Antarctic Peninsula · Southern Ocean
Two private helicopters, the Scenic Neptune submersible, and 13 days in the most extraordinary wilderness on earth — Scenic Eclipse on the Antarctic Peninsula redefines what expedition luxury is capable of.
About This Voyage
“Antarctica is the only place on earth that exists entirely outside the ordinary world. Scenic Eclipse was built to take you there without leaving anything behind.”
There are two things aboard Scenic Eclipse that no other luxury expedition ship carries: helicopters and a submarine. The helicopters — two of them, personally piloted by the ship's aviators — access the glaciers, ice shelves and bays of the Antarctic Peninsula at elevations and angles that no other expedition vessel can reach. The Scenic Neptune submersible — six passengers at a time, in panoramic acrylic — descends through the ice-cold waters of the Southern Ocean into a world of leopard seals, crabeater seals and bioluminescent life that exists in complete darkness. Together, they transform an already extraordinary destination into something categorically new.
The Antarctica in Depth voyage departs Ushuaia, Argentina — the world's southernmost city — and crosses the Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula, spending the maximum possible time in Antarctic waters. The itinerary encompasses the Peninsula's most spectacular sites: iceberg fields, penguin rookeries, glacier faces and the deep interior bays accessible only in the most ice-capable vessels. This voyage includes Hanusse Bay — a remote and rarely visited inlet of the Peninsula, accessible only to expedition ships with the correct polar classification, offering wildlife and glacial scenery of the highest order. Polar experts and naturalists lead all shore excursions and Zodiac operations.
Available December 2026 and 2027 seasons. Scenic Eclipse carries 228 guests across 114 suites; Antarctica in Depth departures are offered in limited numbers. Martins Travel holds preferred suite access.
What Is Included
Port by Port
Each port of call has been chosen to reveal a different facet of the journey — arriving by sea as travellers once did, and departing enriched, never hurried.
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
Ushuaia sits at 54 degrees south, beneath the Martial Range, at the very end of the American landmass — a small Argentine port city that has made a virtue of its position at the edge of everything. Scenic Eclipse is berthed at the cruise dock, visible from the main street: a ship proportioned for polar work, with the quiet confidence of a vessel built for the ice. Embarkation in the afternoon. Your butler — your single point of contact for the next thirteen days — has prepared the suite, stocked the bar, and will shortly learn your preferences for every hour that follows. The Expedition Director briefs all guests at 6pm: the plan, the contingencies, the wildlife calendar, the extraordinary nature of what lies 800 kilometres to the south. Dinner as the ship departs the Beagle Channel at dusk, the mountains of Tierra del Fuego receding behind.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · UshuaiaDrake Passage, Southern Ocean
The Drake Passage — 800 kilometres of open Southern Ocean between Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands — is where the world's three great oceans meet, unimpeded by any landmass. The sea is consequential. Scenic Eclipse's hull and stabilisation system make the crossing more comfortable than it has any right to be. The Expedition Team uses the two crossing days for a lecture series: Antarctica's geology, its wildlife adaptations, its political status under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, and the history of polar exploration from Cook to Shackleton to Scott. Black-browed albatrosses with wingspans of two metres follow the ship. The first icebergs appear on the radar by the evening of Day 3 — small, pale shapes on the horizon, the advance guard of a continent.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · Drake PassageSouth Shetland Islands & Antarctic Peninsula
The South Shetland Islands are the gateway to Antarctica — a volcanic archipelago straddling the Antarctic Convergence, where the temperature drops and the sea changes colour and the birdlife multiplies exponentially. Day 4: Deception Island, the caldera of an active submarine volcano — Scenic Eclipse enters through Neptune's Bellows, a 230-metre gap in the caldera wall. The ruins of the Hektor Whaling Station, abandoned in 1931, stand on the black sand beach. Hot volcanic springs warm the sea at the shoreline. Day 5: the ship crosses into the Antarctic Sound and the Peninsula appears in full: the mountains, the ice cap, the glaciers descending to the sea, the scale of it rendering every previous superlative inadequate. The first Zodiac landing on the continent: a gravel beach, a Gentoo penguin colony of 40,000 birds, and the sound of calving ice in the bay.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · Antarctic PeninsulaHanusse Bay, Antarctic Peninsula
