On board Spirit of Enderby will be 22 descendants of the ill-fated 1911 Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott.
The passengers yesterday had many different reasons for following in the footsteps of their ancestors.
The oldest traveller on board will be June Back, from Norfolk, England, the daughter of geologist Frank Debenham, who died in 1965.
Mrs Back is accompanied by her adult children, Nigel and Robin Back and Philippa Foster-Back.
"It's a fairytale place. We will find it is exactly as it was when my father was there," she said.
"He was a fascinating individual and I think he'd think it was terrific that we're doing this."
The Back family grew up surrounded by artefacts from the Terra Nova expedition and Mrs Foster-Back used her father's "well-worn" Antarctic rock hammer when she was studying geology at university.
"It's going to be absolutely fascinating," grandson Nigel Back said.
"It will be delightful shock therapy, getting away from all the noise and stuff.
The sense of space really will be amazing."
Mrs Back, who admits only to being in her 80s, said she needed "quite a bit of persuading" from her children to make the trip.
"But this is really an exception," she said.
Tony Fleming, from Canberra, Australia, is the grandson of Sir Raymond Priestley, a geologist on Scott's Terra Nova and Sir Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expeditions who died in 1974.
"My grandfather actually met my grandmother, Phyllis Boyd, here in Dunedin," he said.
"I've always wanted to go to the Antarctic and this trip, being the centenary of Scott's voyage, was too good an opportunity to miss.
"Unfortunately, I have my grandfather's tendency to seasickness, but hopefully we'll get through it OK."
Terra Nova left Port Chalmers for the Antarctic on November 29, 1910.
Spirit of Enderby is due to leave Port Chalmers at 10am today.
During the 30-day voyage, the ship's passengers will visit the Snares Islands, Auckland Islands, Macquarie Island, Ross Sea, Cape Hallett, Terra Nova Bay, Franklin Island, Mt Erebus, Cape Bird, Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds, Scott's Hut at Cape Evans and Campbell Island, before completing the journey at Bluff on February 10.
Tickets for the trip range from $28,550, for a heritage suite, to $20,989, for a main deck berth.
