How to process 200 people onto the ship? Like 10 big planes all at once. The cruise terminal in Buenos Aires was well-organized. We were given numbers, and as groups were called into the check in and immigration zone. Because of a computer problem at immigration, the process from arrival at the terminal until first step on the ship took about 2 hours.
Walking up the gang plank to the ship is a pleasure: at last, we are on our way to Antarctica! Then squeezed through a small opening, into the relative dark, photographed and given ID cards, people everywhere and every direction, closely packed, glasses of champagne in many hands. It suddenly felt claustrophobic, buffeted. I pushed to the other side of the knot of people, at the base of an illuminated stair in a double volume. Caught my breath, wondering what I had gotten myself into.