This Luxurious Cruise Line Is Opening the Southernmost Resort within the World

The posh cruise line Silversea is stepping into the lodge enterprise, constructing a 150-room outpost that the corporate says would be the southernmost property on the planet.

The brand new lodge, which will likely be situated in Puerto Williams, Chile, would be the first of its type for the cruise operator. The aim 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 relatively than crusing via it.

“This can lower down on the journey time considerably, by about 40 p.c, the variety of days that it’s worthwhile 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 by way of managing the full expertise,” Hernandez says. Presently, friends who arrive in Puerto Williams for a flight to the ice are scattered round city at a wide range of inns. 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 fashion we are able to put all people in the identical place,” he explains. “It is going to have nice frequent areas that we are able to use to temporary all people — to get all people 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, in accordance with Silversea’s voyage calendars. Whereas the road hasn’t but launched the title of the lodge, Hernandez has ambitions for the property to turn into greater than only a glorified transit hub for these headed to Antarctica.

“I do not need folks to come back all the way in which down right here and never expertise what this place is,” he explains. “Puerto Williams has a lot pure magnificence — and in addition some Indigenous tradition that’s fairly fascinating — so we’re actually going to attempt to leverage that, ensure folks comprehend it and perceive it. Initially, the property goes to be primarily based across the cruise, however we hope that, in time, we’ll have the ability to use it as one thing even broader.”

The brand new lodge will likely be situated on the location of the present Lakutaia Lodge, in accordance with Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which additionally stories that Silversea father or mother firm Royal Caribbean Group is investing $30 million within the challenge alongside DAP, a Chilean airline and tourism firm that makes a speciality of Antarctica operations.