Cruise Routes Reviews 

I was asked what made my trip so memorable to Antarctica which was a toughie!? I thought long and hard and decided that, with the amazing help, support, experience and organisational ability, Lucy Yeoman made my memorable experience happen...............stepping foot on Antartica for the first time!
It's one thing to say to yourself "I want to go to Antarctica" but it's definiately a mind blowing experience just organising but then, that's where Polar Routes stepped in and stepped up.
This is a trip that defies real descriptions so unless you've been, you'll never know the impact Antarctica has on you and it will be a life time experience that I'd love to repeat tomorrow. I feel immensly privledge.
Lucy and colleagues have been and "done it" and speak both from experience and the heart. Slowly, over a period of many, many months, Lucy evolved from "just an agent with knowledge" to a friend who shared abiding memories.....not to mention just exactily what clothes to wear - this, can be challenging.
My advice if you are thinking of this amazing trip is to think long and hard which company you travel with. The internet is now being flooded with trips...be very sure you chose wisely, like I did.
At the end of the day, Polar Routes has a wonderful relationship with the Cruise Line, Swan Hellenic who made my expedition, leaving me speechless and in awe.
I'd go again tomorrow...if I had the money because this isn't a cheap holiday but I can assure anyone reading this review, Polar Routes ensures you get every penny's worth of your hard earnt cash!!!
It's now almost a month since I've returned, bringing memories and hundreds of photos back home. My one abiding memory will always be the first time I stood on Antarctica.........make this your dream, as I did, with Polar Routes - spectacular!!!
My sincerest thanks Lucy.

Polar Routes Antarctica cruise Feb’25: was outstanding in every aspect:
1) Easy to book.
2) All inclusive.
3) Kept fully informed with helpful guides (e.g. A-Z of Antarctica, packing list, arrival process).
4) Small ship (66 passengers: created a friendly atmosphere between crew & passengers; allowed to visit landing sites not available to larger ships eg Elephant Island, Deception Island and St Andrew’s Bay.
5) Fantastic food - great quality & variety.
6) Expedition team were excel in their knowledge of Antarctica, willingness to support and to ensure passengers’ safety when landing on Antarctica.
7) Ship’s crew were friendly, welcoming & striving to ensure passengers were well looked after and enjoying the cruise.
8) Open bridge policy with the Captain and the team sharing their expertise, enhanced the experience.
9) I fully recommend an Antartica cruise with Polar Routes.

Exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable about polar destinations and the various tour operators.

There are no words that adequately describe what this expedition was - sites/sights, smells and sounds that will stay with us for ever. The small group size meant maximising every opportunity for landings, the weather was superb and Elephant Island was the cherry.
MV Ushuaia and its crew couldn't do enough for us, the expedition team kept us constantly on the go, and Polar Routes delivered an inaugural expedition par excellence. Cannot recommend highly enough.

A great trip to Antarctica with Polar Routes. A charter that they put on themselves, was well organised, and run, with the luck of the weather we manged to make so many great landings, seeing the local wildlife. Provided with a great information pack before going, with everything I needed, and the team on hand at the end of the phone if I needed help to answer a question.
They put a great amount of planning into the charter and it was great, just the right amount of passengers, for this 21 day expedition, crew looking after us on board were knowledgeable and friendly, such great memories made and new friends made.

Thank you

This whole trip was fantastic from start to finish. The MV Ushuaia although one of the smallest ships in the Antarctic was an ideal platform allowing us to experience multiple landings denied to larger ships including twice on Elephant Island ( a rare opportunity) The crew, expedition staff and everyone involved were professional, approachable and became an integral part of the experience. From the moment of engaging with Polar Routes, I was confident they would meet my vision for this trip, to say they massively delivered above and beyond anything I expected is an understatement. This adventure to the Antarctic will live with me for ever, startling landscapes, cruising through ice bergs, awe inspiring wildlife experiences, 600,000 King Penguins in St Andrew's Bay for one, being surrounded by humpback and fin whales another. All I can say is thank you to Polar Routes for allowing me to enjoy these experiences.

