Cruise lines are launching epic trips to Antarctica from Australia and NZ

3 months ago 15

Brian Johnston

November 10, 2025 — 10:46am

Back in March we reported on increasing demand for Antarctic cruises, with visitor numbers rising and cabins often booked out a year or more in advance with expedition companies such as Aurora Expeditions, HX Expeditions, Lindblad Expeditions, Ponant, Scenic, Seabourn and Silversea.

The classic cruise is made from Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina to the long tail of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the frozen continent’s closest point to any other continent and therefore relatively accessible – even if it does involve a two-day heave across the notorious Drake Passage.

Scenic Eclipse II at Ross Island in East Antarctica.

Coming up in the next couple of Antarctic seasons, however, are some impressive expeditions to East Antarctica and the Ross Sea, the name given to the huge bay that indents Antarctica far below the South Pacific.

Those regions are seldom visited, although boutique New Zealand company Heritage Expeditions pioneered routes there almost 40 years ago. Its next forays there depart from Invercargill on January 10, 2026, and January 6, 2027.

The 28-day itineraries are the shortest route to the Ross Sea and also take in New Zealand’s Subantarctic Islands and Australia’s isolated Macquarie Island.

Australian company Aurora Expeditions is sailing in its newest ship Douglas Mawson between Hobart and Dunedin from December 11, 2025 with a long and frozen detour in between. The 24-day Mawson’s Antarctica itinerary follows Sir Douglas Mawson’s explorations during the golden age of Antarctic investigation in the early 19th century.

Aurora Expeditions also has a 25-day Ross Sea Odyssey journey return from Dunedin departing January 16, 2026, as well as an aptly named Epic Antarctica journey that departs Dunedin on February 8, 2026, and arrives in Ushuaia 33 days later, allowing guests to take in both East Antarctica and the traditional Antarctic Peninsula.

Ponant is going one better, connecting not only Ushuaia with Hobart via East Antarctica on a 31-day journey departing on January 16, 2026, but then continuing on to Cape Town on a 34-day expedition that also dips down to the Antarctic’s less-visited coastline and the very seldom visited French Sub-Antarctic Islands.

And in early 2028, Ponant’s luxury icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot will become the first cruise ship to circumnavigate the whole continent when it sets off on its 18,000-kilometre return journey from Ushuaia, which will also call into Hobart mid-trip.

The other cruise line pushing the frozen boundaries is Scenic, which has a series of journeys to East Antarctica and the Ross Sea between December 2025 and February 2026, using Hobart and New Zealand ports Bluff or Timaru as a base.

It’s 24-day Antarctica’s Ross Sea expedition on Scenic Eclipse II return from Timaru near Christchurch, departing on January 29, 2026, will have two special guests on board: Robert Swan, the first person in history to walk to both the North and South Poles, and environmentalist and polar explorer Barney Swan, who has skied to the South Pole.

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Brian Johnston seemed destined to become a travel writer: he is an Irishman born in Nigeria and raised in Switzerland, who has lived in Britain and China and now calls Australia home.