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5 Worst Things About An Antarctica Trip. Should They Stop You Going?
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Jan 28, 2025
What is the worst things about going on a cruise to Antarctica? Discover the 5 most important issues and challenges you will face and experience if you want to do an Antarctica cruise. And find out if these should make you reconsider visiting Antarctica. Also watch my "5 Best Things About An Antarctica Cruise" video: https://youtu.be/99HANPY2TSU Check out cruising merchandise like T-shirts at my store at https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/store Support the channel by booking your next cruise and for the best deals on CRUISEDIRECT.COM: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/CruiseDirectYT Follow Tips For Travellers on: - Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/garybembridge - Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tipsfortravellers - Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/garybembridge #Antarctica #AntarcticaCruise #AntarcticaTips
View Video Transcript
0:00
I'm about to share with you the five
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worst things about going on a cruise to
0:04
Antarctica hi I'm Gary Bainbridge and
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this is another of my tips for travelers
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what possibly could be the worst parts
0:10
of Antarctica cruise well here you go
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first of all the cost it is an
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incredibly expensive experience you're
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likely to spend between ten thousand US
0:21
dollars and fifteen thousand US dollars
0:23
and that's not even on a luxury kind of
0:26
experience the cheapest you're probably
0:28
going to find something is around about
0:30
just for the cruise alone around about
0:32
six thousand five hundred dollars and so
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it is a very very expensive experience
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and there are a number of key costs you
0:37
have the cruise only cost you then have
0:40
to get to a Shire so you're gonna have
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to either fly to bonus areas and onto a
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shire or what a lot of cruisers do is
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your fighter Santiago and then across to
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or Shire then you also have to have very
0:52
specific gear now you can hire the gear
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so some cruise lines will have
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relationships with some suppliers so you
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can actually hire the equipment but you
1:00
are gonna have to invest or rent
1:02
equipment there's very specific boots
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you need there's different layers you
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need hats sunglasses there's a lot of
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gear that you need and so there's a
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whole lot of cost involved with that for
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many people the worst part of an
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Antarctica cruise is not even the cost
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it's the getting there so to get to the
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Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland
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Islands which is where most of the
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cruises go to you have to cross Drake
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Passage Drake Passage has the roughest
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seas that you can possibly imagine in
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the world it doesn't matter what time of
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year you go it's very unpredictable
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some people would experience what's
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known as the Drake Lake which is a very
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calm flat sea most people will actually
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experience Drake shake which can be
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pretty rough so we had a great crossing
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actually we had around about 4 to 5
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meters swells but it's very
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unpredictable so if example the crews
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before us they couldn't even leave on
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the first day because there were 10 to
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12 meter swells you then calm down the
1:59
next day and was almost completely flat
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so make sure that you've got seasick
2:03
remedies and whatever works for you and
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be prepared for rough seas you may be
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lucky and not have it but getting there
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for many people is the worst I know
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people who've been turned Arctica there
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spent two days in bed seasick there two
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days in bed seasick going back the other
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thing which could be the worst part of
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an Antarctic Cruz is the unpredictable
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nature of the weather it can constantly
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change and you can't predict it no
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matter what time of the year you go and
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it can change it Cobley fast so I
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experienced that you know we'd have
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really lousy weather in the morning
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until 10 o'clock and then selling it
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would clear up and we'd have blue skies
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fog would come in fog would disappear
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it's a very very unpredictable weather
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and also what's very important is it all
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depends on the ice and how the ice moves
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so there is no set schedule they have a
2:51
rough plan of where they want to try and
2:52
go to but they have to reassess it based
2:54
on what the ice is how the ice has moved
2:57
you can't assume anything the landings
3:00
may or may not happen so there may be
3:02
cancelled because of too much swell or
3:03
the weather's too lousy so it's very
3:05
unpredictable so you may spend all that
3:07
money go all the way to Antarctica and
3:09
have a so-so experience because the
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weather it's very unpredictable now of
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course the cruise companies go to huge
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trouble to make sure that they find a
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way of making sure that you do see
3:20
amazing things but bear in mind the
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worst part of it is it's just completely
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unpredictable the other thing is it's a
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very short season so there's only very
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few months of the year that they can
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actually cruise to Antarctica so the
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season starts towards the end of October
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however most ships only really stopped
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going towards the end of November
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because the ice by then is starting to
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break up and they can get through and
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the season really ends for most
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companies towards the end of febrile
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it'll bit later than that the real peak
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of the season is December Jere that's
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also when it's warmest so it is a very
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short season so you don't have a lot of
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flexibility about when you can go in
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fact that the season is so short is also
4:00
what cos drives the cost and
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availability so one of the things that
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you'll find with that arctic air is
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people booked way way in advance to make
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sure that they can get the cabin they
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want at the price they want at the time
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they want so planning really early is
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really really important now my view one
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of the worst things that you could do is
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to go to Antarctica on a big ship this
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is really really important because the
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rules Antarctic are very strict about
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being able
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to land only ships with a roundabout
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turn of passengers actually can land in
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Antarctica so you're only allowed to
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have a hundred people at any one landing
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site at one time and then motherships
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that can go to landing site over period
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of time is also really regulated so
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those some bigger ships are going down
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to Antarctica those are going to only be
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cruised by cruises and they tend to stay
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much more up north so you're not going
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to get many of the experiences that I
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spoke about so you're not going to get
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in amongst the Penguins you're not going
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to get really close to whales you're not
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going to get it up amongst the seals
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you're not going to get to climb up and
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look at rookeries you're basically going
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to do only the sail by experiences so of
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course you're gonna be able to take the
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box that you enter Antarctica but for me
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it's gonna be really frustrating because
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you're gonna be so close but not really
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there so one of the worst things in my
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view you could do is go to Antarctica on
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a big ship make sure that you go on one
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of the smaller expedition ships so for
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example the ship that I was on which is
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little cloud that was great because the
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ship was small enough it also fell
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within all the regulations and we could
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do all of the landings because we'd go
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out in groups of around about a hundred
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at a time on the landings overall the
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experience of an Arctica is phenomenal
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and I have to say that it beats every
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expectation I had the worst things are
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never ever going to get in the way of
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making an imagined experience it is
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incredibly expensive to go but really it
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is a magical place and I would strongly
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recommend do whatever you can to save to
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one day go to Antarctica I hope you
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found this helpful
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interesting inspiring if you do that
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lovely for watch many more of my tips of
6:05
travels videos they designed to help you
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make the most of your precious travel
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time and money whether it's on land on
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sea or on the rivers of the world
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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