Wow. Amazing. You got a great trip and your holiday card for next year: that last darling penguin.

WOW! I didn't even know you went to Antarctica. I remembered something about Machu Picchu but not the rest...guess I should pay attention. Those are fantastic pics.

BP, LOL too bad he has dirt on his tummy.

SueB, yes, please pay attention, there will be a quiz. As for the pics, 3 of them were taken by staff members. They post staff pics online from each cruise, and two of the guys on staff are very talented. But also, it was pretty easy to take good pictures as it was all so dramatic. We also had incredibly good weather.

How amazing! I'm so glad you had such a wonderful time...I'm anxious to see pics of Easter Island when you get a chance....

What an amazing experience-- and incredible photos!!
Did you really kayak??

Beautiful! My co-worker just got back from the 3-week cruise, and I saw some of her photos. Truly incredible! She also flew in and out of Santiago, Chile. Her nephew is a musician on the cruise ship, so she was able to get a family discount. But, she said that was a really long time, and she's not sure she would go away that long again. She's done the Alaskan cruises that her nephew was on last year.

Funky, I do kayak, but I did not. Three of my family did. That part was kind of a pain. They said you had to be 16, but none of my kids are, but they all know how to kayak. You have to book it far in advance and it sells out. And it costs like $900 per person (in fairness, it's a PITA to outfit people to do anything at all in Antarctica, and they give you special wetsuits and boots etc etc, and have to raise and lower kayaks off the ship, etc etc etc). So i booked a spot for DH and I, and one for my son, even tho he is 15. I told them I would risk the 900 that when they met him they would ok it. They did. They also ok'd my 12 yo, but not my 11yo. So I gave up my spot to my 12yo; you could not share spots because that means outfitting 2 people.

The photos of the kayakers include my 3. I think their identities are safe!

Annie, It was. Exceeded my expectations. I also find I enjoy it all over again when I work on the slideshow and book; I'm always helter skelter on these exotic vacations and it takes looking at the pictures over tea for me to enjoy it.

I will say, in re Easter Island -- Big surprise to me how totally unspoiled it is. They make it so easy to imagine that you are Cap'n Cook and you just came ashore to this polynesian paradise with these mysterious statues presiding. In my favorite spot, there are 15 lined up in a small bay on the coast. No guard or tour guide or museum or buildng of any kind. No sign or turnstile or souvenir stand. No other tourist the morning we were there. And, for 360 degrees, the ocean, hills, horses, that's it. I never expected that. I expected Maoi-land.

Gscience,
We flew to Santiago, but then on to a place called Punta Arenas. From Punta Arenas this operator charters a plane to fly you over the Drake Passage and literally land on the continent of Antarctica. It saves a lot of time and seasickness, but weather can delay or even entire cancel the trip; so that is a risk. I agree with your coworker. Incredible, but there are not many places I would want to stay for three weeks, and only so many icebergs and animals to marvel at. In fact, I do not like three week trips, but when we travel very long distances I try to get our money's worth and cram everything into our trip I possibly can. But by day 21 we are all crying uncle!

Wonderful pictures, what a trip! Thank you for sharing. Looking forward to the Peru pictures.

WOW! The pictures are incredible! It does look "otherwordly."

How cold was it? What kind of gear did you wear?

Wow. So cool! Your pictures are beautiful. What an amazing trip! Your kids are so fortunate to do something so incredible. Memories for a lifetime for sure!

Can't wait to see South America pics! I have always wanted to see Machu Picchu and Easter Island. What was the weather like??

Kayaking must have been a blast-- so sorry you and your daughter missed it but i am sure everyone had an amazing experience. I once dumped a kayak in january here in PA-- so I have an ever so slight appreciation of the gear involved in kayaking in antarctica.

Everything is so beautiful.. and I can only imagine the sounds and general peace.

Eagerly awaiting the photos from the rest of your trip!

Fantastic photos, and I truly envy the Easter Island experience, mtn. What a wonderful trip for your family!!

Sochi,
I read with great interest all of your info about the driving trip in Eastern Europe. Just when I think my bucket list is getting shorter! I am filing that itinerary, for sure. I think that'd be a great one for just DH and I.

Kristine,
You can only travel there about 12 weeks a year; during their summer. The weather on the coast of Antarctica during their summer is about like the weather in the NE United States during our winter. Averages in the 20sF, can be mild one day, and a blizzard the next. We were amazingly lucky. No wind, sunny, and in the high 40s every day but one afternoon ( a taste of real Antarctica that day).
We wore the same stuff we wear for skiing. Ended up in just our fleeces a lot; hiking in deep snow makes you hot.

JLC,
My kids are great travelers and they really enjoy it. If nothing else, they know their geography! We were so so lucky with weather, it was crazy. Machu Picchu was rainy season. But we had perfect weather; a little rain only at night. EI is fairly tropical, hot a bit humid and breezy all year.

