I’ve arrived in the Santiago hotel, and can’t really complain about the flights. The Miami-Santiago flight was an hour early, which was not an issue with Silversea’s airport greet and transfer team. However, the hotel didn’t have the rooms ready yet, so we needed to sit in the foyer for an hour or so before we can get in our room and out of our travel clothes. For the flight to Puerto Williams tomorrow we must have luggage outside our rooms by 10:00pm tonight, so I’ll be moving some stuff around to put my dopp kit in my carry-on camera backpack.

Cool thing happened an hour before I left for the airport in Phoenix. I received an email from my Silversea agent saying they upgraded my cabin from my standard “Deluxe Veranda” to “Medallion”. View the Silver Wind’s deck plan here (PDF).

	Deluxe Veranda	Medallion
Cabin Area (includes Veranda)	295 sqf (27 m2)	441 sqf (41 m2)
Veranda Area	49 sqf (4.5 m2)	125 sqf (12 m2)

So the Medallion veranda (balcony) is 2.5 times larger than the Deluxe Veranda, but the cabin itself is “only” 1.3 times larger. I’ll need to guilt myself into super-using the veranda. In Antarctica. Outdoors. Where icebergs live. At least this different cabin gives me something new to take pictures of and explain the layout for the blog. In addition, this will be the first time I’ve slept this high on a cruise ship. I usually live in deck 5 or 6, which is closer to the water line – thus reducing how much you feel ship movement. The Medallion cabins are on deck 8 of a nine-deck ship.

Speaking of blog pictures, I have no idea how the internet will behave in while in the Antarctic Circle. In previous cruises the farther away from the equator the ship sailed, the worse the connect was. However, there has been some changes with Starlink. I know Royal Caribbean (the owners of Silversea) plan to equip it’s ships with Starlink gear, but I don’t know if Silver Wind has the new equipment yet. I’ll let you know.