Flying the Drake is the obvious solution if you don't have a lot of time and get sea sick. Unfortunately we had to wait 48 hours until we were able to fly to King George Island due to the weather conditions. As a consequence we only had 6 nights on the ship, but we managed to sail to the Antarctic Circle. The ship, the Ocean Adventurer used to be called the Sea Adventurer. It does not have large bay windows in the lounge from which you can admire the scenery as you sail (as we had seen for instance in the Lofoten in Norway). Our cabin was comfortable, with a very good shower. It was spotlessly clean. The food was all right, considering the difficulty to get such supplies as fresh fruit and vegetables. The landscapes we sailed through, including the Lemaire Channel, were jaw-dropping beautiful. But apart from a few rookeries of penguins, half a dozen seals and the tails of a few whales, we did not see as many animals as we had expected. The whales in Antarctica do not breach as we had seen them do in other countries. What bothered us a little bit was the false enthusiasm of the young guides, who, we understood, were doing their jobs and behaved as they had been told to behave. But it was a bit annoying to be constantly told that the landscapes were "stunning" and that what we saw was exceptional (we knew that...). Some of them tended to treat us like school children, asking us, for instance, if we were able to identify what type of seal was in front of us. Given that most of us were at least middle-aged, the lecturing was slightly out of place. But everyone was very eager to do their jobs well and the crew can't really be blamed for what they thought was the thing to do. Also annoying was the fact that those of us who did the Antarctic plunge were not given any token of their achievement. If they wanted a T-shirt to remember it, they had to pay $29, which we thought was terrible PR considering the price of the cruise. The last impression given by the team when we were taken back to Punta Arenas was awful. We were literally dropped at the hotel and left without any good-bye, told to take care of our last meal and find our taxi to the airport. It left a bad taste in our mouth.