December 12, 2025

Puerto Williams > Puerto Arenas > Santiago, Chile

Up at and them at 05:40. We are supposed to be in the Arts Café ready to go at 06:05. We got there with sufficient time for me to order a cappuccino and grab one of the pint-sized blueberry muffins. 6:05 came and went. Apparently there was some issue with the off loading of the luggage. Finally, about 06:30 we are loaded into the buses and head for the airport.

07:00 we arrive at the airport. Now the departure time on our boarding passes say departure at 07:00. We wait, and wait. Finally, some says there is an issue with airplane. There is a plane bringing in the replacement staff for the change over in the ship, and we will be taking that plane to Santiago.

08:40 we load into the plane. The configuration is different. It is two seats on one side and three on another. They tell us it is simply open seating, but the plane is smaller so it will be full. It is after 09:00 when we take off. After twenty minutes or so, I look out the window, we are descending? What is going on? Then the wheels come down with a boom. A few minutes later we land in Puerto Arenas. No one said anything about a stop. It wasn’t clear we weren’t just going down. There was no land visible until the last minute.

Once on the ground they told us that they had to refuel the plane. We were told to stay in our seats with it seat belt unbuckled. They left the door to the plane open and the cold outside air was rushing in. The stewardesses were running around trying to find blankets for everyone. The temperature in the plane probably dropped to 0° C (32° F).

Twenty-five minutes later we were on our way to Santiago. They said it would be a three-hour 40-minute flight. They served drinks and lunch once we got to altitude. Lunch as a Chilean green salad (seasonal greens with cucumber and carrot), a “homemade” bread, more like a very small roll which had obviously been very near the door for the twenty-five minutes it was open. The main dish was Pastel de Choclo a traditional Chilean casserole featuring beef, onions, raisins, olives, roasted chicken and covered by the thick layer of creamed corn. Obviously, I had to skip this because of the raisins. Dessert was the thriller, Rhubarb Tiramisu. How you can ruin tiramisu taken to a new height.   

We landed at the domestic terminal in Santiago after it has gone 14:00. We had to collect our bags, and go out side the baggage area and meet someone from Silver Sea to take us to the Mandarin Oriental. When we exited there were lots of Sikver Sea people. All with different signs, as some people we heading out immediately to flights back to wherever.

Finding our “guy” was easy. They then walked us over to the international terminal where the bus to take us to the hotel was. It was a nice walk after sitting on the plane for so long, but I don’t understand why they couldn’t have driven the bus to the domestic terminal and pick us up.

It was another forty-minute drive to the hotel, There was a line at the check-in. We got into our room about 16:30. We were both hungry so we headed down to the Atrium lobby lounge for something to eat. We shared a club sandwich. It wasn’t what we order but it is what they brought. We ordered a ham and cheese toasty. Mary had wanted the club sandwich. Somehow they knew what she wanted and SHE got it! They did bring regular fries with it, but then realizing their mistake the brought us sweet potato fries.

After our snack, we headed up to our room. Unpacked and got organized and waited for Richard and Susan to arrive. There was as much a mess getting back from Puerto Williams as there was getting there. They did finally get back about 19:00. Another very long day for them, and us.

We met them down in the Atrium Lounge to get a quick bit of dinner. We tried to order to ham and cheese toast, again. This time we got the ham and cheese croissant, close so we just accepted it. We did manage to get the sweet potato fries the first time, this time.

It was near 21:00 by the time we finished “dinner”, and time to go to bed. There was a wine tasting event outside by the pool. It was directly under our windows. Yea, six floors down but the techno music was still loud. Taking out my hearing aids, helped a little, but I was so tired it was easy to fall asleep.

Buonanotte e ciao

Enrico e Maria