We chose this cruise because we wanted to go to Antarctica and do some landings. All guests gathered in Santiago, Chile at a nice Sheraton so we could take two chartered flights to the departure city Punta Arenas the next morning "early", we had 380 passengers. We did get a tour of Punta Arenas when we landed Museum, town square, etc, just killing time before registering. The embarkation was a little slow as some of the card printing machines had issues but all in all went well, it was done on the ship by workers on the ship.

The ship is bigger than most you see on the tour, which is good when crossing the Drake Passage. It takes about 36 hours each way to cross. The ship was built in 2003 and appeared to be maintained very well. All of the common areas are quite nice, although this is not a typical cruise ship, more like a nice ferry boat (in the north summer it is used as a ferry boat).

Dinning is usually in the main dinning hall, breakfast and lunch are always buffet. Dinner is about 50/50 buffet and served. The food is good not gourmet, but adequate. This is a Norwegian ship so there is a lot of fish served, when buffet there is always a meat option and when severed you can sub out to the alternate, need to notify at lunch. Near the end there are some very good served meals (Cod and Chateaubriand) all very good. The deserts and bread are all fresh made and very good. After 14 days the choices of fresh fruit are limited, but, that is to be expected. There is a separate Dinning option, a tapas like restaurant. We did it once and it was nice and not too much of an up charge. Read more