Antarctica Cruises & Expeditions

Cruise to Antarctica with the Artisans of Adventure Travel™

Antarctica Cruise Ships

Expedition cruise vessels are a world apart from your average ocean cruise liner; small, agile and exclusively designed for intrepid exploration, built to withstand the most extreme environs and climatic conditions around the Southern Ocean.

Select from the finest selection of polar class Antarctica cruise ships available below, operated by only the most trusted of partners, preeminent pioneers in polar exploration who offer exceptional itineraries, unrivaled knowledge, and utmost levels of service.

For more information to help you choose between ships, and to better understand the differences between vessel categories and their polar classifications, see our Antarctica cruise ship guide.

Up to 40% savings

Ocean Albatros

9-19 Days, 10 Itineraries
169 Guests, Mid-Range
$ 8,095 - $ 51,895
Per Person
Up to 44% savings

Ultramarine

12-23 Days, 5 Itineraries
199 Guests, Luxury
$ 12,004 - $ 53,937
Per Person
Up to 20% savings

Greg Mortimer

9-24 Days, 14 Itineraries
132 Guests, Mid-Range
$ 11,756 - $ 56,436
Per Person
Up to 40% savings

Ocean Victory

9-19 Days, 7 Itineraries
189 Guests, Mid-Range
$ 7,895 - $ 43,395
Per Person
Up to 40% savings

World Explorer

8-18 Days, 4 Itineraries
172 Guests, Luxury
$ 10,940 - $ 34,196
Per Person
Up to 25% savings

Sylvia Earle

12-23 Days, 14 Itineraries
132 Guests, Mid-Range
$ 10,046 - $ 56,521
Per Person

Magellan Explorer

6-20 Days, 6 Itineraries
96 Guests, Luxury
$ 6,795 - $ 38,995
Per Person

Ocean Adventurer

N/A Days, 0 Itineraries
128 Guests, Luxury
Sold Out
Up to 31% savings

Ocean Explorer

8-20 Days, 7 Itineraries
138 Guests, Luxury
$ 14,531 - $ 46,508
Per Person
Up to 50% savings

MS Fridtjof Nansen

12-19 Days, 3 Itineraries
530 Guests, Luxury
$ 8,385 - $ 18,456
Per Person
Up to 49% savings

MS Roald Amundsen

12-18 Days, 5 Itineraries
532 Guests, Luxury
$ 9,015 - $ 21,283
Per Person
Up to 43% savings

MS Fram

22-23 Days, 3 Itineraries
318 Guests, Luxury
$ 14,963 - $ 40,598
Per Person
Up to 26% savings

Ocean Endeavour

11-23 Days, 7 Itineraries
200 Guests, Luxury
$ 7,400 - $ 30,240
Per Person

Le Lapérouse

N/A Days, 0 Itineraries
184 Guests, Luxury
Sold Out
Up to 50% savings

Hondius

10-23 Days, 6 Itineraries
170 Guests, Luxury
$ 2,350 - $ 31,000
Per Person
Up to 31% savings

MV Ushuaia

10-22 Days, 5 Itineraries
90 Guests, Luxury
$ 5,690 - $ 20,390
Per Person

Ocean Nova

6-10 Days, 4 Itineraries
72 Guests, Luxury
$ 4,995 - $ 26,395
Per Person

Ortelius

11-28 Days, 8 Itineraries
108 Guests, Luxury
$ 7,700 - $ 39,000
Per Person
Up to 41% savings

Plancius

11-21 Days, 8 Itineraries
108 Guests, Luxury
$ 6,050 - $ 24,400
Per Person
Up to 40% savings

Sea Spirit

12-23 Days, 7 Itineraries
114 Guests, Luxury
$ 10,095 - $ 43,995
Per Person
Up to 21% savings

Seaventure

11-21 Days, 12 Itineraries
164 Guests, Luxury
$ 10,450 - $ 40,135
Per Person

MS Expedition

11-22 Days, 5 Itineraries
134 Guests, Luxury
$ 6,299 - $ 33,999
Per Person

Le Soléal

22 Days, 1 Itineraries
264 Guests, Luxury
$ 21,220 - $ 52,530
Per Person

Heritage Adventurer

28 Days, 1 Itineraries
184 Guests, Luxury
$ 31,500 - $ 50,620
Per Person

Le Commandant Charcot

13-30 Days, 6 Itineraries
245 Guests, Luxury
$ 27,290 - $ 136,430
Per Person

Antarctica Cruise Routes

Part of the adventure of an Antarctic expedition is in the difficulty and anticipation of getting there, a rite of passage for the privilege of visiting one of the most spectacular, awe-inspiring places on the planet, its geographical prominence and vast scale affording a variety of ways to reach and witness its cornucopia of natural wonders.

