Listening to the sounds at 2.00am whilst camping

Great holiday

Yes

Yes. Felt safe. Knowledgeable crew. All had own areas of interest and expertise eg some good at finding whales, others focus on glacier formation. Seemed flexible to a degree. The 'everyone stop talking and no photos for 5 mins' on each trip resulted in some of the most memorable moments. Whilst 1st time worried might have to share thoughts the focus on what you see, hear, feel made things like the different noises of the ice etc in different places noticeable and some of those will be the moments I remember

See above. Knowledgeable, friendly (on zodiacs, walks etc but also meal times) good balance of safety and info and fun. Very enthusiastic. Hannah v good at whales Marcus (?) icebergs, finding wildlife Lisa gave me a camera lesson. Tracy - enthusiasm on steroids! All lectures good but would be good to have some before we got across the passage eg the penguin one. Also, photography in Antartica lesson was down as an option which never happened. Tracy gave talk on climate change on way back but would have been good to have this on way down and also a lecture on glacier formation, different types of ice / icebergs to look out for and general geography of Ant before we got there would have been good (only got the latter from chats with Tracy)

Yes Cabin v comfortable (was in a triple) - decent 3rd bed Shower curtain a bit skank - make it a proper wet room or have glass Kettle in room would be good Personally I like staying in hostels etc and I like the (comparatively) basic standard of decor etc. A bit like a Brittany Ferry. Nice dining room , table cloths etc, library, lecture theatre, corridors However Whilst bar area is fine several people commented on it being a bit dated and boring and there needs to be somewhere in the evening for people to escape the 'music' and lively chat. The library is no good because it is next to the (ghastly) piano thing so noisy and the lecture theatre whilst it has a couple of sit around tables is not exactly cosy for an evening chat Nice aft deck GREAT crew all of whom worked hard, were friendly and professional and eg remembered our names after one day (how do they do that?!)

The triangle of comms between PL, Swoop and us could have been better. A bit confusing who is running what/ what webinars are who etc. The preference list created a lot of angst on board especially the camping. We booked 18/12 before trip and completed preference list shortly after send in '25 summer (not sure if sent by S or PL). For an 'all activities' trip we then found out we were not on the camping list (one of the main reasons for booking the trip) even though we booked much earlier than some who were. This happened to some other people eg with Audley and the poor PL team had to deal with VERY cross people. We contacted Sw and got on the camping but preference list admin needs to be sorted out and a bit more clarity around who is doing what . Photography lesson never happened (see above)

Swoop said 'people either go on a cruise to see Antartica or want to go to Antartica and need a boat as a base' this is very sensible advice and we were firmly in latter camp. Seaventure v warm on board. Took too many fleeces / woolly numbers. Make sure you stop and look and listen

Don't look at phone so much. NY res only look at it morning and eve once anyone who needs me can phone. Slept better than ever, had biggest brain rest / reset ever

Didn't bother me but some people commented on high proportion of Chinese (about 50%) and apparently often higher. If >50% might be useful to tell people. Was (pleasantly) surprised by number of young people of board most of whom travelling alone, all friendly and interesting . Expected higher age profile but glad I was wrong

Fairly prepared off the clock excited RE Q 5 would love to go but was probably couldn't afford to again

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

I don`t know