:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/TAL-lakutaia-silversea-puerto-williams-chile-SILVERSEAHTL1024-7a8b63d7854c465d9d1c599361551367.jpg)
The posh cruise line Silversea is entering into the lodge enterprise, constructing a 150-room outpost that the corporate says would be the southernmost property on this planet.
The brand new lodge, which might be situated in Puerto Williams, Chile, would be the first of its form for the cruise operator. The purpose is to streamline the expertise of friends touring to Antarctica on Silversea’s fleet of expedition-ready ships, says line president Bert Hernandez in an interview with Journey + Leisure.
The corporate sees the brand new lodge as a key stop-over level for its so-called Antarctica Bridge journeys, which permit vacationers to bypass the infamous Drake Passage that separates southern Chile from Antarctica by flying over the strait quite than crusing via it.
“This can lower down on the journey time considerably, by about 40 %, the variety of days that you want to get pleasure from Antarctica to the fullest,” Hernandez tells T+L. Typical itineraries enable for greater than a full day of crusing from South America to Antarctica; with a constitution flight, the journey between Puerto Williams and the cruise port on King George Island takes simply two hours.
“The brand new lodge offers us much more flexibility when it comes to managing the entire expertise,” Hernandez says. Presently, friends who arrive in Puerto Williams for a flight to the ice are scattered round city at quite a lot of accommodations. Hernandez says the brand new Silversea lodge will simplify the logistics for each friends and the cruise line, to the good thing about everybody.
“This manner we will put everyone in the identical place,” he explains. “It’s going to have nice widespread areas that we will use to transient everyone — to get everyone acclimated and enthusiastic about what’s about to come back.”
Plans name for the brand new lodge to open in time for the 2025/2026 Antarctic season, which begins in late October, based on Silversea’s voyage calendars. Whereas the road hasn’t but launched the identify of the lodge, Hernandez has ambitions for the property to develop into greater than only a glorified transit hub for these headed to Antarctica.
“I do not need individuals to come back all the best way down right here and never expertise what this place is,” he explains. “Puerto Williams has a lot pure magnificence — and likewise some Indigenous tradition that’s fairly attention-grabbing — so we’re actually going to attempt to leverage that, ensure individuals understand it and perceive it. Initially, the property goes to be based mostly across the cruise, however we hope that, in time, we’ll be capable to use it as one thing even broader.”
The brand new lodge might be situated on the location of the prevailing Lakutaia Lodge, based on Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which additionally studies that Silversea mum or dad firm Royal Caribbean Group is investing $30 million within the mission alongside DAP, a Chilean airline and tourism firm that makes a speciality of Antarctica operations.
