Day 11 and 12 – Antarctica – Back Across the Drake Passage – Massive Waves!

On Day 11 on my Antarctic adventure, I woke up to the boat rocking – we were in the Drake Passage! Its hard to tell from this video, just how much the boat was rocking.

Admittedly, it was fun, I know a lot of people were sea sick, but fortunately, I don’t get sea sick so it was more of like a thrilling ride for me. On top of that, breakfast (with caviar) was waiting!

The waves were like this for all of Day 11, and half of Day 12 until we started to approach land. Here are more vids as I tried to capture just how rough the seas were.

As we approached land, the waves calmed down. Here are a couple vids showing the calmness and scenery and another is a look at the two floor wintergarden suite that a friend was staying in (while this suite is impressive, I still believe the panoramic room is the best in terms of layout etc).

One thing I did not know about the itinerary is that the last day would be spent in port in Ushuaia. I would of rather gone straight back to Buenos Aires. The next morning, we were greeted by a beautiful day.

Here is the part that the cruise company needs to improve. Our flight back to BA was at 1PM. However, we had to be off the ship by 9AM. The cruise company set up a “hospitality suite” in a local hotel for us to wait for our flight. However, the suite was just an empty room with a couple of chairs. There was not even water! For a company selling a luxury cruise experience, this was far from. We decided to kill some time by doing a train tour of Ushuia. The most beautiful thing I saw was this park. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful.

The plane ride back to BA was the same as the one coming. Narrow seats, poor leg room, and bad food. Overall, this was an amazing experience. The scenery, animals, and novelty of being in Antarctica is totally worth it. Would I do it again? No. However, I may consider a trip to the South Pole to check off the list, but as for seeing Antarctica itself, once was enough. I would highly recommend everyone to see it once in their lifetime.