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The Day Things Didn't Go To Plan In Antarctica!
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Jan 28, 2025
What is a typical day on an Antarctica cruise? In this vlog I set out to show a typical day but things during the day as plan after plan unravelled and things did not end up as I had expected. Though it does show what to really expect when you go on an Antarctica cruise, where things frequently do not go as expected or planned. ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS: If you want to get cruising right, Tips For Travellers makes it easy to plan and have the incredible cruise experiences you dream of every time. All my Tips For Travellers advice, tips and tricks tips draw on everything that I have learnt on the 87 cruises I have done to date. BUY MY CRUISE-THEMED T-SHIRTs ————————————————- Check out my T-Shirt range: http://bit.ly/TFTStore SUPPORT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS ————————————————————— Become a Channel Member and get perks: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/Join Become a Patron on Patreon and get perks: https://www.patreon.com/tipsfortravellers Make a donation: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=V9STJGYSEMGLJ Buy my book “Cruise Traveler’s Handbook: USA Amazon https://amzn.to/2YVFmG4 and https://amzn.to/3tzIxBn UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3oXbzYc and https://amzn.to/3qawqIQ FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA ——————————————— TikTok: @garybembridge
View Video Transcript
0:04
so
0:07
[Music]
0:24
so i woke up this morning and there is
0:27
it's quite foggy
0:28
and there's ice everywhere with icebergs
0:30
and that's could affect today because
0:33
ice can be a real enemy because
0:35
uh it affects where the ship can go it
0:37
can block passage into the bays that we
0:39
do to go to
0:40
so it's very beautiful
0:42
but it could be
0:44
a disaster for today
0:54
i have no idea how today is going to pan
0:57
out that's one of the things you learn
0:58
really really quickly on an expedition
1:00
cruise is that no matter what the plans
1:03
are they will probably change the reason
1:05
we're taking on today's trip is we're
1:07
supposed to do two of the big things
1:08
that would normally happen on an
1:09
expedition cruise a zodiac cruise and
1:11
the landing we were briefed on that last
1:14
night
1:15
but
1:16
who knows so let's find out how it all
1:18
plays out
1:20
right so about 15 minutes before i'm due
1:22
to be downstairs because it looks like
1:24
we're running to schedule so it's time
1:26
to get dressed this is one of the things
1:27
that i get asked so many times is about
1:30
packing and what to wear so it's really
1:31
pretty simple
1:32
it gets cold it's like minus seven
1:34
outside today minus seven celsius but if
1:36
you wear layers you don't really feel
1:38
the cold in fact it's my face that that
1:40
feels it the most which is the exposed
1:42
part it's all about layers so you have a
1:44
base layer
1:45
you then have an insulating layer you
1:48
then have an outside layer which is
1:49
waterproof which includes things like
1:50
waterproof trousers and
1:52
a parker now you need to bring most of
1:55
that with you
1:56
depending on the line you're with you
1:58
will get various parts on the ship so
2:00
you'll normally get a parker
2:02
which all the lines give you because
2:03
it's the same color and it means when
2:05
you're out they can spot you very easily
2:08
some will rent you boots now i actually
2:10
have my own boots because all with all
2:12
the hiking stuff i want to wear my own
2:13
boots so don't panic too much about it
2:16
just follow the rules base layer
2:18
insulating layer and an outside
2:20
waterproof layout
2:24
welcome to nico
2:26
there's a lot of ice
2:28
[Music]
2:42
[Music]
2:45
so after picking our way through the ice
2:47
to get to
2:49
land
2:50
we have a briefing
2:52
and they tell you where you can go and
2:54
where you can't go and it's mocked up
2:55
with little red lines and then
2:58
we're sort of exploring
3:06
so we're now here
3:08
in nicaragua it's very snowy so that's
3:11
why i'm kind of walking but tentatively
3:13
you can probably hear the
3:14
penguins it's again two penguins and
3:16
there's a
3:17
huge big glacier over there which has
3:20
carved a couple of times so to be able
3:21
to show you that
3:24
[Music]
3:27
so one of the things i would say with an
3:29
expedition cruise is you do need to be
3:31
pretty fit because you have to climb
