Patagonia/Antarctica Christmas 2022

[starwarsdad]

We decided to arrive one day early and luckily for us we did. Those arriving on day 1 of the adventure ran into terrible traffic due to the World Cup champions returning home that morning. The Argentina Football Association’s headquarters are just a few miles down the road from the airport towards city center. The streets were crowded on the way there. I heard of stories that it took several hours to travel to the hotel that morning.

Immigration and customs were not difficult or time consuming but our flight was 90 minutes late so perhaps we missed “rush hour.”

ABD had English speaking guides to direct us immediately after clearing customs. Our guide obtained a large van or small bus to take us back to the Alvear Icon hotel. There are several Alvear hotels in Buenos Aires. Luckily I wasn’t too tired because the drive took us to Alvear Art hotel. Since we don’t speak better than two years of high school Spanish we had a bit of difficulty explaining to our driver he had the wrong hotel. Thank goodness for the universal language of Google maps.

This hotel doesn’t seem like the standard hotel ABD uses for the adventure because the site still states Sofitel Recoletta which may be in a more touristy area of Buenos Aires.

Most flights from the US are red eyes into Buenos Aires. Our room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm. So jet lagged and all we began exploring Puerto Madero. This area is a reclaimed port area turned tourist area and upscale housing. Our local guide told us many of the Argentina National team has housing in the area.

There are some nice restaurants along the river and we were about a 15-20 minute walk to Florida Street and the Obelisco.

My kids were fairly tired so I didn’t push us to do a whole lot. The other major cloud over our head was our impending COVID test. I think many of us were super cautious just because we didn’t want to have traveled all this way to not go to Antarctica.

Oh what’s a trip to Buenos Aires without some empanadas.

 

[starwarsdad]

I forgot to mention, the Argentina government passed in November a new exchange rate for credit cards. The rate is closer to the true street value. However when we left I didn’t get confirmation Argentina had gotten the word out to the appropriate authorities, banks, credit cards etc. We read multiple articles of the rate still converting to the old rate.

We did a test day one and checked and saw we did get the new conversion rate.

 

[starwarsdad]

Official first day of the adventure, our first full day in Buenos Aires, is outlined well previously in the thread.

We passed our COVID test and finally could fully relax. We ended up not being able to do our planned tours because the city essentially shut down. However it was worth it for the once in a lifetime experience celebrating the World Cup with the estimated 5 million people who gathered in the city center Argentina.

As many of you probably saw the crowds were crazy but we never felt in danger or people pushing or being rude. I wouldn’t have traded that day for anything. One of the most memorable day of traveling in my entire lifetime. I’m an Argentina football fan for life.

Let’s move on to Antarctica!

 

[starwarsdad]

Day Two

We had to wake up really early for a 5:00 am breakfast and then off to the airport. We loaded up in four charter buses to EZE to fly out of their domestic terminal. ABD had terminals reserved for us for our own check in. They didn’t seem to strict on bag limits. Some people with obviously large bags that were overweight had to pay a modest fee. They did not weigh anybody’s carry on for our trip but we were told they had been very strict on several of last years charter flight.

We had to go back no TSA precheck. Then we waited for our charter flight to Ushuaia with just our ABD family for the next few days. It was odd to be day 2 of the trip and really have not truly met any of our future travel companions officially.

We were briefed at breakfast that our day in Ushuaia would be cut short because the captain wanted to leave immediately after our safety briefing for the Drake passage. Hurricane force winds were predicted for second half of the passage if we wanted the one evening in Ushuaia as planned. No one really objected because that meant we got one extra day in Antarctica which actually translated to 1.5 extra days since we got the Drake Lake.

We had lunch in Tierra Del Fuego National park, took a few photos then boarded our home for the next 11 nights.

If you are using DCL as your frame of reference to cruising, like me, we did have an adjustment to make. I’ll outline the ship in my next post.

 

[starwarsdad]

Ponant vs DCL

In fairness, this isn’t a competition because L’Austral is designed for a completely different purpose than any of the DCL ships.

Staterooms: Ponant really is a bed with minimal sitting area. We had a chair and small round table but that ended up serving as a drying rack for our clothes. There were only two outlets in the room, one US and one European and both of these were on the small counter opposite the bed. The light switches bedside were nice but no charging possibilities. I like having my phone bedside so I took my USB battery pack and charged my phone bedside then charged my battery pack during the day.

Stateroom Bathroom: like Disney, it was a split shower sink on one side and toilet in the other side without a sink. The shower is tight and no bath. One nice thing was you can slide a panel to see outside when you shower or brushed your teeth if you wanted.

Dining: you could do buffet on 6 or sit down on 2. I think the flow normally for Ponant is people kind of trickle in during dining hours but I think being a DCL experienced heavy guests for the sailing we seemed to flock dining at the stated start times initially. I think that kind of slowed down sit down service some. I would like to spend more time describing the dining in another post.

Muster Drill: This is way more serious than DCL. We actually practiced a full muster all the way to the point short of boarding the lifeboat.

Drinks: Ponant had open bar throughout the cruise. Kids ordered a lot of non alcoholic drinks. They had a wide array of sodas. It ran out of ginger ale on our Drake Shake on the way back. Ponant also did a great job of providing nice reusable water bottles and had really good water.

Gym: pretty limited. Since the excursions provided only hikes, I found the gym kind of important to provide cardio. They only had two working treadmills but I rarely had to wait for one. They had a few bikes and one hand bike. There was some sort of cable weight system but I never figured out how to use that since the instructions were on a digital tablet and it froze often and was in French.

Theatre: it was nice and the seats were comfortable. Obviously smaller. Ponant employed five very talented formally trained dancers who served as exercise and dance teachers. They did do one amazing show called Marco Polo. Most of the evening shows otherwise we performed in lounges and we often just went to bed early. The theatre was our pre dinner gathering area were we were briefed by our adventure guides and the Ponant expedition team.