Explore the most popular routes to cruise Antarctica, its prized peninsula, and its equally alluring sub-Antarctic island neighbors below.

Unsure which route you prefer? Learn more about their differences in our helpful Antarctica cruise routes guide.

Antarctica town aerial view
Antarctica Fly-Cruise
Avg Length: 7 Day / 6 Night
Antarctica town aerial view

Antarctica Fly-Cruise

Fly the Drake from Punta Arenas to the Antarctic archipelago of the South Shetlands, in one or both directions, and avoid its long sailing days and stormy seas to minimize your chances of seasickness and maximize your cruising time in Antarctica proper.
Avg Length: 7 Day / 6 Night
Embarkation Ports: Punta Arenas
Sites: Cape Horn, Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland Islands, King George Island, + 1 More
Sunset over the rough sea
Drake Passage Cruise
Avg Length: 12 Day / 11 Night
Sunset over the rough sea

Drake Passage Cruise

Traverse one of the world’s most fabled seaways, the legendary Drake Passage separating the tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego, from the Antarctic Peninsula, on a high-seas adventure across the waves of this mythic ocean road rich in wildlife and icebergs.
Avg Length: 12 Day / 11 Night
Embarkation Ports: Ushuaia
Sites: South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, Cape Horn, Beagle Channel
Antarctic Peninsula Cruise
Avg Length: 11 Day / 10 Night

Antarctic Peninsula Cruise

Explore the iceberg-cluttered waterways, bustling penguin rookeries, and iconic Kodak Alley, Paradise Bay, and Deception Island of the Antarctic Peninsula, the most accessible, wildlife-rich, and dazzling northernmost extremity of the White Continent.
Avg Length: 11 Day / 10 Night
Embarkation Ports: Ushuaia
Sites: Beagle Channel, South Shetland Islands, Paradise Bay, Cuverville Island, + 4 More
Antarctica, Falklands & South Georgia Cruise
Avg Length: 21 Day / 20 Night

Antarctica, Falklands & South Georgia Cruise

Embark on an epic odyssey to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia en route to the Antarctic Peninsula, sub-Antarctic islands home to breathtaking landscapes, stirring heritage, and colossal colonies of southern elephant seals, fur seals, penguins, and more.
Avg Length: 21 Day / 20 Night
Embarkation Ports: Ushuaia
Sites: Tierra del Fuego, Beagle Channel, South Shetland Islands, King George Island, + 6 More
Dramatic view of icebergs
Antarctic Circle Cruise
Avg Length: 13 Day / 12 Night
Dramatic view of icebergs

Antarctic Circle Cruise

Cruise in the wake of Captain James Cook far off Antarctica’s main tourist circuit to cross the fabled Antarctic Circle, the southernmost of the globe’s great lines of latitude at roughly 66 degrees, realm of the midnight sun and true bottom of the world.
Avg Length: 13 Day / 12 Night
Embarkation Ports: Ushuaia
Sites: King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Sound, Gerlache Strait, + 2 More
Penguins on the iceberg
Weddell Sea Cruise
Avg Length: 16 Day / 15 Night
Penguins on the iceberg

Weddell Sea Cruise

Travel the lesser-visited eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula into the rarely seen wilderness of the Weddell Sea to be awe-struck by its astonishingly large tabular icebergs, emperor penguins, and sea life, including various ice seals, whales and orcas.
Avg Length: 16 Day / 15 Night
Embarkation Ports: Ushuaia
Sites: Tierra del Fuego, Beagle Channel, Point Wild – Elephant Island, Weddell Sea, + 11 More
Penguins on the ice
Ross Sea & East Antarctica Cruise
Avg Length: 30 Day / 29 Night
Penguins on the ice

Ross Sea & East Antarctica Cruise

Visit one of the most scenic, remote, and history-rich shorelines of Antarctica in the Ross Sea, marvel at the world’s largest ice shelf and Adélie penguin rookery, its southernmost active volcano, and the unbelievably well-preserved huts of Scott and Shackleton.
Avg Length: 30 Day / 29 Night
Embarkation Ports: Port of Bluff, Hobart
Sites: Port of Bluff, The Snares, Auckland Islands, Enderby Island, + 12 More
Sample
Fly
Cruise

Best-Selling Antarctica Cruises

Whilst most Antarctic voyages and expeditions entail exploration of the more temperate and accessible Antarctic Peninsula, the Seventh Continent and surrounds are privy to a plenitude of polar delights: the habitat for hardy penguin, pinniped and pelagic species; historic setting for the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration; and pristine playground for adventure pursuits of all kinds—from snowshoeing and kayaking, to camping on the ice itself.

