Silversea's new hotel at 55 south exists so you never have to sail the Drake

The usual way to Antarctica is a ship across the Drake Passage, 600 miles of water between the tip of South America and the continent, famous for making even expensive passengers miserable. Silversea has built a hotel so its guests can skip that part.

On November 5 the line opened The Cormorant at 55 South in Puerto Williams, Chile, which it calls the southernmost city on Earth and, in the hotel's own branding, the southernmost hotel on Earth. The 150-room property is Silversea's first hotel, and a first for its parent, Royal Caribbean Group. It was developed with a consortium of Chilean investors. The rooms themselves were built as modules in Mendoza, Argentina, then hauled across the Andes and through Patagonia to about 55 degrees south.

Until now, Silversea's fly-cruise passengers spent the night before their Antarctic charter in ordinary hotels in Punta Arenas, often split across several buildings. When weather grounded the flight south, the line had to scramble for extra rooms. The new hotel sits minutes from the charter strip in Puerto Williams. Guests can wait out a delay in one place, try on the polar gear Silversea provides, complete the biosecurity checks required before anyone steps ashore on the continent, and sit through the first briefing — the chores that used to begin on the ship.

"The idea was that this wasn't a stopover hotel. This is the first and last impression that we make on our guests, and so we wanted that to be memorable," Silversea president Bert Hernandez told reporters, according to The Points Guy, which was among a handful of outlets given an early look.

A guest on a full fly-cruise now spends a night in Santiago, boards a Silversea-branded charter to Puerto Williams, sleeps at The Cormorant, then flies the next day to King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, where the expedition ship is waiting. After the voyage they come back for another night before the flight north. Half fly-cruise itineraries include a single night at the hotel. There are no conventional hotels on Antarctica itself.

Most Antarctic operators still run out of Ushuaia, Argentina. Silversea is the only cruise line basing its Antarctic operation in Puerto Williams, farther south along the Beagle Channel and a shorter run into the Drake for the ships that still sail it. All of the line's Antarctic expeditions now start there, not only the ones that cross the passage by sea.

Through March 2027, Silver Endeavour, Silver Wind and Silver Cloud will run 40 voyages, 29 of them fly-cruises that include a stay at the hotel. The trips last from six to 21 nights and reach beyond the Antarctic Peninsula to South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. The hotel itself is seasonal, open from October through March with the expedition calendar. Silversea says rooms may also be offered to travellers who are not on a cruise, depending on occupancy.

The building is low, with concrete floors, wood, stone and floor-to-ceiling glass. Inside, three large works by Chilean artists are part of the fabric: Navarino, a steel sculpture by Paola Vezzani in the lobby; a bar mural of the Dientes de Navarino by Cata Flaño; and La Memoria de las Piedras, seventy ceramic stones by Javier Canales. The restaurant, Latitude 55, serves family-style platters and an asado cooked over an open fire. Bar Sur pours Chilean wine and drinks built around calafate, a native berry, and Chilean pisco.

The name does double duty. Fifty-five south is the latitude. The cormorant is a seabird long associated with seafaring; Lakutaia, a local Indigenous word for the bird, is also the name used by a neighbouring lodge.

"We opened The Cormorant at 55 South to make the journey to Antarctica easier and more comfortable for our guests," Hernandez said at the ribbon-cutting. "Now the expedition begins here." That is a polite way of saying the hardest part of the trip was never the ice. It was getting there.

*Image: Puerto Williams on Navarino Island, seen from a nearby hillside, with the Beagle Channel beyond. Photo: Morhua, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.*

Source: The Points Guy