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We leave for Antarctica a few days after you on Christmas. I was torn between A&K and Lindblad/NatGeo. I have heard nothing but good things about each of them. I would have loved to do A&K's Antarctica with South Georgia and the Falkland Islands tour. Alas, not enough vacay time for that one. We booked with Lindblad/NatGeo and are on the Orion expedition cruise. So far so good on our end with them. We did have to provide a medical consent form from our doctor stating we were healthy enough with no life threatening conditions and physically capable of handling the trip. Due to the PTO allotments from our jobs we opted not to add a pre or post stay to the trip. We will be flying from Miami into Santiago Chile and staying one night at the Santiago Mandarin Oriental. We haven't planned any day tours and will just do some exploring on our own or book something spur of the moment if available. Then we take a private charter plane to Ushuaia and embark on the Orion.

As for packing, DH is renting the waterproof boots, pants etc from them. They provide the waterproof parkas when we arrive which we get to keep. Nice touch! I'm renting the boots but not the pants. At 5 feet tall, they will certainly be too long. I am currently purchasing online and narrowing down which waterproof pants look the least hideous. Everything I've read states casual for the trip because it is an expedition ship. None the less, I will bring a couple of slightly dressier sweaters and wear them with black jeans for New Year's eve and my 50th birthday on New Year's Day. DH is happy he doesn't have to dress up. It's just as well that we don't need really dressy clothes too like a suit or dress. Less to pack which is fine since we are in steerage for this trip. Our cabin is only 175 sq feet.

I am excited to hear about your trip and look forward to your feedback! A&K is still on my radar for other trips down the line.

It is too bad we didn't end up on the same trip! We looked at Nat Geo as well, but S. Georgia and the Falkland Islands sold us on A&K. My dd went on a Nat Geo student expedition in the summer and she LOVED it. I found them to be fantastic to deal with.

Interestingly A&K provides the boots, pants and walking sticks (as free rentals - which will be on the ship for us when we get there), but I had to bring my own pants because I need a 35" inseam and the ones they provide are only 31.5" and I am very self conscious about pants that are too short. Parkas are also provided that we get to keep. No medical forms needed, but they did need to see our proof of insurance with evidence of $50,000.00 med evacuation coverage (the insurance cost me just over $1,000.00 :scared:).

I can't wait to see your pics and hear about your trip. Ours is supposed to be casual as well, but I've been in the situation with "casual" trips before where I only had jeans and other guests really dress up. So I am taking a nice skirt, black tights and a few sweaters that I can wear with boots on my birthday, Christmas and New Years!

I didn't know you were a Capricorn as well! Happy early 50th birthday to you! What a great way to spend your special birthday!
 
It is too bad we didn't end up on the same trip! We looked at Nat Geo as well, but S. Georgia and the Falkland Islands sold us on A&K. My dd went on a Nat Geo student expedition in the summer and she LOVED it. I found them to be fantastic to deal with.

Interestingly A&K provides the boots, pants and walking sticks (as free rentals - which will be on the ship for us when we get there), but I had to bring my own pants because I need a 35" inseam and the ones they provide are only 31.5" and I am very self conscious about pants that are too short. Parkas are also provided that we get to keep. No medical forms needed, but they did need to see our proof of insurance with evidence of $50,000.00 med evacuation coverage (the insurance cost me just over $1,000.00 :scared:).

I can't wait to see your pics and hear about your trip. Ours is supposed to be casual as well, but I've been in the situation with "casual" trips before where I only had jeans and other guests really dress up. So I am taking a nice skirt, black tights and a few sweaters that I can wear with boots on my birthday, Christmas and New Years!

I didn't know you were a Capricorn as well! Happy early 50th birthday to you! What a great way to spend your special birthday!

Your trip is going to be AH-Mazing! It was the one I wanted to do but work got in the way. It would have been so much fun to be on the same trip together too. I don't think the rentals are free with our trip so that is one advantage A&K has over Lindblad/NatGeo. I usually need a 29" inseam or I am tripping over my own feet.