3:33
on and off the zodiacs
3:36
uh yes you have to be quite nimble
3:37
because the seat can be moving up and
3:39
down
3:40
and then you have to do things like this
3:42
on the landings you know climb up and
3:44
down be comfortable on your feet on ice
3:46
and snow but it's absolutely remarkable
3:49
i mean just these scenes are absolutely
3:51
incredible and you're learning so much
3:52
about
3:53
the wildlife and the birds and
3:56
history
4:03
so over there behind
4:05
is the ship and then we've been
4:07
exploring so you could get two penguins
4:09
over there
4:11
way to climb down there
4:14
as i mentioned a lot of people get
4:15
worried about being overly
4:18
cold
4:19
if anything
4:20
you get
4:21
almost too hot with all these different
4:22
layers like hiking up this big hill
4:24
hiking back down again
4:26
you get really hot but i'm quite sweaty
4:28
i've been taking my hat off even to try
4:30
and cool down a little bit
4:33
just so beautiful so these landings are
4:36
fantastic you get to explore incredible
4:38
places you can everyone jabbering away
4:41
excited there
4:42
get some exercise in
4:45
[Music]
4:50
the biggest mistake i think people make
4:52
on an expedition trip
4:54
is
4:55
to take too many pictures
4:57
they just don't stop
4:59
and listen
5:00
and just take in what you're seeing i
5:02
think it's temptation to just take so
5:04
many pictures or videos and dismiss
5:07
what's going on
5:19
so that then was an example of a wet
5:22
landing although it wasn't that wet
5:23
because we didn't actually step into the
5:25
water which we do on many of the other
5:27
landings so there's three kind of things
5:29
that normally happen on an expedition
5:32
tour you'll have wet landings zodiac
5:33
tours and scenic touring so sitting
5:35
touring for example we did last night
5:37
where
5:38
we went looking for whales so we
5:39
basically cruise on the ship and we went
5:41
looking for wales we saw orca whales and
5:43
we saw humpback whales that was very
5:44
exciting
5:46
and this afternoon we're going to be
5:47
doing zodiac touring in a place called
5:49
paradise
5:50
bay
5:51
but now it's time for some hot chocolate
5:53
and then off to lunch
5:59
[Music]
6:01
so i've had my lunch just over there in
6:04
the buffet restaurant
6:07
which is over there i tend to have most
6:09
of my meals in the buffet restaurant
6:10
because i don't spend a lot of time in
6:12
the main restaurant uh because it's such
6:15
incredible scenery you know you've got
6:17
glaciers and mountains and just so much
6:19
going on i don't want to spend time
6:21
eating really the food is great it's
6:23
fine it's very typical people have asked
6:25
me what the food like it's like on
6:26
expedition cruises basically the same as
6:28
any cruise to be honest with you being
6:30
french serves amazing bread and jesus
6:32
and whatever anyway so had lunch it's uh
6:36
more changes
6:37
because we're picking our way through
6:39
this harbor
6:40
where there are there's a lot of ice a
6:43
lot of icebergs it's going to take us
6:44
much longer to get to paradise bay than
6:46
we had thought or planned or whatever it
6:49
is so actually you're gonna have the
6:50
briefing now normally have the briefing
6:51
at the end of the day when you recap
6:53
what you've seen you get told what's
6:54
happening the next day we're having that
6:56
at two o'clock and then at 4 30 we're
6:57
going to be going out to paradise bay so
6:59
we can enjoy all this incredibles
7:00
incredible scenery meantime and then
7:02
have our briefing and i'll tell you more
7:04
about the briefings uh and what they
7:06
said after that
7:08
so you have uh duman jorvin who was a
7:11
famous french explorer last day we were
7:14
in our war and cooperatively
7:17
briefing's done and one of the things i
7:19
would say is one of the real highlights
7:20
of an expedition cruise is the whole
7:24
area of the briefings so on this cruise
7:27
we have 14 naturalists so there's
7:28
historians geologists whale experts all
7:32
sorts and
7:34
every single cruise is very unique so
7:36
after every outing after every days of
7:39
outings they put together a series of
7:41
talks which are exactly about what we've
7:43
seen so for example we just learned a
7:45
little bit more about orcas and humpback
7:47
whales that we'd seen a little bit more
7:48
about shark cart where we've been
7:50
yesterday and of course we get briefed
7:52
on what we're doing uh tomorrow so
7:55
i would say one of the absolute
7:57
highlights of an exhibition cruise with