Indulge in them all with the most popular Antarctica cruises available below.

Classic Antarctica Air-Cruise

Length: 8 Day / 7 Night
Ships: Magellan Explorer, Ocean Nova
$ 11,495 - $ 32,395
Per Person
Up to 40% savings

Antarctic Explorer: Discovering The 7th Continent

Length: 11 Day / 10 Night
Ships: Ocean Explorer, World Explorer
$ 10,940 - $ 25,675
Per Person
Up to 32% savings

In-Depth Antarctica, Falklands & South Georgia Expedition

Length: 23 Day / 22 Night
Ships: MS Fram
$ 20,606 - $ 40,598
Per Person
Up to 40% savings

South Shetland Islands & Antarctic Peninsula

Length: 10 Day / 9 Night
Ships: Ocean Albatros, Ocean Victory
$ 8,095 - $ 25,095
Per Person

Antarctica - Basecamp

Length: 13 Day / 12 Night
Ships: Hondius, Plancius, Ortelius
$ 9,700 - $ 17,150
Per Person
Up to 41% savings

Antarctic Circle Expedition

Length: 18 Day / 17 Night
Ships: MS Roald Amundsen
$ 13,219 - $ 21,283
Per Person
Up to 26% savings

Antarctic Express: Fly The Drake

Length: 8 Day / 7 Night
Ships: Ocean Explorer, World Explorer
$ 15,339 - $ 31,246
Per Person
Up to 30% savings

Classic Antarctica

Length: 10 Day / 9 Night
Ships: MV Ushuaia
$ 5,690 - $ 13,690
Per Person
Up to 20% savings

Spirit of Antarctica

Length: 12 Day / 11 Night
Ships: Sylvia Earle
$ 13,766 - $ 30,076
Per Person

Antarctica

Length: 11 Day / 10 Night
Ships: Plancius, Ortelius
$ 9,900 - $ 14,300
Per Person

Antarctica Cruise Themes

To help you filter the Antarctic forays above, we’ve curated a series of Antarctica cruise themes, subdividing the expedition cruise sector into styles of exploration to suit your preferred type of experience.

Are you a spellbound solo traveler or shutterbug, captivated kith and kin, or enthralled nature or history buff? Perhaps you’re someone seeking more active adventure, a guaranteed White Christmas, the chance to see the iconic Emperor penguin, or the high latitude high life? Or maybe you’re a large group of explorers? Whatever your preference, discover the draws of this pristine, primordial polar paradise your way.

The Antarctica Expedition Experience

There are no words to adequately describe Antarctica, no superlatives sufficient for capturing and conveying its ineffable immensity and importance, its sheer scale and significance too great to distill into logical sentences.

For centuries this glistening, glacial-encrusted continent has been a siren for sealers, scientists, and adventure seekers alike, a brilliant white beacon for brave explorers and pinnacle of polar odysseys exalting from pack ice.

Amid the haunting laments of calving icebergs and raucous calls of resident penguins, seals and seabirds, arresting, awakening and visceral experiences abound here, ones that you’ll eternally evoke as the trip of your lifetime.

Jeremy Clubb
Founder & Director

Explore With Experts

As purveyors of pioneering, small-ship expeditions that optimize a passenger’s polar experience, we promise to minimize your time on ship and maximize your time on shore for a more immersive and authentic Antarctic adventure.

Guided by specialist advisors pre-trip to select the ideal expedition for you, and escorted by distinguished naturalists on excursion, you’ll actively explore this wild and wonderful frozen continent, gliding around enormous tabular icebergs and breaching whales by Zodiac or kayak, and walking along beaches peppered with penguins and seals. Let our experts take you deep into the heart of this majestic environment so it can get into yours.

Iceberg in Drake Passage

Cross The Drake Passage

Antarctica doesn’t give up its prized natural treasures easily. Everyone who comes to this isolated continent must ‘earn it’, none more so than those embarking on an expedition cruise from South America’s “Land of Fire”, Tierra del Fuego, bound for Antarctica’s antithetical “Land of Ice”.

