeable) both times from a waiting list.

Generally, the food was very good and the serving staff was excellent. Lumeire was especially great but reservations only so we only got in 3 times in 18 days. The wine and whiskey selections were all mid to low level not top shelf. Beer selection was very poor - Only 4 to chose from and they ran out of the only IPA on day 4. They advertised 156 whiskey selections but by my count it was closer to 20. The final blow - we spent over $3000 per day and all we got for Christmas was Covid. They informed us early in the trip that 4 people had tested positive (2 crew - 2 passengers). They never enforced the vaulted health and safety protocols. After the announcement most of the crew wore masks most of the time. Very few passengers took any precautions. We wore masks except when eating. They never verified vaccination status - never even collected the “required” health forms which we filled out. The trip ended on a very sour note. Due to technical problems our chartered flight was delayed one day out of Ushuaia - but not before we boarded the plane and were packed in like sardines. We sat in the plane for 5 hours while most of the passengers coughed and sneezed. We deplaned and were provided hotel rooms for the night. (Quite a mess ) Disembark the ship to hotel was 11 hours and then we got to do it again the next day. We had a total of 9 hours on a crowded plane with MANY Covid infected people. I estimate that only 10 to 15% of the passengers got to experience the chefs table but very close to 100% got to take Covid home to their families for Christmas.