Hanusse Bay is one of the most remote and rarely visited inlets of the Antarctic Peninsula — a deep enclosure of the continent accessible only to expedition vessels with the ice classification that Scenic Eclipse carries. Day 6: the ship navigates into the bay's inner reaches, passing through iceberg fields of extraordinary density. The Expedition Team deploys Zodiacs for a cruise through the icebergs — blue ice, ancient compressed glacial ice, cathedral formations rising 30 metres from the water. The silence, when the Zodiac engine is cut, is absolute: only the creak of shifting ice and the distant call of a snow petrel. Day 7: the Scenic Neptune submersible descends in Hanusse Bay — six metres below the surface, the ice formations visible from beneath, leopard seals moving through the water column, bioluminescent plankton catching the light from the portholes.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · Hanusse BayLemaire Channel & Petermann Island
The Lemaire Channel — known by every Antarctic photographer as the Kodak Channel — is a 11-kilometre passage between the Peninsula and Booth Island where the rock and ice walls rise 700 metres on both sides, narrowing to less than 2 kilometres at their closest point. Scenic Eclipse navigates the channel at slow speed on the morning of Day 8: the experience is one of concentrated, almost unbearable beauty. Petermann Island, at the channel's southern end, has one of the most southerly Adélie penguin colonies on the planet — the birds nesting on a rock shelf above the sea, the glaciers of the Peninsula behind them. Day 9: helicopter operations over the Lemaire Channel region — the pilot banks over the channel from altitude, the ship visible below as a small dark shape in the white. The ice cap stretches to every horizon.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · Lemaire ChannelCrystal Sound & Marguerite Bay
Crystal Sound is the stretch of water south of the Argentine Islands where the icebergs are most densely concentrated — turquoise meltwater pools forming on their upper surfaces, Weddell seals sleeping on ice shelves, the light in summer lasting twenty hours and turning the ice extraordinary colours at the edges of the day. Day 10: a Zodiac excursion through the iceberg field at the blue hour — the light that occurs at midnight in the Antarctic summer, when the sun just grazes the horizon and the world turns a colour for which no adequate description exists in any language. Day 11: Marguerite Bay, one of the southernmost points of the voyage. Kayak operations in the sheltered water near the Rothera Research Station; the British scientists who winter here receive occasional visits from expedition vessels, and Scenic Eclipse's Expedition Director has arranged a brief informal exchange.
Aboard Scenic Eclipse · Crystal SoundDrake Passage & Ushuaia, Argentina
The northward Drake crossing is, psychologically, the reverse of the southward one. The continent recedes astern; the ordinary world approaches ahead. The Expedition Team uses the crossing for a photographic workshop — reviewing the images from the voyage with the ship's photographer, editing, printing the finest twelve as a parting gift. The albatrosses follow the ship until the last hour before Cape Horn, then peel away to the south. Scenic Eclipse enters the Beagle Channel on the morning of Day 13: the mountains of Tierra del Fuego, the first mobile phone signal in almost two weeks. Ushuaia appears ahead. Disembarkation with private transfers to Malvinas Argentinas Airport and Buenos Aires connections arranged throughout the day. Most guests report that the ordinary world seems, briefly, impossible to re-enter. That is the correct response to having been to Antarctica.
Disembarkation · UshuaiaThe Onboard Experience
The Vessel · Southern Ocean
The World's First Discovery Yacht
228 guests. 114 suites. Two helicopters. One Scenic Neptune submersible. Six restaurants. 24-hour butler service. Scenic Eclipse carries the most diverse expedition equipment of any luxury vessel afloat, with the highest staff-to-guest ratio in the sector. Every suite has a private balcony; the polar ice rating allows access to bays unavailable to any other luxury ship.
Expedition Equipment · Submersible
Antarctic Peninsula Waters
The Scenic Neptune carries six passengers in panoramic acrylic to depths of six metres below the Antarctic surface — giving access to a world of leopard seals, crabeater seals, ice formations visible from beneath, and bioluminescent plankton that exists in complete darkness. No other luxury expedition ship offers a comparable experience in Antarctic waters.
Destination · Days 6–7
Antarctic Peninsula Interior
Hanusse Bay is one of the most remote inlets of the Antarctic Peninsula — rarely visited, accessible only to polar-class expedition vessels, and containing iceberg concentrations and wildlife of extraordinary density. Scenic Eclipse's ice classification allows entry to the bay's inner reaches, where the silence is absolute and the ice formations are on a scale that defeats ordinary description.
Private Enquiry
This voyage is presented as a point of departure. We will tailor the suite category, pre- and post-voyage arrangements, private shore excursions, and any special occasion wishes to your exact preferences. A Martins Travel cruise specialist will respond personally within 24 hours.