Welp, made if home safely and updated the Index page to include my snowy / waterfally (??) trip? I have moved the links to my full-size photograph albums to the top menu. While the right sidebar works for PC and tablet views, it can be difficult to find on mobile. With that, I’ve added a “Top 10” from my Antarctica and Iguazu Falls adventure.

So, the big question – was it worth it? Honestly, I’m conflicted. Sure, I got to:

• Walk on all seven continents
• Float within 100 meters of whales in the wild
• Hear glaciers make heart-attack-causing noises
• See stunning waterfalls

On the other hand, one way I’ve learned to judge vacations is a ratio of fun time compared to airport/airplane time. That’s one of the reasons I’ve continued with multiple-week cruising. That wasn’t the plan, I expected my retirement-celebration world cruise to be a one-off.

The 20-hour flights to and from South America would just barely fit my “fun/flight ration” for the 10-days on the Silver Wind. Yes, four of those days were in transit to/from Antarctica. But Silversea does a great job filling those days. It doesn’t hurt that the food and service whoops the butt of any airport or airline I’ve visited.

However, the Iguazu Falls cruise add-on blew my ratio out of the water. Within five days I “enjoyed”

• Day in Santiago waiting for flight to Buenos Aires
• Flight to Buenos Aires
• Day in Buenos Aires waiting for flight to Iguazu
• Half-day wasted on airplane trouble (no one’s fault, but it still happened)
• Flight to Iguazu
• Flight back to Buenos Aires

That’s a lousy fun/flight ratio. I’ve taken flight-required multi-day “field trips” during my world cruise, but they were more tightly integrated. To be honest, I knew this trip would be like that – it was on the Iguazu Add-On itinerary. I decided to do it anyway since it was a world site that I missed on my South America Grand Voyage.

I guess the best determination is “Would I do it again?” No. I’d rather add another week or two on the cruise, re-visiting south eastern South America before doing the two-days-visit-two-days-flying to Iguazu again. Would I visit Antarctica again? Harder question. I moved to Arizona for the express purpose of never seeing snow again. However, one of the guide mentioned that another expedition cruise Silversea runs is from Australia straight to the Ross Ice Shelf, which is about 120-degrees to the west of where we visited on this trip.

<a href="By <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctica_Map.png" title="File:Antarctica Map.png">Antarctica_Map.png</a>derivative work: — <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jeandr%C3%A9_du_Toit" title="User:Jeandré du Toit">Jeandré</a>, 2009-02-16<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jeandr%C3%A9_du_Toit" title="User talk:Jeandré du Toit">t</a>17:22z – <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctica_Map.png" title="File:Antarctica Map.png">Antarctica_Map.png</a>, Public Domain, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5967893">Link

I’m not getting any younger and I have other plans for the next two years or so. What are these plans? Wait and see, Cruiseboysians! Thanks for reading the blog, and I hoped you enjoyed the ride.