Silversea will next month open The Cormorant At 55 South, a purpose-built hotel in Puerto Williams for its fly-cruise Antarctica passengers—and it’s a move Silversea believes will set it apart from all other cruise lines operating to the southern pole. 
Based on the internal pictures, Silversea md Asia Pacific Adam Radwanski said at the Cruise360 event in Sydney yesterday that the 150-room property is ‘looking amazing’. “We designed the hotel and the staying experience to be a destination immersion, so our guests staying there will feel that one night pre- and one night post-,” he says.
. . . Reducing Friction
Silversea set out to remove the friction points, where possible, for Antarctica-bound passengers looking to avoid the Drake Passage crossing.
It has developed a fly-cruise product which includes a night pre-and post-voyage at the ‘world’s south-ernmost hotel’; and will operate chartered business class flights between Santiago and Puerto Williams, and then Puerto Williams to King George Island in Antarctica.
Clients then sail on Silver Wind or Silver Endeavor, before flying out again at the end of the cruise.
“That’s a unique selling point…we offer some- thing that nobody has, and probably nobody will have for years to come,” says Radwanski about the new offering. “So we’re very proud of this and that’s why we’ll be focusing on the Antarctica flight, because it’s a product of its own,” he says, adding that New Zealand is ‘a great market for expedition for Antarctica’.
Radwanski says Silversea has intentionally developed a refined Antarctica product ‘that has no match’. “… pretty much we are the only ones basing our ships [in Puerto Williams], which makes the whole Antarctica product for Silversea, in my view, a completely different category on its own. You know, the industry, for various reasons, opted for Ushuaia or Buenos Aires departures. But there is then a lot of similar or same product, I would say.
It’s almost the sea of sameness…” While Radwanski notes that in the long-term Silversea sees its future primarily in a fly-cruise product ‘especially with this tremendous and incredible industry-first investment in the hotel’; he acknowledges that there is still demand for its ‘traditional’ Antarctic voyages. As such Silversea continues to offer its traditional 18-night South Georgia itineraries with the Drake Passage itineraries on the Silver Cloud. See more HERE.