Good tip about the casual attire. I recall making a pact here with other travelers on the same Scotland ABD that we would only bring jeans or cords to wear at dinner so none of us would be the only one in jeans or cords. It worked out well.

Yup, Capricorn too. I can't wait to see your pictures!!!
 
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We leave for Antarctica with A&K Family on the 19th and I am getting VERY excited!

So far A&K has been good to deal with. I would rate them about the same as ABD, perhaps giving slightly higher marks to ABD simply because A&K demanded pics of our passport info page and I really dislike uploading personal information like that in this day and age (with all the security breaches). Also had a situation with an A&K agent telling me we might not be on their booked charter flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia because they didn't have dd's passport pic. I asked how we would get there and she said she "didn't know - maybe on our own". I don't recall ever having this type of experience with ABD. So I'd give slightly higher marks to ABD on their call centre staff.
I'm sorry, but "I don't know" is an unacceptable answer! The correct answer is "I will find out for you." That sort of thing would really turn me off to a provider. And I *really* dislike that you had to upload pics of your passport. I cringe enough giving airlines my passport number! Hmmmmm... Looking forward to your report!

As for packing, DH is renting the waterproof boots, pants etc from them. They provide the waterproof parkas when we arrive which we get to keep. Nice touch! I'm renting the boots but not the pants. At 5 feet tall, they will certainly be too long. I am currently purchasing online and narrowing down which waterproof pants look the least hideous.
If what you are looking for is a waterproof layer that you can wear over other (warmer) pants, I highly recommend these from Eddie Bauer. I wore them in Iceland, and they are not stiff, don't look awful, and were completely waterproof. And they come in Petite!

https://www.eddiebauer.com/product/Womens-Cloud-Cap-Rain-Pants/38989579?showProducts=111&previousPage=type&pSrch=CLOUD CAP RAIN PANT

D0895823_100C1


Looking forward to your report, too! :)

Sayhello
 


Has anyone here hiked to Everest base camp? If so I would love to hear about your experience and suggestions. TIA
 
National Geographic has a trip where you go to Everst Base Camp but I know that you need to have a medical certificate stating that you're capable of handling conditions.

I came across that one and it looks good. So far it's between them, REI,and iTREK. iTREK is one I found from a couple who did a vlog of their trip. I assume the medical certificate is nothing more than a physical? I've done a few marathons, and while I'm not in great marathon shape at the moment I think my plan would be to train for a marathon before leaving for this trip. Thats about as prepared as I can get for this trip living just a few feet above sea level.
 


This is what it states on the Nat Geo trip:

During our 14-day trek, we will hike 4 to 10 hours per day (2 to 10 miles) on moderate to steep grades, at elevations ranging from 9,318 feet to a maximum of 18,192 feet. Some days will be rest days with optional hikes to properly acclimatize. Your trip leader will set a suitable pace to minimize risk of altitude issues. Porters and pack animals will transport our gear. A signed medical consent form from your doctor will be required for participation.

I would check with the tour operators you are considering and find out what the medical requirements are. Will help you prepare, even at sea level.
 
Checking back for news from our Antarctic travelers...

Still in Antarctica. It is an outstanding trip. Here are some random thoughts. We were fortunate that our Drake passage was smooth. The Captain said it was the smoothest he’s ever experienced. Last week one of the ships had 3 windows blown out due to the rough passage. It is really cool to be on an Expedition ship that has these amazing stabilizers so that you don’t really feel the motion for such a small ship. The crew is phenomenal and many have been on this same ship, The Orion, for well over a decade. The itinerary is very loose and we are experiencing Antarctica by letting it come to us so to speak. This allow us the flexibility to see and do more.

There is a recap after each landing at the end of the day to discuss what we saw and ask questions. Having scientists and researchers on board who are so passionate really adds to the experience. Having National Geographic photographers show you how to use your camera and provide tips for every skill level is really great!