Lounges: unlike Disney were there are many areas to walk around and hang out, on the L’Austral, the hang out areas are mainly in a lounge on 3 aft or 6 forward. 6 forward was more of the quiet lounge and families playing games and doing crafts were more on 3. These were heavily utilized on the passage days.

Pool: there was one small heated pool which my family used once. It was nice and warm but getting out was cold mainly due to the wind!

We found overall the Ponant staff to be very professional and did their job well. DCL obviously trains their staff to do a few extra things like greet kids with princess or have a magical day. Our stateroom attendant were timely and like a ninja. He stayed pretty quiet and was clearly focused on his job.

Our captain seemed to love Disney week and along with our cruise director, was super outgoing and approachable.

I had downloaded a bunch of movies, Christmas flicks, planned games and so forth but the time went fast. We spent some time being horizontal on the Drake Shake days watching movies and just feeling more sleepy from the rocking of the boat but other than that, time went by fast between the expeditions and ABD planned activities.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Super interesting comparisons! Great trip report so far

 

[aggiedog]

Some of these differences are also because the ship is much smaller, yes?

 

[starwarsdad]

Some of these differences are also because the ship is much smaller, yes?

Certainly. Outside of the differences ship sizing allows, the biggest difference we noted as a family was the passing of time on DCL revolves around walking around a lot such as following my kids around for mid ship detective, browsing shops, and going between activities. On a smaller ship, we had to be much more intentional about doing things with free time between expeditions or events.

The other difference we noted unrelated to physical size was truly a Disney culture thing I believe. As platinum DCL guests we have become so accustomed to over the top customer service. Princess, have a magical day, towel animals, side magic tricks are just some examples. While French culture is not over the top by nature, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in excellence. It just may look different than we are accustomed. I found myself not talking to my stateroom attendant outside of brief courtesies for example the way I would on DCL because he didn’t say have a magical day or ask did you have an awesome expedition. I remember physically telling myself it is not that these people don’t care, they just are different culturally.

I found this somewhat similar interactions with the majority French expedition staff initially. I will say the combination of the warmness of our guides combined with the nature of the Disney guests, I can look back and say we did notice a big change in the perceived friendliness of the expedition team towards the end.

Finally, I will say most ABDs we have done, the guests are predominantly Disney fans. I would say this adventure was 1/3 Disney fans but new to ABD (DCL frequent cruisers or frequent park guests), 1/3 Disney fans and ABD fans, and 1/3 I want to go to Antarctica and I trust Disney’s name. Far fewer Mickey hats and fun tee shirts on this trip but it was still the majority but not the overwhelming majority. Honestly this had no bearing as we meet a ton of awesome people and we had no issue with any guests during our time there.

More pictures coming but real life threw me a curveball.

 

[Mathmagicland]

I found myself not talking to my stateroom attendant outside of brief courtesies for example the way I would on DCL because he didn’t say have a magical day or ask did you have an awesome expedition. I remember physically telling myself it is not that these people don’t care, they just are different culturally.

I found this somewhat similar interactions with the majority French expedition staff initially.

That is unfortunate, because I had a very different experience with both my stateroom host and the expedition guides on my Antarctica adventure. My stateroom host was friendly and we’d chat a couple of times a day. The expedition guides were also friendly and open to chatting when asked a question. Same with ship staff throughout the ship , I found people to be friendly.

 

[starwarsdad]

That is unfortunate, because I had a very different experience with both my stateroom host and the expedition guides on my Antarctica adventure. My stateroom host was friendly and we’d chat a couple of times a day. The expedition guides were also friendly and open to chatting when asked a question. Same with ship staff throughout the ship , I found people to be friendly.

I don’t view this as unfortunate. Please don’t get me wrong, no one was unfriendly and we did talk daily with our stateroom attendant but it was always brief. He also seemed to have a lot of rooms to do; more than what a DCL attendant is responsible. We also saw him doing a few rooms on another floor. Maybe they were short.

The expedition staff did answer questions anytime we asked.

Hopefully I’m not painting a bleak picture of Ponant because they did a great job. I guess I am just trying to convey the conversations are not over the top flowered with terms like princess to my daughters or adding the prefix magical to day.

Sorry this is hard to convey in words. The experience and interactions are just different.

 

[2littlestitches]

Just want to say thanks so much for all of this amazing information! We are planning on this trip in the next few years, and I have learned so much by reading your posts. Thank you!

 

[runskyhy]

Ponant vs DCL

In fairness, this isn’t a competition because L’Austral is designed for a completely different purpose than any of the DCL ships.

Thanks for all the details about this adventure. It's all really helpful. All the deck plans for this ship show 3 elevators (1 fwd, 2 aft) on each level but only on set of stairs between Decks 3 & 4, in the central lobby. Are there any other public stairwells onboard? Are the elevators the only option to get between decks?

 

[starwarsdad]

Thanks for all the details about this adventure. It's all really helpful. All the deck plans for this ship show 3 elevators (1 fwd, 2 aft) on each level but only on set of stairs between Decks 3 & 4, in the central lobby. Are there any other public stairwells onboard? Are the elevators the only option to get between decks?

Sorry for the long absence. Real life between my adventures occurred. Just back from my last adventure Back Stage Magic and hope to continue this trip report slowly.

As far as the elevators are concerned, I honestly never took them I don't think. The ship is a fraction of the size of the DCL. We pretty much took the stairs all the time. If i recall correctly the only "fancy set" of stairs was between 3 & 4 but stairs are very easily accessible. I just realized if you were on the February sailing you probably already learned this yourself.