Antarctica Travel Forum

We are booked to go to Antarctica in mid feb 08 with Noble Caledonia on Explorer II. Any comments on this ship/operator? Is this a good time to go? Can anyone also advise me whether they supply wellingtons, and whether normal good quality sunglasses are ok for Antarctica, or are specialist sunglasses required?

Thanks for any replies!

Hi there!

To find out if they supply Wellingtons, I suggest simply calling or emailing the company.

I wanted to share my experience with sun glasses. I bought some glacier glasses expressly for the trip to Antarctica. Lo and behold, there we were on the continent and we opened my glacier glasses case only to find nothing in it! The case had made it, but not the $50 glasses! So, I took my regular sunglasses to shore with me. They aren't anything special, but they are pretty square and cover a lot of eye area. To be honest, I don't really know why, but I hardly ever needed them. Most of the time, I just didn't wear sunglasses at all and, really, it was fine. So, I'm not saying "don't wear sun glasses", but I am saying that I don't think you need to go buy anything special. Just make sure what you take blocks a decent amount of glare. Hope this helps!

I went to Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the Antarctic peninsula on Explorer II in November 2006 but I booked through Abercrombie & Kent, as did other passengers from the U.S. We were provided with wellingtons to use for the shore landings, but the passengers from England who booked through Noble Caledonia had to provide their own wellingtons. I just used regular sunglasses. This was a fantastic trip. I traveled alone, as did many others, and everyone was extremely friendly. The scenery is magnificent, the penguins are lovely, the shore landings are interesting, the ship and food are FIRST CLASS. I first went to Antarctica seven years ago on a much larger ship, which didn't go to Falkland Islands and South Georgia, so I had to go again to see these places.