I chose a smaller ship because no more than 100 people are allowed to be at any of the landings sites at a given time. This allowed me to be sure we’d always have the maximum amount of time and not have to hurry up or wait for anyone to get back. The Orion’s capacity is 102. I am really glad I picked a smaller ship.

We were required to take a private charter flight from Santiago to Ushuaia that was not included in the price. I do like that any internal flights with ABD are included. So that was an additional $1240 per person on top of the $15,380 per person for the trip. All gratuities are included though, so that is nice. The ship is an expedition ship that has been overhauled to be more like a small cruise ship on the interior but it can still break through ice. The food has been fantastic.

Our guides and the team have been great but it isn’t like having ABD guides. Feel free to ask any questions. Here are some pictures from Antarctica.

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Your pictures are amazing! What is the age breakdown on your trip? We have a teen so was wondering if there are many (any)?
 
Great pictures! Seeing those animals in their natural habitat must be amazing.
 
Checking back for news from our Antarctic travelers...

We are on our way back across the Drake Passage currently. UnfortuNately it’s on the rough side; I’m okay so far but don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold on. Definitely get the patches before you go — they are working well for me!

I have mixed feelings about the trip. I need to take some time to digest my feelings before I post a comprehensive report.

The ship is amazing. Food is just okay, not great (the fresh breads every day are the highlight of the food).

We had a medical evacuation, which cut our trip short by a day in Antarctica. I cannot express my disappointment since we only touched foot on the continent once before we had to head to King George Island where our ship was met by a medical plane. We ended up picking up a passenger from the Island Sky on our way back. I hope both passengers are okay.

I will post more when I can formulate my thoughts.
 
We are on our way back across the Drake Passage currently. UnfortuNately it’s on the rough side; I’m okay so far but don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold on. Definitely get the patches before you go — they are working well for me!

I have mixed feelings about the trip. I need to take some time to digest my feelings before I post a comprehensive report.

The ship is amazing. Food is just okay, not great (the fresh breads every day are the highlight of the food).

We had a medical evacuation, which cut our trip short by a day in Antarctica. I cannot express my disappointment since we only touched foot on the continent once before we had to head to King George Island where our ship was met by a medical plane. We ended up picking up a passenger from the Island Sky on our way back. I hope both passengers are okay.

I will post more when I can formulate my thoughts.
I'm so sorry to hear your time in Antarctica got cut short! I can only imagine how frustrating and disappointing something like that must be! You understand intellectually, but in your heart -- sigh.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts overall.

Sayhello
 
We are on our way back across the Drake Passage currently. UnfortuNately it’s on the rough side; I’m okay so far but don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold on. Definitely get the patches before you go — they are working well for me!

I have mixed feelings about the trip. I need to take some time to digest my feelings before I post a comprehensive report.

The ship is amazing. Food is just okay, not great (the fresh breads every day are the highlight of the food).

We had a medical evacuation, which cut our trip short by a day in Antarctica. I cannot express my disappointment since we only touched foot on the continent once before we had to head to King George Island where our ship was met by a medical plane. We ended up picking up a passenger from the Island Sky on our way back. I hope both passengers are okay.

I will post more when I can formulate my thoughts.

Oh no! So sorry to hear your trip was cut short. We got out of the Drake Passage this morning. The Captain decided to leave a little earlier so we could avoid the worst of it. Glad he did. The seas got as high as 21 feet at some points last night. It’s the roughest I have ever experienced but still no where as bad as I was expecting. Hope it calms down for you. Safe travels.
 
We arrived back early this morning.

I will try to encapsulate my thoughts about A&K as best as I can. I am not sure if it's fair to judge them based on a cruise as opposed to a land excursion, but here goes...

