Seeing all the incredible wildlife! The expedition team told us how rare it was to see all the whales we saw!

Great holiday

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Thoroughly enjoyed all the zodiacs cruises. I definitely felt safe each time. Most memorable was being out on a Zodiac and seeing the penguins jumping all around us! My only slight criticism of the zodiacs was that the drivers need to ensure both sides of the zodiac can see whatever it is we're looking at. One zodiac I was on basically did a counterclockwise circle the whole time, so it was hard for the left side of the boat to see what was going on.

They were all quite knowledgeable and friendly! All the staff were great, but I enjoyed Richard and his presentation the most. Also, he did a great job when standing in for Brandon during his illness.

Our cabin was perfect! We enjoyed the upgrade to a suite, especially having 3 people in our group. The food and drinks were all incredible. Always hard to make a choice on what to eat for dinner each night. Only criticism would be the buffet dinner the first night. The food was, as usual, incredible, but the layout and staffing was poorly done. There was only 1 cook doing the pasta, and there was a table displaying wine right at a critical traffic point in the dinning room, which led to continual crowding of people who were waiting 30-45+ minutes for their pasta. My recommendation would be to always have 2 cooks minimum doing the pasta during that first dinner buffet, and create space for people to line up and for others to easily get past that line.

The logistics of the buffet, particularly for lunch and dinner, need to be thought through better. If there can't be two different buffets, then the flow needs to be better setup. When the doors to the dining room open, everyone just rushes straight for the buffet, creating confusion as to who's in line for what. The plates need to be at the absolute beginning, not halfway through the dessert side, which causes people to squeeze in between other people who are in line. For the salad bar, the leafy greens need to be at the beginning, with all the toppings following after that. These are all pretty minor criticisms, but would go a long way to improving the dining experiences for the buffets. Overall, I had a fantastic experience on-board the SH Diana and would absolutely go again!

Don't overpack, with free washing machines/dryers on board, you definitely need less clothing packed than you might during a normal vacation (where you have to pay for laundry or don' t have access to laundrymats).

It has made Antarctica and the animals that live there feel very real to me in a way that documentaries simply can't. Truly a great experience for me. Makes me want to do more to take care of the environment there!

Pictures and details of provided gear would have been helpful to us. We did end up getting them after we asked, but for planning purposes, that information should be provided upfront to anyone considering a cruise. For example, if a waterproof rucksack is included, show pictures and dimensions. One thing concerning announcements on the ship (probably wrong section to put this, but I wanted to make sure I put it somewhere), was that it was sometimes inconsistent with whether an announcement and the associated "ding" happened inside or outside of the rooms. For example, on one of our first days in Antarctica, whales were spotted around 5:50 AM. However, when they made the announcement, they only sounded the "ding" in the rooms, but only made the subsequent announcement in the hallways. I had no clue what the "ding" was for, and went back to bed instead of getting up to see the whales. They should have done both the "ding" and the announcement in the rooms.

Very prepared and excited! I think I overpacked slightly, as there were several gear items I didn't really use, like bulky waterproof gloves, but most things I brought I used.

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