We wanted the full Antarctica experience so included Falklands and South Georgia as well as Antarctic Penninsula. You’ll most likely only go once so go for all of it. This part did not disappoint at all. Expedition staff were overall young but very experienced and excellent, they worked extremely hard to get us off the ship as much as was possible. Presentations were well-researched and interesting and informative. With only 125 passengers everyone could get off as often as they wanted, usually twice a day.

Unfortunately their beautiful new ship is not as wonderful as they think but hopefully they have learned from their mistakes ( I think they went cheap on interior designers) and made improvements in the Sylvia Earle, their newest ship. I will credit them in getting all of the expedition related parts of the ship perfect. Other areas not at all, many areas show signs of wear or neglect and this ship is barely three years old, and presumably wasn’t used during Covid. Carpet is already worn in places. Cleaning was adequate but not at all the pristine level you would expect. I had the same spots on the outside of our glass shower divider the whole trip, as in it was never cleaned in 20 days! (I purposely didn’t ask for it to be cleaned to see if it would be, it wasn’t!) Bathrooms are lined with textured white plastic that they don’t keep clean. Shows smudges and dirt. Hardware, like on wardrobe doors, is already broken. Stalls in the public bathrooms by the restaurant are tiny, (I’m a small person and they were tight for me.) Sad as the ship has excellent expedition outfitting but not hotel design or finishes. Where there is space in cabins for extra hooks they are not there so it’s hard to stow wet gear.

Safety concerns: Outside doors to the decks are often locked but there is no sign on the outside so you don’t know the door is locked if you need to get in! The cup holder in the bathroom is too close below the mirror so mirror gets chipped when you pick up the cup. ( I saw the chip fly and could pick it up off the floor before I stepped on it.) Exit doors are often blocked with housekeeping carts, as if they didn’t plan a place to store them. Read more