Quark ExpeditionsReviews of quarkexpeditions.com

Everything was perfect, the ship, my cabin, the crew and the Expedition Team was fantastic. Then add the beautiful scenery!!!

We travelled on 'Antarctic Express: Fly the Drake' in March 2026. Unfortunately, despite the extraordinary cost of the trip the experience fell far short of expectations and we only ended up experiencing one day in the South Shetlands and one day in Antartica itself. As reviewer laurakfryne has also described, the main issue was not simply the short time we got, but how operationally fragile the Fly the Drake programme proved to be and how poorly the disruption was managed when things went wrong. Communication during the extended stay in Punta Arenas was limited and created a constant sense of unease. We could not fly on Day 1 or Day 2 and instead were provided with short trips in the local area. The food provided in Dreams Hotel was really not good quality. Day 3 involved us being stuck at the airport for around 6 hours with more poor communication. Our group's flights eventually took off much later than planned and the closing weather window meant only one of the two flights could land. The people on the second flight had to return back to Punta Arenas and their trip was cancelled entirely. Once we eventually boarded Ocean Explorer, we remained in the vicinity of King George Island due to the fact that half of the previous trip was stuck onboard and the crew prioritised assessing how to get them home, rather than start our expedition in earnest. As a result, the actual Antarctic exploration experience was far more limited than we had reasonably expected for the price paid - and in reality only amounted to one real day in the vicinity of the Antarctic peninsula. We never actually set foot on the peninsula itself. Prospective travellers really need to understand that, there is a real possibility that you may ultimately receive only a very short Antarctic experience. The onboard expedition staff and crew were generally excellent - but the tour leader's communication onboard was appalling. He failed to engage with unhappy passengers and ignored us. I do not believe the Fly the Drake itinerary currently provides sufficient contingency or resilience given the cost and expectations attached to this type of once-in-a-lifetime trip. Be prepared to pay an awful lot of money for a very short experience.

The company changed the itinerary at the last minute deleting a major part of the trip named Following the footsteps of Franklin. They claimed that the east side of Baffin Island was closed to Cruise ships and ice may be an issue, however my investigation showed it was not closed at all to Cruise ships, and ice maps shown on the first day of the voyage showed little if and ice problems especially for a class 6a ice hardened vessel. what the did instead was go from town to town with one landing not in a town in West Greenland, then lazily spend 3 days crossing Baffin Bay to go to Pond Inlet so they could take advantage of the customs agents flown in by another cruise company. This left relatively few days for the rest of the trip. The overall flavor of the was a Small Ship Cruise rather then a true Expedition Cruise. We expected two zodiac excursions per day and usually received one mostly to a town rather then the wilds of the arctic. Six out of 15 days during the trip had no zodiac cruise or landing. Only on two occations were two cruise/landings offered on the same day. That is not to say there were not nice highlights such as seeing polar bears multiple times, just they wasted several days and skimped in landings and zodiac cruises. The food overall was lower than average and sometimes overcooked and not so fresh, such a noticeable freezer burn taste in bacon all the time and fish on two occasions. They showed lack of experience and planning and were poor in explaining future plans as the trip went on. We would never use this cruise line again and will stick with others who have performed much better for us. Another thing is the tips are for room cleaners and expedition staff only and separately, this means that only 2/5 of the total ship employees are eligible to receive the tip, no method is allowed to add the remaining staff members to your paid tip, this naturally made us furious. Other expedition cruise lines we have used split the tip evenly to all ship employees, so we reduced our tip by 3/5 to compensate for the unfairness.

I booked a cruise with Quark and had to cancel the cruise with over 6 months notice as a result of a conflict with a family wedding. I was supposed to receive a refund of my deposit minus a 1250/ per person cancellation fee. I was given a huge run around about the refund being told that my credit card could not be refunded. I could only receive a wire for the refund even though their contract terms said I would be refunded in my original form of payment. After waiting 5 weeks for my wire refund, I had to dispute the charge on my credit card to receive the refund I was due. I would not trust a company that operates so dishonestly and will never recommend them.