Extraordinary in every way!!

I chose Polar Routes as they were offering a small ship experience with a very limited passenger count, to hopefully provide a much more inclusive feel and also to maximise possible trips ashore, after all this was an expedition cruise!

From the outset I was bowled over by the exceptional proactive help, advice and planning offered by all the team at Polar Routes/Latin Routes that I had dealings with, in which this was their inaugural charter.

As it turned out everything came together perfectly and we were truly blessed by exceptional weather both for the sailing days and for the many trips ashore.

Enough cannot be said about the ship, the M V Ushuaia, with their ever attentive crew and staff, the very knowledgeable and fun expedition team and a magnificent fellow group of like-minded passengers who together provided us all with an experience I am sure we shall never forget.

I will definitely be keeping a lookout for similar offerings from Polar Routes/Latin Routes to other locations in the future.

Thanks again for what really was the Ultimate Antarctic Expedition!!

I came across Polar Route on a google search and I am so glad I did. Right from my initial telephone call and conversation with Kasey Green, I felt I was in good hands. Kasey was so friendly and knowledgeable about what to look for and not to look for when planning a trip to the Antarctic, things I had never even thought about or even knew to think about ! her advice and experience was invaluable and booking via Polar Route gave me the confidence that I was in safe hands and they dealt with everything. She gave us very clear and different options of trips depending on our budget. Kasey was always at the end of the phone or e-mail to answer my many questions and give reassurance that we had Polar Routes planning everything for us. Everything went to plan as Kasey said it would and we had the trip of a lifetime. I am so glad I didn’t book it independently and went via Polar Routes as tapping into their (Kasey’s) experience and knowledge was such a reassurance when going on such a big trip of a lifetime. And their app with the countdown and information about the trip is great and keeps you up to date with any documents that you need and you can refer to them easily. Thank you Polar Route and Kasey Green is a credit to them and a gem 😊

Wow! Where do I start? Met Lucy at the Destinations Travel Show Feb 2024, loved her knowledge and contagious enthusiasm about Antarctica, booked there and then. Just got back from the most amazing holiday of a lifetime. Everything went so smoothly. The ship, SH Vega, was a masterpiece of design and engineering, everything had been thought through to the ultimate degree. It wasn't fancy, chandeliers etc, but very Scandinavian and stylish. The cabin was much bigger than expected! Everything about the ship oozed class, most of all the staff, everyone from the Captain to the cleaner knew the meaning of first class service. The food was amazing! Everything was extremely well organised and ran on time, weather permitting of course. The expedition team were outstanding, so knowledgeable, friendly and interesting. Polar Routes, Lucy in particular (and there was another lady I spoke to at length when Lucy was busy, unfortunately I can't remember her name) were absolutely 7 star all the way, accommodating, knowledgeable, friendly, returned missed calls, simply perfect. All the flights, transfers etc went without a hitch, which was quite an achievement. And needless to say, the cruise itself was truly spectacular, sitting in a Zodiac boat a few hundred metres away from a breaching humpback whale will stay with me forever. Loved it so much, within a day of returning I'd booked to go on the SH Vega to the Arctic summer 2026! At Lucy's recommendation we spent a few days staying at the Anselmo Hotel in Buenos Aires on the way home. Again very stylish, the food was great and best of all the location was exactly what we were after, downtown, in the corner of a lovely square (a market, live tango and music every day) and very convenient for all the sightseeing we wanted to do. Word of advice, double check the things you want to see are actually going to be open, I just assumed the guide book opening times were correct, but a lot of the places were 'closed - vaccaciones!' Also I'd recommend doing Buenos Aires first, as the cruise is a very hard act to follow. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

We met Kasey Green at the Polar Routes stand at the Destinations Travel Show in Olympia in February 2024 and one year on have just returned from a truly exceptional Expedition cruise to Antarctica with Ponant, arranged by her and Polar Routes. Kasey was excellent from the moment we sat down. She is extremely knowledgable and was very quickly, almost immediately in fact, able to offer a number of suggestions based on our budget and what we wanted to see and do, as well as offering valuable advice on aspects of Antarctic cruises that we would not necessarily have thought about. She also arranged an add-on to Iguazu Falls, and then, quite late into the planning, alternative international flights when we had to make some changes at short notice . She was unflappable and despite my trying to be organised I often asked Kasey the same question, which she always replied to promptly and patiently, giving me time to work though the various permutations before making a final decision.

