Too much uncertainty
I was on the January 7-27, 2023 trip to Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica. Not worth the money. There are just too many "iffy" things about Antarctica expedition trips to spend this kind of money, whether for this company or another. Nothing is guaranteed and the passengers will take the full hit of anything that goes wrong (COVID, injuries, weather, antarctica site bookings). Our Falklands excursion went fine enough (but this is the least scenic of the places you'll visit), then we got what I would estimate as about 80% of South Georgia and 40% of Antarctica that was planned on the original itinerary. We had to leave South Georgia a day early because of approaching rough weather, then the 2 sea days in our official itinerary to get to Antarctica turned into 4 because of slow travel across the southern ocean, causing us to lose time in antarctica. But the most horrendous part of the trip was when a passenger fell and injured her shoulder, forcing us to sit in a harbor waiting for a medical evacuation. Poseidon proposed some excursions nearby, but this is a very windy area and all of those disembarkment opportunities were called off. Had we not been forced to sit and wait, we could've penetrated deeper and further down the Antarctic peninsula, where the waters are more sheltered. I was very disappointed that we didn't get more than 10 minutes on the continent itself. Why there isn't a better system for dealing with evacuations is beyond me, especially when injuries seem very possible -- even probable -- given the rough nature of the ship travel and the activities and landings. All passengers are required to have evacuation insurance, and yet every single passenger on the ship is severely and negatively impacted if even one individual needs to be transferred off the cruise. Poseidon offered lectures on board during the sea days, most of which were quite interesting and well-presented. The expedition staff consisted of about a dozen members with various expertise, but I note that many of them have large gaps in knowledge outside of their own area of expertise. I had some zodiac outings with expedition leaders highly enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but I also had some outings with expedition leaders who did nothing more than drive the zodiac around and who offered little if any information about what we were seeing.