NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — This isn’t your typical cruise ship docked at Nauticus.
The 665-foot-long Viking Octantis is from Norway-based luxury cruise line Viking Cruises, the one with the snazzy TV commercials that pitch “exploring the world in comfort.”
Typically that means cruising through Europe’s rivers aboard one of company’s “Viking Longships,” but the 378 guests aboard the Octantis have a much more remote destination in mind — Antarctica.
The ship, completed in December 2021, was specifically designed to go through icy waters. It’s name actually comes from Sigma Octantis, the southern equivalent to the North Star, with a sister ship of the same size named Polaris for the North Star.
Octantis has many different excursions, but this one is a whopping 62-day cruise that started in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It spent a week in early March in Antarctica, cruised all the way up the western side of South America, and then crossed through the Panama Canal earlier this month.
It made it to Norfolk on Monday morning after recent stops in Charleston, South Carolina, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It will make one more U.S. stop in New York City before heading up through Canada with a stop at Niagara Falls. The final port for the trip will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ahead of Octantis’ upcoming Great Lakes cruises.
So how much does a 60-plus day cruise cost? A similar trip will run you about $45,000, per Viking’s website. There are also several smaller excursions around two weeks in length.
You can read more about the Octantis and see the full list of trips here.