Thanks, KSWL, it was.

Oh gosh, Funkyart, that does not sounds like fun. By all reports these suits really did the job. They had several layers and were quite impressive. On top of it all were these grey skirt things that zipped to the kayaks, preventing any water from getting into the kayak.

Here is a photo with identities protected. Head to toe is the gear provided (but DD wanted a cuter hat). I won't keep the photo up forever, not so much because you could actually ID them, but because my DD would hate how she looks and my DS is in a skirt, LOL.
{{gwi:2134832}}

The trip sounds fantastic. Thanks for sharing your pictures, especially the one of Groucho and Groucha. Too cute!

What a fabulous trip! Gorgeous pictures...can't wait to see more.

Wow, thanks for sharing your adventures. What a treat that must have been for your intrepid family. Skipping the stormy boat ride across Drake Passage seems like a great idea and it's lucky the weather cooperated so well!

Southern Chile has become my favorite place to visit lately for mountaineering trips. I have not been so far as Punta Arenas though, I bet that is amazing.

Looking forward to more pics!

Those are beautiful pictures! It looks like an incredible trip - you guys are just little Shackleton's! :)

Wonderful photos - thanks for posting! Have you started working on the next adventure?

Amazing !!

I rarely say this ...

SO JEALOUS!

Thanks so much for sharing the pictures.

Wow, just wow! Beautiful.

Wow, what a trip! Can't wait to hear more.

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Thank you for sharing!

Wonderful photos, Mtn, and thanks for sharing a part of your trip. All that with that cute camera you bought a little while back? Those penguins & their antics are great! It must have been a wonderful adventure, especially for your kids. I'd be the first one in the kayak. We had some friends (our age) who did that trip (Antarctica only) a few years ago and loved it. Can't wait to see the rest.

Yeah, I can stand 2 weeks, but think that after that I'm ready to be home. I've spent many weeks away from home due to work and there's no better feeling than getting on the plane for home.

Haha! No beige circle over their faces like anyone else...no you have to use grouch glasses! Great mustache your daughter has there!
;)

truly an adventure of a lifetime!

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!

What a great, memorable trip for you all. Thanks for sharing your latest adventure with us!

So glad you posted this. We were thinking of an Alaskan cruise but now will look into antartica and SA. Did you plan and book the itinerary yourselves?

Incredible! Pics are amazing. The last pic of the penguin is priceless.

omg, what a fantastic experience!!!! making the time to do such awesome trips is so hard but such a great thing- I wish we had done more traveling as a family!
my niece is lucky enough to be going on a cruise very soon through cape horn and will be able to go to antartica if the weather permits... she is stressing on how to pack- for chile and argentina as well as the very south- with as little baggage as possible!

So amazing and beautiful! A friend is on a 17 day cruise there now. She started in Argentina, and just came through 10 very rough days at sea. So rough that some dishes flew and broke. Your way sounds much more my style!

My co-worker was on Holland America cruises, MS Zaandam.

Her nephew then switches to the Alaska cruises in the spring.

Thanks for sharing! I'm teaching a unit on penguins right now and I'm going to share the pics with my first graders.

Thanks for sharing! I'm teaching a unit on penguins right now and I'm going to share the pics with my first graders.

Awww, Daisy, that's so cute.

BTW I think most of the ones you see are called chin-strap penguins (you can see the reason for the "chinstrap" name in the last photo among the pictures i posted up above, the one with the boat?). The others are Gentoo(the most common) and the small Adelie (named after a French scientist's wife!). . The "celebrity" penguins are the big (3' tall Emperor penguins), but they live in a different part of Antarctica. Penguins walk funny because they have no knee joints. They have a totally waterproof layer over their down. IIRC they are on every continent? I know we have seen them in South Africa and Tasmania, Australia.

We were not allowed to go any closer than 5 feet and not allowed to walk in their paths (see the path "system" below). Here are a few more. I am going to see if I can find two of my faves the staff took (a lot to sift through!)

{{gwi:2134833}}

{{gwi:2134834}}

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Are these in a form you can use Daisy?

Edited to add... found three more fave penguin shots (sorry everyone else for all the penguins). Note the last one. It is hard to see, but i love it. It's like he is looking at the big iceberg and working up his mojo!

{{gwi:2134836}}

{{gwi:2134837}}

{{gwi:2134838}}

{{gwi:1491575}}

This post was edited by mtnrdredux on Thu, Jan 22, 15 at 1:14

Texanjana,
I simply could not have done that. Our cruise was totally placid. I was sure I would not need anything, but I did. I don't know why; it looked like a lake. Most people didn't need anything; no one in my family did but me. I thought I could talk myself out of it. The onboard Dr told me to use the patch. I did and it was just like I was on land.

