Hurtigruten MS Roald Amundsen - Antarctica

Where this cruise calls, day by day

14 ports and 5 sea days over 18 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Ushuaia

   ArgentinaDepart

   Ushuaia sits on the Beagle Channel below the Martial range and bills itself as the world's southernmost city, which is mostly true and entirely commercial. It is the main embarkation port for Antarctic expedition ships, so the waterfront is a mix of outfitters, king crab restaurants and gangways. Passengers on round-South-America itineraries usually get a half day for the national park or a channel boat trip.

   • Tierra del Fuego National Park and Lapataia Bay
   • Beagle Channel catamaran trip to Les Eclaireurs lighthouse and the sea lion islets
   • End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo)
   • Museo del Presidio, the old prison that built the town

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth at the Muelle Comercial, a short walk from Avenida San Martin.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar

2. Day 2 · At sea

3. Day 3 · At sea

4. Day 4

   Antarctic Sound

   AntarcticaPort

   The Antarctic Sound separates the tip of the peninsula from the Joinville island group and funnels tabular icebergs out of the Weddell Sea — hence the nickname Iceberg Alley. Some of them are the size of city blocks with vertical white walls. Ships that get in here usually pair the transit with a landing at Brown Bluff or a visit to Hope Bay, where Argentina's Esperanza Base sits beside an Adelie colony.

   • Tabular icebergs calved from the Weddell Sea ice shelves
   • Hope Bay and Argentina's Esperanza Base
   • Brown Bluff's rust-coloured volcanic cliff
   • Adelie penguins, the sound's signature species

   Getting ashore

   Ship transit with zodiac landings attempted at Brown Bluff or Hope Bay; heavy ice regularly closes the sound entirely.

   Best months

   Jan-Mar (best chance the ice has cleared)

5. Day 5

   Brown Bluff

   AntarcticaPort

   Brown Bluff is a tuya — a volcano that erupted under ice — and it looks it: a 745-metre wall of rust-brown rock rising straight off a boulder beach on the Antarctic Sound. It is one of the more reliable mainland landings, with thousands of Adelie pairs and a smaller number of gentoos nesting on the scree. Rockfall from the cliff is a real hazard and guides keep groups along the shoreline.

   • Large Adelie penguin colony, with gentoos mixed in
   • The rust-coloured tuya cliff face itself
   • Continental landing on the Antarctic mainland
   • Icebergs grounded on the beach shallows

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing on a cobble beach; swell off the Antarctic Sound often cancels it.

   Best months

   Dec-Feb

6. Day 6

   Deception Island

   AntarcticaPort

   Deception is a flooded volcanic caldera in the South Shetlands, and ships sail into the crater through a gap in the wall called Neptune's Bellows that looks far too narrow from the bow. Inside is Port Foster, a black-sand harbour ringed by ash slopes. Whalers Bay holds the rusted boilers and tanks of an abandoned whaling station and the wrecked remains of a British base, all half-buried by a 1969 eruption.

   • Neptune's Bellows, the caldera entrance
   • Whalers Bay's rusting boilers, tanks and the ruins of Base B
   • Baily Head's very large chinstrap penguin colony (landing rarely possible)
   • Geothermally warmed shallows at Pendulum Cove

   Getting ashore

   The ship sails inside the caldera and passengers go ashore by zodiac; swell at the entrance sometimes cancels the call.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

7. Day 7

   Half Moon Island (South Shetlands)

   AntarcticaPort

   A crescent of rock and shingle about a mile across, tucked into the eastern side of Livingston Island, and for many ships it is the first Antarctic landing of the trip. The chinstrap colonies are spread over rocky outcrops behind the beach, and Argentina's Camara Base sits at one end, usually shuttered. Across the water the glaciated Burgas mountains of Livingston fill the horizon.

   • Chinstrap penguin colonies on the rock outcrops
   • Argentina's Camara Base
   • Weddell seals hauled out on the shingle
   • Views across to Livingston Island's icefields

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing on a shingle beach, weather permitting.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

8. Day 8

   Paradise Bay

   AntarcticaPort

   Whalers named this bay, and for once the name holds up — it is a sheltered basin of glacier fronts and floating brash on the peninsula's west coast. Two research stations sit on its shores, Argentina's Almirante Brown and Chile's Gonzalez Videla at Waterboat Point, and one of them is usually the excuse for a landing. Most of the time here is spent in zodiacs, drifting under ice cliffs and watching for calving.

   • Almirante Brown Station and the hill climb behind it
   • Gonzalez Videla Station at Waterboat Point, with gentoos nesting between the buildings
   • Skontorp Cove's ice cliffs and blue-eyed shag colony
   • Zodiac cruising among grounded bergs

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing or zodiac cruise depending on ice and swell; there is no pier.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

9. Day 9

   Neko Harbour

   AntarcticaPort

   Neko Harbour is one of the few places where passengers set foot on the Antarctic mainland rather than an offshore island, which is why expedition leaders push hard to make it happen. There is a gentoo colony on the rocks, an Argentine refuge hut, and a hill behind the beach that gives a view over Andvord Bay. The glacier at the head of the harbour calves regularly, and staff keep everyone well up the beach because the wave that follows is not theoretical.

   • Continental landing on the Antarctic mainland
   • Gentoo penguin colony above the landing beach
   • The viewpoint climb over Andvord Bay
   • Calving face of the Neko glacier

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing, weather and ice permitting; landings are cancelled often.

