20 Sep 2023
Wide choice of Antarctic explorations offered to experience the living heart of the White Continent for between 9 and 21 days in Swan Hellenic's distinctive depth and style. Departures from 13 November 2024 to 3 March 2025.
Swan Hellenic has just announced and opened bookings for its Antarctica 2024-2025 Season of Cultural Expedition Cruises on boutique five-star ice-class ships, SH Diana and SH Vega.
Departures commence on 13 November 2024 with an exceptional 20-night cruise on SH Diana from Cape Town to Ushuaia, exploring Tristan Da Cunha, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. SH Diana's season ends with a mirror-image semi-circumnavigation at the end of February 2025, returning to Cape Town over 21-nights, having offered a wide choice of 9, 10, 11, 12 and 17-night cruises from Swan Hellenic's Antarctica Season home port, Ushuaia.
SH Vega begins her season with a 17-night cruise down the East Coast of Argentina from Buenos Aires, then out to the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula, before crossing the famous Drake Passage to Ushuaia. SH Vega follows this with a varied choice of 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13-night cultural expedition cruises from Ushuaia, sailing across the New Year and into March.
Both ships offer opportunities to explore the Antarctic Peninsula from either side, including the less-visited Weddell Sea, as well as the Falklands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich and South Shetland Islands.
Every cruise offers multiple zodiac expeditions, often more than one a day, so that close-up encounters in unforgettable landscapes with whales, penguins, seals and many spectacular seabirds are practically guaranteed.
All the expeditions are led by seasoned guides and international experts, who provide a rich onboard lecture programme. Specialising in a wide range of fields, from marine biology, ornithology and geology to photography, they also socialise freely with guests, enriching their personal experience.
Each informal but sumptuously appointed Scandi-design ship is distinguished by its outward focus, with floor-to-ceiling open view lounges, staterooms and suites – almost all with balconies. Complementing this, the extensive deck areas feature numerous observation points, including the signature Swan's Nest platform perched above the prow.
Optional Citizen Science participation, a panoramic sauna, state-of-the-art gym, premium wellness and beauty treatments, and outstanding gourmet dining complete the picture of Swan Hellenic's extraordinary Antarctica 2024-2025 offering. Every aspect of the cruises and itineraries can now be explored in full on its website, which also features an interactive brochure with downloadable PDF version. Further details and immediate bookings are available from Swan Hellenic and leading travel agents.
Swan Hellenic CEO, Andrea Zito, says: “We're very proud of the depth and breadth of choice offered by our expertly designed 2024-2025 Antarctica Season cruises. What's more – as always with Swan Hellenic – they offer the possibility of daisy-chaining to create unique, lifechanging experiences of one of the world's last remaining true wildernesses and beyond”.
ENDS: 20 September 2023
About Swan Hellenic
Swan Hellenic was relaunched in July 2020 to proudly advance the spirit of cultural expedition cruising the company pioneered in the 1950s. Building on its British roots, the new company has a distinctly cosmopolitan culture dedicated to providing guests with global opportunities to see what others don't.
Swan Hellenic's purpose-built boutique ships feature elegant Scandi-design interiors, extensive outdoor spaces and dedicated expedition facilities. SH Minerva and SH Vega, two 5-star Polar Code PC 5 expedition cruise ships with ice-strengthened hulls, launched in December 2021 and July 2022. Both accommodate 152 guests in 76 spacious suites and staterooms, the majority with large balconies. A slightly larger PC 6 ice-class vessel, SH Diana, accommodating 192 guests in the same distinctive comfort and style in 96 staterooms and suites, was launched in April 2023.
While sharing the unique design features of her sister ships, SH Diana also introduces certain key enhancements, including a dedicated presentation and lecture theatre overlooking the lounge, and on-board Tender boats to take guests ashore in addition to and in greater comfort than the customary expedition Zodiacs. Like her siblings, SH Diana features a state-of-the-art gym, spa, panoramic sauna, club room and swimming pool with poolside grill.
All three ships feature three dining venues – the Swan Restaurant, Club Lounge and Pool Bar & Grill – and are built in full compliance with SOLAS Safe Return to Port requirements. Dedicated to guests with a passion for adventure and cultural exploration, the company's meticulously planned itineraries explore the wild landscapes, wildlife, peoples and unique cultures of the world's less travelled and most historic regions.
The crews each include a team of 12 seasoned expedition guides, expert speakers and lecturers, for a total complement of 120 and 140 persons respectively, offering outstanding staff-to-guest ratios to deliver the highest standards of attentive personal service.
Swan Hellenic's cultural expedition cruises have always been distinguished by the company, guidance and expert lectures of famous explorers, seasoned expedition guides and leading authorities in their fields. Now, many of the cruises are also enriched by partnerships with unique organisations to bring very different experts on board in the same way, including JRE-Jeunes Restaurateurs and the SETI Institute.
Maris Culinary Discovery at Sea brings a different JRE gourmet chef aboard each in a series of exclusive cruises which take guests on a parallel voyage of gastronomic discovery. While the SETI Explore Space at Sea Series brings a different world-renowned scientist from the SETI Institute aboard each cruise to provide guests with expert insights into the history and latest discoveries in astronomy, astrophysics, astrobiology and planetary science, as well as the quest to find other forms of life within and beyond our solar system.
On many cruises, guests can also participate in Swan Hellenic's Citizen Science partnerships, contributing valuable data obtained during their expeditions and on board, reporting cloud data with NASA, recording whale sightings with Happywhale, monitoring phytoplankton with the Secchi Disk Study, and Antarctic seabird numbers with Stony Brook University.
Headquartered in Cyprus with offices in London, Dusseldorf, Monaco, Fort Lauderdale (serving the North American market), Hong Kong (serving Greater China, India and South-East Asia), Sydney (serving Australia-New Zealand) and Copenhagen (serving Scandinavia and Iceland), together with a partnership serving Japan, Swan Hellenic supports the travel trade with local specialist partners to provide customers with expert personal service worldwide.
For more information about Swan Hellenic, please visit www.swanhellenic.com or call +44 (0) 207 846 0271
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