On September 23rd we were informed by Quark Expeditions that our icebreaker, Clipper Adventurer, ran aground in the Arctic on the Northwest Territory coastline. With a hole in the hull, they were forced to cancel our Antarctica cruise scheduled for December 14th. This news of course was very distressing; so much time and so much planning.
After many emails and many telephone calls we were able to negotiate a different cruise date with upgraded accommodations as no additional cost. The upgrade on the ship is great as we will all now have private double cabins with private baths. The new cruise sails on December 4th and is one day longer on a much nicer ship. All of this meant a complete reworking of 48 flight segments (4 segments for 12 passengers), the canceling and rebooking of many hotel nights, the rescheduling of our Patagonia Trek to a later departure date, and the rescheduling of two private tours that were to take place on our free days….thank goodness for our free days! Without them we would not have been able to accomplish the switch. There was one casualty in all of this as Marie Jennings had to cancel her trip due to the date changes. We will all miss her a lot as she is a valuable member of our little traveling tribe.
After two weeks of negotiation and a lot of frustration the end result is an even better cruise that before in upgraded cabins. All of these changes cost $643 per person. We are currently in negotiation with Quark for reimbursement of this individual cost. Bobbie says that this all worked out for the best as now we can eat a whole lot more on the cruise and then have the trek afterwards to work off the extra pounds!
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