I have no hesitation in recommending Kasey, and Polar Routes as an agency. This was our first cruise and Polar Routes will be our very first choice for future trips.

Our experience with Polar Routes was excellent and we would definitely use them again. The team had clearly been on the expeditions to Antarctica, so were really able to tailor our trip to what was important to us to do and see. Kasey (our travel specialist at Polar Routes) was totally on it from the moment we booked (a year in advance) to the end of our trip. First class!!

Kasey and the team at polar routes made the booking process very easy for my trip to Antarctica. She clearly answered all my questions, and the trip went as planned. Would highly recommend.

Travelling to Antartica is exciting but also expensive and complicated. I can recommend Polar Routes (Lucy) for all her help, patience and in-depth knowledge - vital for such an undertaking.

I cannot recommend Kasey at Polar Routes highly enough. It is expensive to travel to Antarctica but every step of the way through the booking process and beyond, she was mindful of providing me with the best possible expedition for my budget, even when my plans changed...twice ! She was patient, friendly, knowledgeable and professional. Having now returned home, I can confirm that everything was absolutely perfect - genuinely the trip of a lifetime. When I travel to the polar regions again in the future I will absolutely book through Polar Routes.

We were researching for our Antarctica trip and through the chat function, we were lucky to have gotten Kasey who was so incredibly helpful throughout the process. She walked us through the various options for our budget, trip preferences, available dates, and provided us with a comprehensive list of options to choose from, provided all the information you need - from itinerary to ship/cabins to cost. And if we did come across one which might not have fallen within our criteria, she helped provide just as much information on them. She is not only very responsive but also very knowledgeable and made sure all our questions were answered. I can’t recommend Polar Routes, and Kasey, enough if you are planning your Antarctica trip.

A truly memorable experience.
The whole team were always accessible, even when the airline changed airports at the last moment, they had a plan and were in contact immediately.
An excellent company to deal with.

A cancelled Antarctic expedition with 7 days to departure is a nightmare for any travel agency to deal with, but Lucy at Polar Routes was MAGNIFICENT in dealing with a disastrous situation not of the company’s making. Calmly explaining the situation and reassuring everything would be done to salvage the situation.. if 10 stars were an option here I would award it..of over 100 company reviews I’ve done Lucy at Polar Routes is truly at a different level..

Kasey has been such a wonderful person to deal with. She makes you feel confident and also willing to lend a hand, providing alternatives where possible. I feel she has acted above and beyond her role. She was always very prompt in responding to my queries and nothing was a problem for her to deal with. She kept in touch throughout my cruise and even emailed me when I returned home to see how my experience was. She advised me about alternate methods of payment and provided me with the relevant links in regards to this so I could make an informed decision. I have been extremely happy with the service she has provided and definitely will recommend her to my friends. Sh3 has made me feel so comfortable that I feel I have known her for a long time. She is definitely an asset to your company. She is a caring, patient and understanding person and a delight to deal with.

I felt looked after from the moment I booked the trip until it's conclusion. Most information came via email or the Polar routes personal app. But staff also took the time to contact me prior to my departure to ensure everything was in order. They were always available by phone or email and answered queries very quickly. Any changes to the itinerary (e.g. flight changes) were notified via the app so at all times I felt I knew what I was doing and where I was going. It was a first class service that (in part) enabled me to have a trouble-free, fantastic holiday.

Charlie is very knowledgeable and considering. He answered emails right the way from booking to the end of the trip. He did research for the questions beyond his responsibility. He is the right person to go if you consider an expedition trip.