Hurtigruten Expeditions has announced that it is returning to Antarctica with the battery-hybrid powered Roald Amundsen and the Fram. Both will be departing from Punta Arenas, Chile. The Fram had previously been slated to sail from Ushuaia, Argentina.
Due to the travel restrictions situation, the company said, the third ship planned for Antarctica, the newly named battery-hybrid powered Fridtjof Nansen, will instead be offering expedition cruises to the coast of Norway from Hamburg. She will complement the refurbished battery-hybrid powered Otto Sverdrup, as most of her sailings are sold out for the first quarter of 2022.
Affected guests have been contacted with rebooking options.
“Preparing for a two-ship Antarctica season marks a remarkable turning point for us. With the Roald Amundsen and the Fram sailing out of Punta Arenas, and the Fridtjof Nansen offering expedition cruises in Europe, we are back with all our planned expedition fleet activities at the start of the new year,” said Hurtigruten Group CEO Daniel Skjeldam.
“Knowing that also all Hurtigruten Norwegian Coastal Express ships are back on schedule, and that all hotels and on-land offers will be open to guests again, we look optimistically and enthusiastically at the adventure travel year of 2022.”
The Roald Amundsen’s first departure will be a Solar Eclipse sailing. The ship will bring guests to the Scotia Sea near the South Orkney Islands, a group of four islands almost 400 miles northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, expected to be the best place to experience the eclipse. The region’s next solar eclipse phenomenon will not occur another 400 years.
“Watching a solar eclipse from the deck of an expedition ship sailing between icebergs off the coast of the South Pole continent, may very well be the closest you get to the feeling of being on another planet,” commented Hurtigruten Expeditions CEO said Asta Lassesen.
Hurtigruten Expeditions has been operating expedition cruises out of Chile since the early 2000s.
“Twenty years of experience operating under the umbrella of Chilean authorities and with highly professional local partners gives us the confidence to lock in on a combination of Santiago de Chile and Punta Arenas as our gateway for Antarctica for the upcoming season,” Lassesen added.
Hurtigruten Expeditions will fly guests arriving to Santiago de Chile to Punta Arenas by domestic charter flights.
Both on-land and at-sea logistics will follow strict, still guest-friendly, protocols, according to Hurtigruten. All guests and crew must be vaccinated.