In your path, lies one of the world’s most violent bodies of water, the Drake Passage, where three seas converge in a frenzied cocktail of inconceivably strong currents and cyclones, whipping up ferocious waves and winds of frightening magnitudes. Crossing this legendary waterway is a rite of passage, following in the wake of many of history’s greatest explorers.

Two penguins touching beaks

Meet The Penguins

Synonymous with this most southerly of continents, these ever-anthropomorphised birds fearlessly greet newcomers to the White Continent, a myriad of bustling miniature butlers in waiting, perhaps more accurately portrayed as the jostling and jovial jesters of this ice-crowned court with their playful, clumsy and comical antics.

From the perfect “tuxedo” plumage of the Adélie penguin and bushy-browed Macaroni to the fabulously debonair Emperor penguin, the world’s largest, the polar region of Antarctica offers an intimate look inside a world of unique avifauna and sea life that have adapted to survive the most extreme climate on earth. 

Ice cracks seen from above

Live The Fairytale

Discover a frozen fairytale land whose very existence defies logic, a desert covered in prehistoric ice, dislodged from time itself, a dreamscape drenched in the eerie, eternal light of the austral summer sun where katabatic winds can remake the view before your very eyes.

Here, bizarrely no official time zone exists, and all the lines of longitude segmenting the planet converge at the South Pole, a singular, frigid focal point where confoundingly every hour on earth is happening instantaneously. It is a place preserved for peace and science that does not belong to any one person or nation, a paragon of cooperation, and shimmering symbol of hope for all humanity.

Antarctica Historic Research Station

Follow In Their Footsteps

Antarctica’s shores echo with the travails of the great polar explorers from Shackleton and Mawson, to Amundsen and Scott. Follow in their frosted footsteps, feel their pioneering spirit of adventure on the sea air, and imagine their plight forging their way through pack ice on a creaking wooden boat or hauling sledges lionheartedly across the Polar Plateau.

Visit some of the historic huts that still remain, preserved in rime ice, literally frozen in time, to tell the story of Antarctic adventures long since past, and enjoy an honored front-row seat to their gallant scientific endeavors and the incredible history of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Ice breaker in the South Pole

Go With The Floe

Antarctica is a destination that demands absolute adaptability, not just from the hardy species that have evolved to survive its seemingly uninhabitable climate but also from those visiting tourists who will find themselves at the whim of the White Continent’s capricious and formidable elements. Here it is ice and weather, not clocks and calendars, that dictate polar proceedings, and patience and flexibility are paramount.

Absolve yourself of preconceived notions of particular landings, scheduled pursuits and wildlife sightings—every expedition is unique—and instead embrace the unknown and blissfully freeing lack of a plan. Bow to the will of providence, surrender any semblance of control, and enjoy the spoils.

Ice Mountain reflecting in the water

Pen Your Polar Experience

Commit your personal polar experience to paper and eternity, as Douglas Mawson, famous Antarctic explorer so eloquently did:

“The tranquility of the water heightened the superb effects of this glacial world. Majestic tabular bergs whose crevices exhaled a vaporous azure; lofty spires, radiant turrets and splendid castles; honeycombed masses illumined by pale green light within whose fairy labyrinths the water washed and gurgled.

Seals and penguins on magic gondolas were the silent denizens of this dreamy Venice. In the soft glamor of the midsummer midnight sun, we were possessed by a rapturous wonder: the rare thrill of unreality.”

Guides walking in the snow

Become An Antarctic Ambassador

Many visitors to Antarctica leave having been deeply affected by its humbling grandeur, experiencing soul-stirring epiphanies, and gaining profound new perspectives about the planet and their place within it.

To witness Antarctica’s beauty and fragility first-hand, to connect with it and its inhabitants, and learn of its centrality to life as we know, will undoubtedly inspire you to become an Antarctic Ambassador, championing the importance of protecting its spectacular biodiversity in the face of climate change and unsustainable resource consumption, educating and uniting others in its cause, and advocating the collective responsibility for its crucial conservation.

Antarctica Expedition Cruise Guide

Laying undiscovered to mankind until the eighteenth century, no continent is as remote or uncharted as Antarctica, an otherworldly, timeless realm steeped in heroic tales of human endeavor.

With its heady allure of unbridled adventure, inquisitive inhabitants, and dazzling icescapes, it’s perhaps easy to forget this is one of the world’s wildest frontiers, and an Antarctic expedition should not be undertaken lightly.

Prepare yourself properly for the voyage of a lifetime with our comprehensive Antarctica travel guide.