Pod of Orca, 12 circled and porpoised on both sides of the Sylvia Earle for a long time. This was during dinner. Most of the passengers, expedition team, and many of the crew ran, outside on deck to observe the beautiful spectacle. It was an unforgettable moment of observing nature that was observing us!

Life changing

Yes

The Zodiac cruises, landings and snorkeling were major differentiators on the entire cruise. The drivers, ships crew, and team leaders showed very high level of concern for safety. They did a great job in the teaching, reminding with respect, and adapting the people and conditions on each boat.

Clearly the Aurora Expedition team, led by Christian and supported by Leo, were very experienced. The whole team worked very well together, they were consistent on safety focus, found answers when they were not sure, and followed up on everything I can remember that they said they would do. Josie was a very calm, but effective leader as well. Marcos was one of the best across a wide range of areas, geology, ice, boat driver skill, Zodiac cruising explanations, Citizen Science project... when he was our driver, we were very excited. The 20 members really enjoyed what they were doing, had fun together and with the expeditioners, ate dinner and meals at random tables, always willing to chat or answer a question in the passageways.

We did alot of research on the various companies and especially the ships before selecting Aurora and the Sylvia Earle. The ship is beautiful, well laid out for expeditions, and the cabins were just the right level of comfort, size, and amenities for this type of adventure. Some of the very well designed features: large heated bathroom and shower floors, this turned out to remove almost all of the stress of having dry clothes for the twice daily outings, layout of clothing storage in high cabinets for ease of access, space under the bed for empty luggage, very hot water in the sink, but not scalding in the shower, metal walls and ceilings that allowed for hanging magnets for clothing to air out, very comfortable beds, sitting couch right by the very secure door and window to our balcony, cleanliness all day and after each outing, Denvorn was amazing, like a ghost keeping the room ready all day long, more than enough and great location of power outlets, very quiet rooms never heard anything through the walls, lighting controls at the bed. The ship was very smooth, gentle rolling through the Drake, no pounding, hand rails everywhere, allowed to go really anywhere you wanted on the ship to explore and watch all of the Zodiac launching, recovery, Lecture Hall had many large TV's so you never were in a bad spot to see, easy to get to all areas quickly. Felt very safe on the ship.

Eddie, Katya and Pete worked very well to give the best possible experience. The dry suit preparation and instruction was very good and always focused on safety. We hit the list of dry suiting for sure. Our honest opinion is that what you can actually see, at the time of year we went possibly, is very limited. It is the nature of Antarctica. We know from ship logs that other snorkeling saw many things that the randomness of what is in the water at the time you get in plays a large part. Once again, great equipment, great organization and leadership from Eddie, and the fact that you get to go out early with the same people as much as you like, or not, is a big plus. The literature could be clearer that you will have the opportunity to go snorkeling every Zodiac outing if you want vs. a one time excursion.

Easy to walk and explore with all hotels in the downtown area. We found the food and sights to be what was expected. The city is very well laid out, with great waterfront walking areas and modern art, for being one of the most remote cities in the world, we were impressed.

We arrived 2 days earlier and really enjoyed using our rental car to explore. Las Hayas Resort concierge gave great advice tailored to what we enjoy. The free classes such as Archery, Trekking, Wine Tasting were very well run and we would recommend letting people know about these in advance. We drove to Puerto Almanza which was very scenic and enjoyable experience of this very small and remote port. La Mesita restaurant served up freshly caught (from the Beagle Channel) King Crab that was amazing.

Swoop and Aurora seem to have a very good partnership, focused on the experience and great customer response. Many of our questions were answered very quickly and helped to plan what turned out to be almost a full month of travel with before and after trips. Knowing exactly what to bring for clothing and expeditioning was very helpful. Since the CEO of Aurora was on the cruise, and the attention to detail from Ben and Ian, we offer the following only to get much better vs. fix issues that detracted from the awesome experience. Swoop: Great website with everything easy to find. Would try to make it easier to compare cabins/pricing/deck location on and between ships. Most stressful part of the process and the most impact on cost and comfort. A comparator tool would be great. Aurora: Very good website, some inconsistencies in specific itineraries and information like weight of baggage, size, etc could have been avoided with minor review. Product offering, We now know that our 9 day Sail/Fly mix of passengers was an exception as far as age. Having so many young people on the cruise really made the whole vibe more fun. Tailoring these shorter trips could open up opportunities to a larger, untapped demographic.

Last minute planning might be normal, but for expeditioning, especially in Antarctica, spend the time to learn about the area, the reality of weather changes, and have a very open mind to changes in plans during the day. Add time on each end to buffer for delays, but spending time on departure and arrival ports can lead to unexpected experiences.

Trying to explain Antarctica to people is difficult, the scale of the mountains, glaciers, animal life, weather interactions, really is difficult. Very much amplified our strong feelings on impact of climate change.

See prior section.

Yes

No

Yes