Seven Seas Mariner - Colossal Coastlines: Antarctica & the Falklands

Where this cruise calls, day by day

12 ports and 7 sea days over 18 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Buenos Aires

   ArgentinaDepart

   Buenos Aires is a turnaround port as often as a port of call, and either way you need more than a day. The terminal sits in Puerto Nuevo, close enough to walk into the Retiro area but far enough that most people take a taxi. The city rewards wandering: Beaux-Arts blocks, enormous cafes, bookshops in old theatres, and a tango scene that ranges from genuine milongas to dinner shows built for tour buses.

   • Recoleta Cemetery and Evita Peron's grave
   • Caminito and the painted houses of La Boca
   • San Telmo's Sunday antiques market on Plaza Dorrego
   • Teatro Colon backstage tour

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock at the Benito Quinquela Martin terminal in Puerto Nuevo, roughly 15 minutes by taxi from the centre.

   Best months

   Oct-Apr

2. Day 2 · At sea

3. Day 3 · At sea

4. Day 4

   Puerto Madryn

   ArgentinaPort

   Puerto Madryn is a modest Patagonian beach town that exists on cruise itineraries because of what surrounds it. Peninsula Valdes, a UNESCO site an hour or two north, is where southern right whales calve in the sheltered gulfs and where orcas occasionally beach themselves to take sea lion pups. To the south, Punta Tombo holds one of the largest Magellanic penguin colonies anywhere. The Welsh settlements at Gaiman still serve tea.

   • Southern right whale watching from Puerto Piramides, Peninsula Valdes
   • Punta Tombo Magellanic penguin colony
   • Punta Loma sea lion reserve
   • Welsh tea houses and chapels at Gaiman

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth at the Almirante Storni pier, a short shuttle from town.

   Best months

   Sep-Dec for right whales; Oct-Mar for penguins

5. Day 5 · At sea

6. Day 6

   Punta Arenas

   ChilePort

   Punta Arenas grew rich on wool and on ships rounding the Horn before the Panama Canal killed that trade, and the mansions around Plaza Munoz Gamero still show it. It is windy, practical and a useful base: penguin colonies are an hour or two away by boat or road, and the town itself can be covered in a morning. Many Antarctic fly-cruises stage from here rather than Ushuaia.

   • Magdalena Island Magellanic penguin colony (boat trip)
   • Cementerio Municipal with its clipped cypresses and immigrant mausoleums
   • Nao Victoria Museum's full-size ship replicas
   • Fuerte Bulnes and the Strait of Magellan lookout

   Getting ashore

   Larger ships usually anchor and tender; a pier is used when conditions and traffic allow.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Magdalena Island colony closes outside roughly Oct-Mar)

7. Day 7

   Punta Arenas

   ChilePort

   Punta Arenas grew rich on wool and on ships rounding the Horn before the Panama Canal killed that trade, and the mansions around Plaza Munoz Gamero still show it. It is windy, practical and a useful base: penguin colonies are an hour or two away by boat or road, and the town itself can be covered in a morning. Many Antarctic fly-cruises stage from here rather than Ushuaia.

   • Magdalena Island Magellanic penguin colony (boat trip)
   • Cementerio Municipal with its clipped cypresses and immigrant mausoleums
   • Nao Victoria Museum's full-size ship replicas
   • Fuerte Bulnes and the Strait of Magellan lookout

   Getting ashore

   Larger ships usually anchor and tender; a pier is used when conditions and traffic allow.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Magdalena Island colony closes outside roughly Oct-Mar)

8. Day 8

   Ushuaia

   ArgentinaPort

   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

9. Day 9 · At sea

10. Day 10

    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)

11. Day 11

    King George Island

    AntarcticaPort

    The largest of the South Shetlands and the most built-up place in the region — a dozen countries run stations here, several within sight of each other around Maxwell Bay. It is not scenic by Antarctic standards but it is interesting: fuel tanks, antenna farms, a Russian Orthodox church, and a gravel airstrip that fly-cruise passengers use to skip the Drake Passage. Wildlife is present but scattered.

    • Chile's Frei Base and Russia's Bellingshausen Station around Maxwell Bay
    • Trinity Church, the Orthodox chapel above Bellingshausen
    • Poland's Arctowski Station in Admiralty Bay
    • Teniente Marsh airstrip, the fly-cruise gateway

    Getting ashore

    Zodiac landings at station beaches; the airstrip serves fly-cruise transfers rather than ships.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

12. Day 12

    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)

13. Day 13 · At sea

14. Day 14

    Stanley

    Falkland IslandsPort

    Stanley is a few streets of brightly painted metal-roofed houses on a hillside above a natural harbour, home to most of the Falklands' population. It reads as very British — pubs, a cathedral, red phone boxes — with 1982 war memorials threaded through it. The real draw is out of town: penguin colonies on white-sand beaches an hour or more away over rough tracks.

    • Christ Church Cathedral and the whalebone arch
    • Volunteer Point king penguin colony (long 4x4 trip)
    • Bluff Cove Lagoon gentoos and its small museum
    • Gypsy Cove Magellanic penguins, walkable-ish from town

    Getting ashore

    Ships anchor in Port William or Stanley Harbour and tender in; strong winds cancel calls fairly regularly.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar

15. Day 15 · At sea

16. Day 16 · At sea

17. Day 17

    Punta del Este

    UruguayPort

    Punta del Este is South America's Riviera stand-in — a peninsula of high-rise apartments between a calm bay side and a rough ocean side, packed in January and quiet the rest of the year. The best-known sight is La Mano, a giant concrete hand clawing out of Brava beach. Beyond the towers, Casapueblo at Punta Ballena and the artists' town of Jose Ignacio are the usual excursions.

    • La Mano (Los Dedos) sculpture on Playa Brava
    • Casapueblo, Carlos Paez Vilaro's whitewashed cliff house at Punta Ballena
    • The yacht harbour and its resident sea lions
    • Isla de Lobos and Isla Gorriti boat trips

    Getting ashore

    Ships anchor offshore and tender to the yacht harbour; there is no cruise berth.

    Best months

    Dec-Mar

18. Day 18

    Montevideo

    UruguayPort

    Uruguay's capital is a low-key, walkable city where the cruise berth is genuinely close to the old town for once. Ciudad Vieja gives you Art Deco and crumbling neoclassical in the same block, and the Mercado del Puerto is a shed full of wood-fired grills that most passengers end up in by noon. The Rambla runs for miles along the river-sea, and the beaches at Pocitos are a short taxi away.

    • Mercado del Puerto and its parrilla grills
    • Plaza Independencia, the Palacio Salvo and Artigas mausoleum
    • Teatro Solis
    • The Rambla and Pocitos beach

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth in the working port a few minutes' walk from Ciudad Vieja.

    Best months

    Nov-Mar

19. Day 19

    Buenos Aires

    ArgentinaArrive

    Buenos Aires is a turnaround port as often as a port of call, and either way you need more than a day. The terminal sits in Puerto Nuevo, close enough to walk into the Retiro area but far enough that most people take a taxi. The city rewards wandering: Beaux-Arts blocks, enormous cafes, bookshops in old theatres, and a tango scene that ranges from genuine milongas to dinner shows built for tour buses.

    • Recoleta Cemetery and Evita Peron's grave
    • Caminito and the painted houses of La Boca
    • San Telmo's Sunday antiques market on Plaza Dorrego
    • Teatro Colon backstage tour

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock at the Benito Quinquela Martin terminal in Puerto Nuevo, roughly 15 minutes by taxi from the centre.

    Best months

    Oct-Apr