A few months before the trip I called A&K to get an idea of the ages of the teens on the trip. Apparently sometime during the past 12 months they decided they would no longer release this information (no ages or division of the sexes, not even a tally of how many kids / teens were on the trip). When we got to the ship, we discovered that the majority of the kids on the trip were with a large family group. There were 2 large groups on our ship -- a family group (26) and a group of friends (31). Both groups pretty much stuck to themselves.

We had been told that there would be an A&K photography "expert" on the ship, which I was thrilled to hear since my new Sony mirrorless camera has been giving me some problems. However I am unsure what he was supposed to be doing with our group. He gave 2 lectures (one was on our unplanned sea day), was on deck a few times to "help" (with what I'm not sure because when I was on deck with him he was pointing out birds) and had 2 one-on-one sessions, each an hour in length (first come, first to be seen -- with long lines both times). He was never on shore to give suggestions / insight with pictures, nor did he take any pictures with families. Twice I asked him questions about my camera and he said he'd look up the Sony manual online and get back to me, but he never did!

The Ponant photographer was quite good, but she only took 3 pictures of myself and my daughter. I believe the primary issue is that she primarily went ashore with the "red" group and we were in the "green" group. This was a huge disappointment.

The naturalists were amazing and very well informed. On sea days there were at least 3 lectures of an hour in length, which you could either watch in the theater or in your room on the television. I enjoyed all of the lectures and really learned a lot.

The "Young Explorers" activities were nice. Usually there were 2 per day (including most sea days) and most managed to capture the interest of my 16 year old dd. She and a friend she made on the trip were asked by one of the marine biologists to help give a lecture on marine life below the surface on our second to last day on the ship. Her and her new bff did an excellent job (I may be biased!).

With respect to the demographics, aside from the 2 groups already mentioned, there were 3 single ladies traveling (2 around mid 50s and 1 mid 60s), well more than a dozen "mature couples" (in the mid 60-70 age range) and a few families (most with either 10-12 year olds or kids in their early to mid 20s). There was just one other 16 year old on the ship and my dd and him became fast friends.

Itinerary: I felt this was good. We enjoyed the Falkland Islands and South Georgia was just stunning. I am glad that we got to visit these special places. However if I ever have the opportunity to do the trip again (and I hope that I will), I would go on a cruise that heads directly to Antarctica so that I could spend the maximum amount of time on the continent as possible. The medical evacuation cut our time on the continent short by 1 day and I have no words to express my disappointment. We have learned the reason for the evacuation and it turns out that it wasn't necessary to turn the ship around as quickly as we did. So this really stings. I won't post details, but pm me if you'd like and I will elaborate a bit more.

I don't feel that we had the equivalent of ABD guides on the trip. Landings had the naturalists posted at various points along our route to help us stay on the path, but no information was offered on what we were seeing (outside of what we were told the evening before at our "briefing").

Le Lyrial is a stunning ship. She was first put in the water in 2015 and her facilities were excellent. There were 2 restaurants (one buffet-style and one sit down) open for all 3 meals and 24 hour room service (no additional cost). There were 2 lounges / bars -- a large one with a dance floor and a smaller and a more intimate one (with a well-equipped games room / library). There was nightly entertainment in both lounges (a piano player and a singer). On New Years Eve there was a beautiful piano concert by a classically trained pianist in the theater followed by a DJ in the large lounge -- it was a lot of fun, with most people singing and dancing well past midnight! The gym had 3 treadmills, 3 "spinning"-style bikes and a recumbent bike. There was also room for stretching and some kind of resistance machine (no free weights due to the Drake Passage / safety issues). There was a photo area as well as a lounge-type area for the Young Explorers with couches, a video game system and some activities. Even though our room was only 200 square feet (we booked the lowest fare class), it was VERY well laid out with plenty of storage (enough for all of our clothing / gear). I would definitely recommend the rooms on the 300 deck of this ship without hesitation.

A&K had a sales representative on board to promote future trips. They offered a discount if you booked a trip on board (it varied, but started at $500.00 per person going up to a few thousand dollars on some trips). She was lovely and had hours on sea days.

