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

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

The brand new lodge, which will probably be positioned 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 reasonably than crusing by means of it.

“It will minimize down on the journey time considerably, by about 40 %, the variety of days that it’s good to get pleasure from Antarctica to the fullest,” Hernandez tells T+L. Typical itineraries permit 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 resort provides 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 a wide range of resorts. 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 everyone in the identical place,” he explains. “It’ll have nice widespread areas that we are able to use to temporary everyone — to get everyone acclimated and enthusiastic about what’s about to return.”

Plans name for the brand new resort to open in time for the 2025/2026 Antarctic season, which begins in late October, in keeping with Silversea’s voyage calendars. Whereas the road hasn’t but launched the identify 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 individuals to return all the best way 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 attention-grabbing — so we’re actually going to attempt to leverage that, be sure individuals know it and perceive it. Initially, the property goes to be primarily based across the cruise, however we hope that, in time, we’ll be capable of use it as one thing even broader.”

The brand new resort will probably be positioned on the positioning of the prevailing Lakutaia Lodge, in keeping with Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which additionally studies 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 focuses on Antarctica operations.