Busy, We pride ourselves on efficient packing. By the time we got home, we had 22 pieces of luggage (including purses/backpacks, shopping bags) across 5 of us. Crazy! Try packing ski gear for 6 days, hiking boots and gear for warm possibly rainy weather, active resort wear , and clothing for a large sophisticated city. And two of the trips had luggage restrictions; the train to Macchu Picchu and the flight to Antarctica.

Thanks Tibb, it was a staff member's pic!

Funnygirl, Yes, I planned it, I really like to figure out what we want for ourselves. Though it was pretty complicated for this trip. A lot of remote places with one flight in and one out ... 13 flights in all. Feel free to email me if I can help. DH and I have been to Alaska and it seemed totally different to me.

Thanks, Lynn, Pork, Violet, Beth, Mag, Eandhl, Dee,Mitch, BBSTX, Joanie, LOL Annie,

Outside, embarrassed to admit, I did not use my new camera. I found the old one, and I was worried Id screw up with the new one. I brought it but never used it. DUH

Glad, I have to read "Endurance" ; they say it is great!

Arapaho,
Yes! We have had a "Master Plan" for family travel since the kids were little.

1. Visit all 7 Continents - Done, we've been to all 7 now. We've seen a pretty good sampling of countries/cities within each continent too, except in Africa (too unstable for us to see much other than safari and Capetown) and Europe (as a family, we have only shown them Italy and London, we figure Europe is the easy one for kids to do on their own)

2. Quadrant trips - We divided the US/Canada into 4 quadrants and have done 3 week trips in 3 of the 4 so far. Probably will do the NW and Lake Louise (skiing) in 2016.

3. "Kid's choice" - I've told the girls since they were toddlers I would take them to Paris when they turned 16. It has morphed into one girl chose Paris (2018!), one wants Greece (2019!), and my son chose Hawaii (we will go this March)

Sigh... then, I think its time for DH and I to get some alone time! We want to fill in the gaps in our travel itinerary! There are still a lot ... Cuba, Iceland, Morocco (DH made me cancel our trip there with Arab Spring), the Taj Mahal, and what I will now call the "Sochi trip" (eastern european road trip). Not to mention Mackinac Island and Door County and Greenbrier. And sooner or later my kids will be on their own steam (let's hope). DS goes to China with school in June. By DD's best friend summers in Turkey, and she hopes to visit her there this summer or next.

Karin,
You must have done Torres del Pines, Patagonia? All the cool kids were doing that before the cruise. A few were doing the Atacama desert, too. Chile was wonderful. Quite spectacular and varied. Too bad it's 10+ hrs from NY, I'd consider going back. We met a very nice Chilean family on the cruise and ended up changing our plans in Chile, so instead of staying inland we actually went to the pacific coast and visited them at their beach house. So maybe we do need to go back to Patagonia! Where did you visit?

This post was edited by mtnrdredux on Thu, Jan 22, 15 at 8:22

Mtn,

That first picture you posted would make a great companion to the Great Wave picture you have in the Maine house dining room.

Love that chinstrap penguin photo.

So, SO COOL!!! So good of you to have accomplished all the traveling you and your family has done-it must be a full time job to get it all and everyone all together!

Oh those penguins walking on their paths - how completely adorable!

Mtn, I have not been to Torres del Pines but wow does that landscape look spectacular. I was farther north than that, near Puerto Varas and Pucon. There are several large volcanoes that are fun to climb and ski, some are well known and others are impressively remote. I went there solely for the skiing but the Chilean culture took me by surprise. I loved it.

Thank you so much mtn! I've shown them a lot of pics, but I haven't come across any of their paths before. They will love all of these - and the info as well.

Wow!

I'm not sure you'd want to walk in a penguin path! ;-)

So very wonderful!!! I want to go there!

And you can never post too many penguin pictures.

Gorgeous photos! Sounds like you all had a wonderful trip.

Thank you for sharing your trip info & breathtaking photos!
I live vicariously thru you, Mtn!

(LOVE the penguin pics)

Thank you, Irish. I am glad you liked the photos!

Thanks, Allison and Gray. Tibb, I had heard some say that was an issue. I am not sure why, but it was harmless where we were. If you mess up their paths, which lead back and forth to oceans and nests, supposedly it can disorient them.

Daisy, very glad to be of any help.

Karin, I agree, Chile is a wonderful country. I've not heard of those ski destinations. Have you skiied Bariloche? I've always wanted to just so I could say I did, or so I could say, in August, oh, we are going skiiing ... lol

OlliesMom, I won't lie, it takes me hours and hours and hours. Especially as I obsess over things like how to get seats on the left side of the train on the way to Machu Picchu, and on the right side coming back because the views are better ... (hence why I don't use a travel agent either; never found one nutty enough).

Suero, I can kind of see that ... they are, in a very rough sense, mirror images.