Dutch polar tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions opened its Antarctica 2023-2024 program for bookings, including some of its most ambitious itineraries.
Both classic expeditions and new voyages make up the 2023-2024 season, which offers trips for returning explorers and vacationers discovering Antarctica for the first time.
Among the highlights of the program are exploratory voyages emphasizing rarely visited areas, wildlife cruises seeking out hotspots for viewing exotic species, and outdoor activities that immerse passengers in some of the world’s most remote locations.
The Weddell Sea, Falkland Islands, Wilkins Ice Shelf, South Georgia, and Antarctic Peninsula are possibilities along with Oceanwide Expeditions' classic Basecamp sailings.
The 1993-founded Oceanwide Expeditions (shipowner) is one of the industry's small cruise line companies offering regularly-scheduled and flexible polar cruise tours providing its customers with the opportunity to contact with Arctic-Antarctica's wildlife, unique landscapes, nautically important polar regions and historical sites. Oceanwide Expeditions has year-round planned itineraries - during summer (April through September) in the Arctic, and during winter (October through March) in Antarctica.
The 2019-built MV Hondius cruise ship is the first of the newest Oceanwide Expeditions vessels - with fleet mates Janssonius (2022, sistership), Ortelius (1989), Plancius (1976) and two polar-class sailing ships - Noorderlicht (1991) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1994). The newbuild sisterships Hondius and Janssonius are ice-classed LR-PC6 ("Lloyd's Register Polar Class 6") passenger vessels with ice-strengthened hulls.
The fleetmates Plancius and Ortelius are former state-owned research vessels previously operated, respectively, by the Royal Dutch Navy and the Russian Academy of Science.