A TikTok user broke down how he discovered that Nina Dobrev and Shaun White appeared to have paid almost three and a half million dollars for their recent trip to Antarctica.
Dobrev and White, who have been dating since April 2020, took a trip to Antarctica last month, seemingly in celebration of the new year and The Vampire Diaries star’s birthday. They were accompanied by a few famous faces including Zoey Deutch, Jared Leto, and Lewis Hamilton.
In a recent video on his TikTok, user @ivebentraveling -- Ben -- discussed the celebrity trip and what he did to zero in on the cost. He shared an article by Autoevolution, which claimed that White and Hamilton chartered a multimillion dollar boat in Antarctica.
Ben then examined the boat that the celebrities reportedly chartered: The Octopus Super Yacht. The superyacht was first made for the late Paul Allen, who is the cofounder of Microsoft, as noted by Autoevolution, and reportedly cost $226 million.
Speaking to The Independent, Ben said that he’s not surprised by how much White and Dobrve appeared to spend on this trip and explained why he shared the video in the first place.
“I think it’s important to shine a light on how much these trips actually cost so that folks don’t see an extravagant lifestyle and think: ‘I’ll never have that,’ but instead that they might see that and think ‘MOST people will never have that,’” he said. “There’s a subtle comfort in knowing something is SO out of reach for so many of us and that there’s an online community that shares that experience -- sort of an ‘if you know, you know’ type of energy.”
In his clip, the TikTok user acknowledged that the Octopus usually “moors over” King George Island, which is off the tip of Chile, and looked at flights from Los Angeles, where Dobrev and White are based, to Punta Arenas, Chile. The estimated price is approximately $3,500 round trip -- making it a roughly $7,000 flight for the couple.
Ben then referenced an article published by travel site Swoop, which specified that it usually costs around $11,000 per person to spend 10 days travelling between Punta Arenas and Antarctica.
Looking at a group photo of Dobrev’s trip, which included 11 people, he multiplied that number by $11,000 and determined that the cost of the trip was $121,000.
The Octopus yacht, which can hold up to 12 guests, features 13 cabins and can have 42 crew members on the boat, as noted on luxury travel booking site YachtCharterFleet.
Some of the other amenities include a “large aft swimming pool surrounded by loungers and full cocktail bar, cinema suite, two helicopters with dedicated hangar, and personal submarine for 8 people, plus two crew” members.
The TikTok user proceeded to examine all prices and deduced that the rate for the private charter costs $2.2m per week. He claimed that someone messaged him about expenses costing an additional 25 per cent, so he added another $500,00 to the total. He added $6,600 for the 30 per cent tip that the boat crew would receive and $88 for the matching hats that Dobrev and 10 friends wore, with each hat costing around seven dollars.
He explained how he added all of the numbers up before revealing that the trip to Antarctica reportedly cost a total of $3,488,088.
As of 15 February, the video has more than 499,000 views, with viewers poking fun at the Love Hard star and the professional snowboarder for how much they appeared to spend.
“So do these people just Venmo each other $30k or what?!” one joke.
“Ok but Shawn white is an American treasure, let him spend his money,” another added.
A third said: “Stuck somewhere between ‘Damn I want to be rich’ and ‘eat the rich.’”
The Independent has contacted Ben for comment.
