Antarctica With Kids

One hundred people ashore at a time. Not one hundred per ship. One hundred, total, at that site.

One guide per twenty guests on land. Every landing is led, and the ratio does not bend.

Ships carrying more than five hundred passengers cannot land at all. They sail past and you look at Antarctica through a window.

Only one ship at a landing site at a time. Operators schedule around each other so nobody arrives to a crowd.

Most voyages leave from Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina, some from Punta Arenas in Chile. From Ushuaia you cross the Drake Passage, about two days each way. The Drake has a reputation and it earns it, though it can also be flat as a lake, and they call that the Drake Lake.

The alternative is to fly it. Two hours from Punta Arenas to a gravel strip on King George Island, where you board the ship. It saves you four days of sailing, which for a lot of families is the difference between the trip being possible and not.

What you give up is real, though. Those Drake days are when the lecture program happens, when you watch albatross doing the thing albatross do behind the ship, and when the group turns into a group. Some people would not skip it. Some people would pay anything to.

Lindblad is the name most associated with the continent, and that is not marketing. Lars-Eric Lindblad ran the first tourist voyage to Antarctica in 1966. Today they sail four National Geographic ships carrying between 102 and 148 guests, every one of them under the landing limit, with Zodiacs, kayaking and photography instruction built into the fare rather than tacked on.

Ponant sail French, with a smaller ship feel and a different food operation. Silversea and Seabourn bring proper luxury service to expedition ships. Scenic Eclipse carry a submarine and helicopters. Atlas sit at the more approachable end of the small ship market. Viking run purpose built expedition ships with a Scandinavian restraint that suits some people exactly.

Start with the ship size, then worry about the wine list. Every line here is written up on its own page, linked at the bottom of this guide.

Nearly every peninsula sailing leaves from Ushuaia, at the bottom of Argentina. Getting there is two flights for most Americans, usually into Buenos Aires and then a domestic hop of about three and a half hours. Buenos Aires has two airports and the connection often moves between them, which means a taxi across the city.

Fly in at least one full day early. Not the night before, a whole day. If your bag or your connection goes wrong on the day of embarkation, the ship leaves without you, and there is no catching it up at the next port, because there is no next port.

Some operators now include a charter flight over the Drake instead, landing on King George Island. It turns two days of open ocean into a two hour flight in each direction, and it costs more. It is also weather dependent, and when the weather says no you sit in Punta Arenas and wait.

There is no schedule pinned up a week ahead, because the ice and the weather decide. The expedition leader tells you the plan the night before and often changes it at breakfast. People find this unsettling for about a day and then they love it.

A landing day usually runs two outings, one morning and one afternoon. You climb into a Zodiac in a big rubber boot and a borrowed parka, and either step ashore among the penguins or cruise among the ice without landing. In between there is food, a lecture from somebody who actually studies this for a living, and a lot of standing on deck.

The rules are strict, and they are the reason it is still worth going. Fifteen feet from the wildlife, though nobody has told the penguins. Nothing eaten ashore. Boots scrubbed and vacuumed before and after every landing so you do not carry a seed from one island to another.

The parka is usually included, and yours to keep. Boots are almost always loaned. Check both before you buy anything, because people spend hundreds on gear they were about to be handed.

Layers, not bulk. A thermal base, a fleece, the parka. You will be too warm walking uphill in penguin guano and too cold standing still on a Zodiac twenty minutes later.

Waterproof trousers. Not optional. Zodiac seats are wet and so is the spray.

Seasickness medication, brought from home, started before you feel anything. The Drake earns its reputation about half the time. Waiting until you feel sick is waiting too long.

Two pairs of gloves and a camera strap that goes round your neck rather than your wrist. One pair of gloves will get wet on day two.

Sunglasses and real sunscreen. Snow and water throw the light back at you from underneath, and people burn under their chin.

Sea kayaking. Worth it, if you can already paddle. Sitting at water level in a bay full of brash ice with a leopard seal surfacing beside you is the closest you get to being in that landscape rather than looking at it. Book it the day you book the cruise.

Camping on the ice. One night, and mixed reviews. You dig a shallow trench in the snow, sleep in a bivvy bag, and come back for breakfast. No tents on some ships, no food, no bathroom. Teenagers usually love it.

The polar plunge. Free, and everyone should do it. Ten seconds in water around freezing, on a harness, with the crew standing over you. It is included on almost every ship, it happens once, and nobody regrets it.

Snowshoeing and mountaineering. Gets you up above the landing site to a view rather than staying on the beach with the penguins. Worth it on a longer voyage with several landings, less so on a short one.

Photography programmes. Several operators carry a professional photographer who runs sessions and comes out in your Zodiac. If you have bought a real camera for this trip, this is the add on that changes what you come home with.

Roughly ten thousand dollars a person is the honest middle. Under five thousand exists at the budget end on older ships. Over thirty thousand exists at the luxury end. Flying the Drake rather than sailing it does not save money the way people expect, and eight day fly in programs still start around ten thousand.

Usually in the fare: the voyage, the Zodiac landings, the expedition team, and on most of the good operators a parka you keep.

Usually not: getting yourself to Buenos Aires or Santiago and onward to Ushuaia or Punta Arenas, hotels either side, and the drinks, wifi, laundry and gratuities that add several hundred to a thousand.

Build the flights and the pre nights into your number from the start. The gap between the fare and the real cost of an Antarctica trip catches more people out than any other trip I quote.

You will not land every day you hoped to. Weather cancels landings, ice closes sites, and a good expedition leader will change the plan without apologising, because the alternative is unsafe. That flexibility is the product. If a fixed itinerary matters to you, this is not your trip.

You will also line up for the vacuum. Every guest has their outerwear and bags vacuumed before the first landing to keep seeds and soil off the continent, and boots are washed between every site. It is tedious, and it is the reason the place is still what it is.

Once you are aboard there is very little to spend money on. Almost everything is either included or prepaid, beyond the bar and the shop, which for most families is a relief rather than a complaint.