   Best months

   Dec-Feb (chicks visible from late December)

10. Day 10

    Lemaire Channel (Scenic Cruising)

    AntarcticaPort

    A seven-mile slot between Booth Island and the Graham Land mainland, barely a mile wide at its narrowest, with cliffs going straight up on both sides. Photographers nicknamed it Kodak Gap for good reason: on a still day the water mirrors the walls and everyone is on deck. Ice frequently blocks the southern end, in which case the captain reverses out and nobody gets the picture.

    • The twin spires of Cape Renard at the northern entrance
    • Booth Island's ridgeline rising directly off the port rail
    • Crabeater seals hauled out on drifting floes
    • Reflections in the channel on a windless morning

    Getting ashore

    Scenic cruising only — no landing, and the transit is abandoned if pack ice fills the channel.

    Best months

    Dec-Feb (ice usually clears later in the season)

11. Day 11

    Petermann Island

    AntarcticaPort

    A low, rocky island just south of the Lemaire Channel with a long history — Charcot's Pourquoi Pas? wintered here in 1909, and an Argentine refuge hut still stands above the landing. Gentoos and Adelies nest side by side, which makes it a good place to see the difference between the two. Blue-eyed shags hold the higher rocks. It sits far enough south that ice sometimes keeps ships out.

    • Mixed Adelie and gentoo colonies, one of the few sites with both
    • The Argentine Groussac refuge hut
    • Blue-eyed shag colony on the higher ground
    • Charcot's 1909 wintering site at Port Circumcision

    Getting ashore

    Zodiac landing when ice and swell allow; the island is often bypassed.

    Best months

    Dec-Feb

12. Day 12

    Port Lockroy

    AntarcticaPort

    Base A on Goudier Island was a British wartime station and is now a museum, gift shop and the southernmost post office in the world, staffed each summer by a handful of people who live there without running water. A gentoo colony nests around and under the buildings, and half the island is left undisturbed for a long-running study of how the birds cope with visitors. Post a card and it will reach home in a couple of months.

    • Base A museum, restored to its 1950s fit-out
    • The post office and the ceremonial postcard queue
    • Gentoo penguins nesting among the huts
    • Jougla Point nearby, with assembled whale bones

    Getting ashore

    Zodiac landing on a tiny island with a strict visitor cap; ships must book a slot in advance and calls are still lost to weather.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar (the base is staffed only during the austral summer)

13. Day 13

    Cuverville Island

    AntarcticaPort

    Cuverville sits in the Errera Channel and holds one of the largest gentoo colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula — several thousand pairs spread up the scree behind a cobble beach. The channel around it usually collects grounded icebergs, so the zodiac cruise is often as good as the landing. Expect noise, smell and pink guano-stained snow highways where the penguins commute to the water.

    • Large gentoo penguin rookery on the island's lower slopes
    • Grounded icebergs in the Errera Channel
    • Kelp gulls, snowy sheathbills and skuas working the colony edges
    • Leopard seals patrolling offshore

    Getting ashore

    Zodiac landing plus a zodiac cruise among the bergs; no facilities ashore.

    Best months

    Dec-Feb (chicks from late December)

14. Day 14

    Wilhelmina Bay

    AntarcticaPort

    Crews call it Whale-mina, and in a good year the nickname earns itself — the bay's krill swarms draw humpbacks in numbers, sometimes bubble-net feeding within metres of the zodiacs. Off the Gerlache Strait between the Reclus Peninsula and Cape Anna, it is a broad bay of glacier fronts and floating ice. At the northern end, Enterprise Island holds the beached hull of the whaling ship Governoren, burned and run aground in 1915.

    • Humpback whales feeding on krill, best from late January
    • The wreck of the Governoren at Enterprise Island
    • Glacier fronts and floating brash across the bay
    • Zodiac cruising and, on some ships, kayaking

    Getting ashore

    Zodiac cruising rather than landing — this is a water-based stop.

    Best months

    Jan-Mar for whales; Nov-Mar overall

15. Day 15

    Elephant Island

    AntarcticaPort

    This is where Shackleton's men landed after the Endurance sank and where 22 of them waited four and a half months under two upturned boats while he sailed for South Georgia. The island is steep, ice-covered and almost entirely inhospitable. Ships come for Point Wild, the narrow spit where the camp stood, marked by a bust of Luis Pardo, captain of the Chilean tug that finally took them off.

    • Point Wild and the Luis Pardo monument
    • Chinstrap penguins on the spit and surrounding rocks
    • Glacier fronts dropping straight into the sea
    • Fur seals along the shoreline

    Getting ashore

    Landings are effectively impossible here — ships view from the water or run a zodiac cruise if swell allows.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

16. Day 16 · At sea

17. Day 17 · At sea

18. Day 18 · At sea

19. Day 19

    Ushuaia

    ArgentinaArrive

    Ushuaia sits on the Beagle Channel below the Martial range and bills itself as the world's southernmost city, which is mostly true and entirely commercial. It is the main embarkation port for Antarctic expedition ships, so the waterfront is a mix of outfitters, king crab restaurants and gangways. Passengers on round-South-America itineraries usually get a half day for the national park or a channel boat trip.

    • Tierra del Fuego National Park and Lapataia Bay
    • Beagle Channel catamaran trip to Les Eclaireurs lighthouse and the sea lion islets
    • End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo)
    • Museo del Presidio, the old prison that built the town

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth at the Muelle Comercial, a short walk from Avenida San Martin.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar