How much does an excursion to Antarctica cost?

Brief lyrical digression: in this post I will talk about my understanding of the Antarctic tourism industry as a whole, as well as the specific operator I traveled with, Poseidon Expeditions. Some things that I write about here were told to me by Poseidon employees, whom I have no reason not to trust, but still they are interested in putting their company in the best light. It may seem to some that this post is advertising. To my great regret, this is not so.

So, the price of my tour was $ 13,085.00 per person (yes, this is in US dollars). True, this is not quite as much as I paid.

In the initial search for the cruise, I had a fairly specific date frame - at work we have a weekend week in the Christmas and New Years area, so it was important to go at that time. And all my searches for these numbers showed different travel agencies selling the same trip from Poseidon Expeditions. At the same time, some guys in Russia, Russia Discovery, had prices much lower than the others, so I decided to book through them.

However, they soon wrote to me that they had mistakenly sent prices for last year’s cruise, but this time it was more expensive (the difference was somewhere around 3-4 thousand dollars per person!) As an apology, Russia Discovery offered me a five percent discount.

The "new" price was $ 13,085.00, and since I booked for two, the total amount was $ 26,190.00. After the discount granted to me, it turned out $ 24,880.50, but the agency immediately requested two percent above this amount "for the conversion of the currency into dollars." At the same time, my willingness to pay in dollars did not help, and in the end I paid $ 25,378.00 for two.

For this money we were given a separate cabin for two with a separate sofa, all amenities and a large window (but without a balcony). The price included three (sometimes a half) one-time meals, but you had to pay extra for alcohol. In the end, we were offered, at our discretion, to tip staff, somewhere around $ 200 per passenger.

Flights to Ushuaia, a visa to Argentina, and other expenses were not included in the package, so, I think, given all this, the cost was closer to $ 30,000.

I was very pleased with the trip - by pure chance, we came across exactly Poseidon, who goes to Antarctica on a small vessel Sea Spirit. I did not know this before, but the fewer passengers on board, the better, since according to the rules of Antarctic tourism, the operator does not have the right to board more than a hundred passengers at a time. Vessels that accommodate 200-300 or more passengers are forced to land in “shifts”, that is, not everyone has the opportunity to go ashore every time.

We had 117 tourists on board, of which 17 desperate people paid for an additional service - kayaking in Antarctic waters. During each landing, they had the opportunity to row along the coast, while the rest of the passengers landed and took pictures of the penguins.

As soon as the first 17 people from the land party froze and returned to the ship, the kayakers were allowed to land on land, and also to shoot livestock. Thus, all trip participants had the opportunity to complete each landing, which would be difficult on a larger ship.

In short, I was pleased with Poseidon and the ship, although, of course, the mere thought of how much it all cost was a little dizzy. This trip was the second most expensive waste in 38 years of life.

By the way, next year, prices at Poseidon rise! Here is the situation on the same cruise in the winter of 2018-2019:

As you can see, here you can save money if you are ready to live together in a cabin together - it is, however, spacious enough for this. But if you want to pay much less, you can book a tour a month earlier, in November-December 2018. Here the prices are immediately much lower:

In general, a New Year’s cruise is always the most expensive - because of the winter holidays, demand is growing significantly. But, as they explained to me, this is your best chance not to be in the company of wealthy retirees. For example, on our tour there were many people aged 20 to 40, while the youngest passenger of the next swim was about 50 years old.

And do not forget about the weather: we were told that the Drake Strait is more calm in the New Year area, while a couple of weeks before our expedition the situation looked like this:

On the other hand, if you are not afraid of pensioners, seasickness and extra neighbors, then you can safely take tickets for next November, and you will pay half the price than me!

But you can go with other operators. For example, there are options where you are thrown by plane to the south side of the Drake Channel, so that you can avoid a couple of days of rolling in each direction. But such excursions, as a rule, cost a couple of thousand dollars more.

Here is a breakdown of the minimum prices per day in different directions (you need to multiply by 10 to get the total cost of the ticket).

There are also rumors that if you have a lot of time and not enough money, you can fly to Ushuaia and sit there waiting for an unsold excursion. The last places on such ships are allegedly sold at serious discounts. We even saw agencies in the city that advertise Last minute Antarctic cruises.

However, as I understand it, the most significant discounts are given for more expensive tickets, and for cheap discounts it is relatively small. At the same time, living in Ushuaia is quite expensive - it’s really the end of the world, where everything is designed for extreme tourists. But, they say that some lucky ones managed to grab an excursion to the southern continent for $ 4,000.

The main question after all this, of course, is whether the trip is worth the money? For example, for the $ 30,000 that I laid out, it could be nice to drive together to my beloved Japan as much as five to six times!

Of course, I’m not one of those who can afford this every year, but I do not regret at all that I spent some of my modest savings on this unique trip.