After a short 3 hours flight from Doha, we landed at Amman at 12:15 PM, Jordan which marked our 50th country milestone after 13 years of travel! Arriving at Amman was so different than in Doha, there was no special line for business class passengers; I think we got spoiled haha. We purchased the Jordan… Read More 50th Country Milestone at Jordan – 1st Stop Dead Sea
Jordan and Turkey have been on my bucket list for a long time and what triggered us to go was the 40% bonus transfer from Amex points to British Airways Avios and Qatar Airways joining the Avios point program so we can redeem just 57,200 points (normally 80,000 Avios) for a one-way business class ticket… Read More A Wonderful Overnight Stay in Doha, Qatar to Check Off the 49th Country
The last landing site of our Antarctica Cruise – Deception Island/Telefon Bay. Deception Island is one of the volcanic islands; the landscape looked different than the other sites where we had the landings on previous days. The temperature here seemed warm, most of the ice melted so you can see the land instead of being… Read More Antarctica Cruise – Deception Island and The Last Day
Another beautiful day in Antarctica as we sailed toward Paradise Bay/Brown Station. I got a call from the activity desk in the morning to ask if we wanted to go kayaking since they had 2 last-minute cancellations. I wasn’t so sure since I never kayak before but since they need an answer right away, I… Read More Antarctica Cruise – Kayaking at Paradise Bay
Another perfect day as our ship sailed through another picturesque channel – Neumayer Channel. The landscape at first looked like Lemaire Channel… The further we sail in, the water got calmer and it gave an almost perfect reflection! We were surrounded by mountains covered in snow so only two colors – blue and white. It… Read More Antarctica Cruise – Snowshoeing at Damoy Point
As we were having breakfast, our ship was sailing through the picturesque Lemaire Channel, the views were incredible. An announcement was made that we were approaching the narrowest part of the channel usually it was not possible to pass through when there was ice built up. We were lucky that the condition allowed us to… Read More Antarctica Cruise – Petermann Island
Good morning Antarctica! It was like dreaming; waking up and seeing glaciers, icebergs, and mountain ranges right outside our cabin window. Breakfast was pretty full today; we usually got a table at the front of the restaurant but this time we walked all the way back to find a free table. The view was spectacular,… Read More Antarctica Cruise – Danco Island/Orne Harbour
I woke up by the rocking of the ship and when I looked out to the window, huge waves were crashing on our windows! It was no kidding when people said the Drake Passage is known to be the roughest sea! The prescribed medicine worked, otherwise, I would be in the bathroom at this point!… Read More Crossing the Drake Passage to Antarctica!
The day we all waited for – the official start of our cruise! We woke up early, had a quick breakfast at 6 AM at the hotel provided by Hurtigruten, got on our bus arranged by the cruise company to the airport, and boarded their chartered flight from Buenos Aires EZE Airport to Ushuaia –… Read More Ushuaia to Antarctica on board Hurtigruten’s MS Fridtjof Nansen
The next morning, we packed up and were ready to move to the hotel (Emperador Hotel Buenos Aires) that our cruise has booked for us (included as part of our cruise itinerary, they called it Day 1). We tried out the empanadas at a local store nearby the Intercontinental before the check-out and they were… Read More Buenos Aires: Recoleta Cemetery and El Ateneo Grand Splendid
