The luxury cruise line Silversea is getting into the hotel business, building a 150-room outpost that the company says will be the southernmost property in the world.
The new lodge, which will be located in Puerto Williams, Chile, will be the first of its kind for the cruise operator. The goal is to streamline the experience of guests traveling to Antarctica on Silversea’s fleet of expedition-ready ships, says line president Bert Hernandez in an interview with Travel + Leisure.
The company sees the new lodge as a key stop-over point for its so-called Antarctica Bridge trips, which allow travelers to bypass the notorious Drake Passage that separates southern Chile from Antarctica by flying over the strait rather than sailing through it.
“This will cut down on the travel time significantly, by about 40 percent, the number of days that you need to enjoy Antarctica to the fullest,” Hernandez tells T+L. Typical itineraries allow for more than a full day of sailing from South America to Antarctica; with a charter flight, the trip between Puerto Williams and the cruise port on King George Island takes just two hours.
“The new hotel gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of managing the total experience,” Hernandez says. Presently, guests who arrive in Puerto Williams for a flight to the ice are scattered around town at a variety of hotels. Hernandez says the new Silversea lodge will simplify the logistics for both guests and the cruise line, to the benefit of everyone.
“This way we can put everybody in the same place,” he explains. “It will have great common areas that we can use to brief everybody — to get everybody acclimated and excited about what’s about to come.”
Plans call for the new hotel to open in time for the 2025/2026 Antarctic season, which begins in late October, according to Silversea’s voyage calendars. While the line hasn’t yet released the name of the lodge, Hernandez has ambitions for the property to become more than just a glorified transit hub for those headed to Antarctica.
“I don’t want people to come all the way down here and not experience what this place is,” he explains. “Puerto Williams has so much natural beauty — and also some Indigenous culture that is quite interesting — so we are really going to try to leverage that, make sure people are aware of it and understand it. Initially, the property is going to be based around the cruise, but we hope that, in time, we’ll be able to use it as something even broader.”
The new hotel will be located on the site of the existing Lakutaia Lodge, according to Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which also reports that Silversea parent company Royal Caribbean Group is investing $30 million in the project alongside DAP, a Chilean airline and tourism company that specializes in Antarctica operations.