7:59
our shadow of a doubt is those briefings
8:02
so we're now sort of heading into the
8:04
bay and we will hopefully be going on
8:07
our zodiac cruise shortly
8:14
[Music]
8:27
[Music]
8:39
each of them is kind of standing on its
8:41
own nest
8:42
[Music]
8:44
so i'm back from the zodiac tour which
8:47
was amazing heading to paradise bay now
8:49
i've actually been to paradise maybe
8:50
before but i've been at the end of the
8:52
season so amazing going beginning of the
8:54
season because it's just chock full of
8:55
ice
8:56
loads of icebergs the glaciers are huge
9:00
the place is covered in snow it looks
9:02
amazing so we had a look
9:04
or went past anyway an argentinian a
9:06
research center which isn't open yet
9:07
they only move in in december time then
9:10
we headed out into a place called
9:11
scontorp bay
9:13
uh
9:14
had a look around there we had a really
9:16
little surprise because they uh had got
9:19
a little box in
9:20
the zodiac with champagne so that was
9:22
very nice little surprise that we had
9:24
out there then we weaved our way around
9:27
looking at all the incredible sights
9:28
birds on the rocks uh and
9:31
what people most enjoyed looking at
9:33
probably is the icebergs all the kind of
9:34
colored ice et cetera headed back had my
9:36
traditional hot chocolate you can
9:38
probably hear them they're putting the
9:40
zodiacs back and then we're going to set
9:41
sail for our next destination tomorrow
9:43
which actually the south shetlands
9:45
but of course there's still the whole
9:47
night to go and explain what's happening
9:50
a little bit later
9:51
during the course of the evening
9:55
[Music]
9:57
today seems to have been a really good
9:58
day to have chosen to
10:01
talk about the unpredictability of going
10:04
on an expedition cruise and how you need
10:06
to be adaptable
10:07
i was going to talk about the things to
10:09
do in the evening on board the ship
10:11
which is pretty laid back because most
10:13
people go to bed early because
10:15
you're pretty tired at the end of the
10:17
day after all of these kind of
10:18
excursions and activities you've seen
10:20
however during dinner today the captain
10:23
came on over the loud speaker system to
10:26
say that he was going to try
10:28
something very special very unique and
10:30
that's to push the ship
10:33
right into the ice shelf
10:35
and
10:36
if successful we're going to be able to
10:38
step out of the ship and go exploring
10:40
and walk around on the ice now the ice
10:43
shelf is a really big thick
10:47
sheet of ice that extends past the land
10:51
out over the sea so underneath the ice
10:53
shelf is
10:54
ocean basically
10:56
uh not land most of antarctica is land
10:58
the idea is to push the ship because
11:00
it's uh got a strengthened hull into the
11:03
ice shelf and have a look and see if
11:06
that's possible and if it is we're going
11:08
to be out exploring on the ice shelf
11:10
tonight and so the plan is to
11:13
start doing that at about 10 p.m tonight
11:16
and hopefully we'll be out on the ice
11:18
shelf about 11.
11:20
so we're having a pretty unusual
11:22
experience we're actually in
11:24
the shelf ice so
11:26
there's the sea
11:28
there's the beginning of the ice
11:31
there's the ice shelf
11:32
and we're pushed into our shelf and
11:34
we're now walking through and on the ice
11:39
absolutely and utterly incredible the
11:42
ship just pushing
11:44
into the ice
11:49
and it's just really totally wrong
11:51
everybody out on deck having a look what
11:53
was even more amazing is once we were in
11:55
the ice shelf and got out and explored
11:58
we were able to walk around there was a
12:00
perimeter set up
12:01
explore there was a really great
12:04
excitement because there was actually an
12:05
emperor penguin in the distance we
12:07
couldn't get to because it was too far
12:08
away which is really unusual
12:10
and
12:11
uh they set up a little stand where you
12:13
could have caviar
12:15
and explore the filipino crew went crazy
12:18
they all came out
12:19
because many of them had been able to
12:20
get out at all
12:22
when we've been touring the islands they
12:24
went crazy with flag uh really fun where
12:27
they they put a rope down from the front
12:30
of the ship and so people pretending to
12:31
pull the ship absolutely incredible
12:33
experience it doesn't happen very often
12:34
it's very rare it's very unusual and it
12:38
was just mind-blowing
12:42
[Music]
13:01
you
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