Silversea has kicked off its 2026/27 Antarctic season with a fleet-wide rollout and a new opening: The Cormorant at 55 South, a hotel on Chile's Isla Navarino that the line bills as the southernmost hotel on Earth. It sits in Puerto Williams, the gateway town reached by Silversea-branded charter flights from Santiago, and every one of the line's Antarctica Fly Cruise sailings now includes a stay there.
The season itself is substantial. Three expedition ships — Silver Endeavour, Silver Wind and Silver Cloud — will run 40 voyages of six to 21 nights through to March 2027. Of those, 29 are Fly Cruise itineraries that let travellers skip all or part of the notoriously rough Drake Passage by flying over it instead. Fourteen sailings on Silver Endeavour fly guests in both directions across the Drake, covering the Antarctic Sound, the Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. Another 15 one-way sailings mix a flight one way with a ship crossing the other.
For travellers who'd rather earn the crossing, 11 voyages sail the Drake both ways from Puerto Williams. The pick might be Silver Wind's 18-night roundtrip departing 7 November, which takes in the Falkland Islands — West Point Island, Saunders Island and Port Stanley — before heading to South Georgia and the Peninsula. At the other end of the scale, Silver Endeavour's 21-night departure on 4 March 2027 is the season's only itinerary ending in Buenos Aires, routing from Puerto Williams via the Peninsula, South Georgia, the Falklands and Puerto Madryn in Argentina.
The new hotel is more than a convenient bed before embarkation. Silversea's own expedition team will rotate through it year-round, running activities that turn Puerto Williams into part of the trip rather than a transit stop: kayaking on the Beagle Channel, guided hikes on Navarino Island and horseback rides led by a Patagonian baqueano, the region's traditional horsemen.
Why it matters for travellers: the fly-sail option has long been the smart way to experience Antarctica without betting your stomach on the Drake, and pairing it with a dedicated hotel that keeps the expedition feel going on land is a genuinely different setup. It also widens the range of trip shapes on offer — from a short fly-in Peninsula taste to a three-week Falklands-South Georgia-Antarctica grand loop — all bookable now for dates through March 2027. Anyone weighing up an Antarctic trip for next southern summer should have this season on the shortlist.