Food was an area that I found to be lacking. The only memorable meal was the Christmas Eve gala dinner (there were 3 Gala dinners in total). The vegetarian options were either pasta, rice or a plate full of vegetables. I asked if they had a veggie burger and we received ground up carrots and broccoli in a fried potato pattie in a bun -- it was pretty awful. The cheese selection was amazing and as I mentioned before the freshly baked breads and rolls were delicious.

On Christmas Eve Santa Claus came for a visit and there were gifts for all of the Young Explorers (all from the Falkland Islands: a penguin t-shirt, a Christmas ornament and a stuffed penguin that says "Falkland Islands" on the chest). Each stateroom was left a wrapped present on Christmas Eve, which was 1 A&K ski hat -- I guess this is meant to be shared? Not sure why everyone didn't get one lol.

I am not sure if I would travel with A&K again. I expected to be blown away with their service, but I found them to be okay. Nothing horrible, but nothing outstanding either. I am not sure if it is fair to compare them to ABD since the trip was on a ship, but I would put ABD a bit ahead on overall service if I were to be asked. One notable point: A&K has a maximum of 24 guests on their family trips, while ABD is somewhere in the area of 40-44. This is a significant difference and would certainly give me pause.

Luggage: I realized pretty quickly that there was no way I would be able to pack everything that I wanted to and come in at the weight limit of 44lbs per person. I called A&K a few times and asked what would happen if I went over and had a few different responses, from "paying a surcharge" to being told to "reduce my luggage weight and ship the overage home from the airport" (this seemed a strange response), so I did what any modern person does, which is turn to the internet! I found a few blogs that mentioned families on A&K trips that were over the max luggage and had no issues. We ended up going with 3 large suitcases, 2 carry-ons and an x-large rolling duffle bag. Not one word was said to me and I did not have to pay a surcharge of any kind. I did feel badly for a few people that I met that stuck to the weight limit because they didn't feel that they had enough clothes for the trip (and had no special clothes for the 3 gala dinners). Even though an A&K rep explicitly told me that the luggage would not fit in our room (she said the beds were platforms and I couldn't store luggage under them), she was incorrect. All of our luggage fit comfortably in the room.

A&K price included the charter flight from BA to Ushuaia and rental of goretex pants (we took our own and I'm glad that we did!) and boots. We also received parkas, A&K Antarctica water bottles and A&K backpacks, which are ours to keep.

We docked in Ushuaia the night before dismebarkation and we all got to enjoy a few hours walking around the town.

Once I upload my pics to my computer I can post a few. I am happy to answer any questions!
 
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Thanks for your report. You are getting me excited for our Backroads Yellowstone Teton biking/hiking, camping trip this summer! Although it's a four night trip, I'm kind of glad about that because I don't know that I really want to do more than four nights of camping (DD's request) and it's giving us an opportunity to spend some extra time in Jackson, do some scenic driving in Wyoming, go on a wildlife safari, and spend about a week traveling to and from Glacier National Park. So I think all in all, it'll be a nice combination and full trip.

We just finished our Backroads hiking trip in Arizona. It was so different from ABD that I’m not entirely sure it’s really a competitor. In the Venn diagram of the two, the overlapping customers would be pretty small.

That said, we were completely blown out of the water. It was a perfect trip in every day. 15 guests, 3 guides, and all meals plus snacks included. Also alcohol. Emphasis was on fresh, high quality food - I’ve never eaten so well on vacation EVER.

Our guides were outstanding. Each day you had 3 hiking options, and those that stopped earlier had outings to towns/shopping/etc. We did all the hikes possible and did approx 35 miles in 5 days. Half the group did the minimum miles and spent afternoons exploring.

For those who travel solo, there were 3 solo women in our group. We enjoyed getting to know everyone.

We are in the process of deciding which one we will do next. Can’t recommend highly enough.
 

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