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Embark on half-day, narrated drive that focuses on Punta Arena's history. Keep your camera ready for a brief stop at La Cruz Hill, the tallest point of the city that promises breathtaking views of Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan. You'll also make a photo stop and shp for souvenirs at Plaza Munoz Gamero, Puenta Arenas' central plaza and home to the Hernando de Magallanes Monument. Your tour continues to the Salesian Museum Marggiorino Borgatello, which is a testimony to the life of the indigenous inhabitants and the ecosystem in the far south. Among its many exhibits are weapons used by the extinct Fuegian Indians, and a full-xize replica of the Cave of Hands (Cueva de las Manos). You'll visit the Patagonia Institute for a flashback into pioneering days. On your drive back to the pier, you'll make a stop at the City Cemetery and walk along the avenues lined with cypress trees and magnificent mausoleums.
Our tickets said to meet at the Port Terminal at 1:30 PM. Since a 20 minute tender ride was required to get to the port and we had no idea how long it would take us to get our turn on the tender, we didn't know how long it would take to get to the port terminal. We departed at about 11:30 AM to make sure we had enought time. But it turned out that we got to the port terminal way to early, at about noon. As we scanned out from the ship they told us to hurry as the next tender was just about to leave. So, there was no waiting at all to board the tender and it left immediately after we got on. Fortunately the terminal has a huge heated inside waiting room with plenty of seating. There were some small vendors inside the building but it only took us ten minutes to look at all the tables to realize they weren't selling anything we were interested in buying. There is a small shopping mall, mostly with local food vendors, about a ten minute walk from the port terminal, but we were not hungry and did not feel like walking. When it got close to the time for our tour, we had to go through security to get to the next portion of the port terminal where our tour assembled. The security had to be just for show. We had to put our bags through, but we did not have to walk through a metal detector. We were both wearing big puffy coats that could have contained anything.
Breathtaking views of Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan, as well as our Sapphire Princess cruise ship.
The area was donated by the pioneer Sara Braun and in 1919 the engineer Fortunato Circutti designed the whole portico and walls that surround the cemetery. It has four hectares and is located in the northern area of the city, in Bulnes Avenue, and between the streets Francisco Bilbao and Angamos. We walked along the avenues lined with cypress trees and magnificent mausoleums. For more info, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_of_Punta_Arenas.
An outdoor museum featuring a flashback into pioneering days.
A museum that is a testimony to the life of the indigenous inhabitants and the ecosystem in the far south. Among its many exhibits are weapons used by the extinct Fuegian Indians, and a full-size replica of the Cafe of Hands (Cueva de las Manos).
The Pacific Moon Dinig Room is considered to be one of the 5 Main Dining Rooms on the ship and offers the same menu as all of the Main Dining Rooms. It is located directly on the other side of the Santa Fe Dining Room on Deck 6 and directly above the Savoy and Vivaldi Dining Rooms on Deck 5, The largest Main Dining Room is the International Restaurant which is located on Deck 5 on the other side of the kitchen from the Savoy and Vivaldi Dining Rooms. Because of the placement of all these dining rooms, I suspect they all use the same kitchen.
Because we didn't even start to make dining reservations until we were onboard the ship, most of the reservation slots were aleady taken. You can always just show up at the International or the Pacific Moon Dining Room, but you'll most likely have to sit at a shared table as all the private dining reservation slots will have been taken. However, as I got more familiar with the Princess App, I was able to find various random reservation times available for a private table for 2. All of them were in the Pacific Moon Dining Room. I was able to make dining reservations on some days at 5pm, which is our favorite time since it doesn't usually interfere with any events we may want to attend. Most of the other reservations that I could find for private dining were for 7:40pm. I made as many dining reservations as I could for the first half of this cruise (up to March 18th). We figured if any did interfere with an event we wanteed to attend, we'd just cancel the dining reservation.
Since today's reservation was for 5pm and our shore excursion didn't end until 4:45pm, it was looking like we'd be very late for our reservation. But the tour ended at 4:35pm rather than 4:45pm and we were able to get onto a tender to take us back to the ship pretty quickly. We actually managed to get back to the ship exactly at 5pm. We headed straight for the dining room rather than stop by our cabin so that we would not be too late. They had a private table for 2 waiting for us. We were greeting with them saying: "We have your usual table ready for you", which was funny because this was the first time we had a reservation for dining and never sat at this table before.
We were actually quite impressed with the food unlike our prior two experiences in Main Dining. I had the pea soup and the salmon which were both excellent. My wife had a seafood dish plus we shared a Coq Au Vine. Everything was wonderful. We'll be looking forward to trying additional dining in a Main Dining Room later in the week. We did stop by the buffet a little later to see what they had and their selection looked quite good also.
This event was cancelled as they did not get the minimum number of people to sign up for the event to be cost effective for them to open the expensive bottles of Premium Cognac. The Princess Sapphire only charges for wine and spirit tasting events after attending the event so no charge would be made for this event. So far, two of the spirit tasting events we signed up for have been cancelled. They will most likely have these events again on the second half of our trip after March 18th and we'll sign up for the ones we missed for another shot at experiencing them.
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