NW Passage 2022 - any reports?

[HeadNorth]

Hi,

 

Is anyone who has been on a NW passage trip this year with Hurtigruten happy to share even a brief report of their trip? Currently planning for a couple of years time and it would be great to get a feel of a recent transit.

 

Info on the types of inclusive expeditions versus additional cost expeditions would also be much appreciated, plus around what cost those non-inclusive expeditions were.

 

Hope all went well and would love to hear a little about it!

 

Thanks in advance.

[mrmoviezombie]

This is going to read as negative, but I’m collecting all the things I wish I knew going in… We loved the cruise and the ship. It was a fantastic 25 days.

 

For the excursions, if you cannot book them before hand, book them as soon as possible on the ship. They fill up quickly.

Go to the excursion deck (near science center deck 6). Don’t remember the pricing, but it’s down in the noise on the price of the cruise 😊 < $100

There were only a couple choices of paid excursions. Definitely do the iceberg trip in Ilulissat, “Boat Trip to the Icefjord”

The kayaking was a total bust, blocked by weather and wildlife.

 

Inside the ship is on the cool side. We were told its warm, short/t-shirt temps. This is not true.

However, must have lots of layers for the excursions. Our biggest clothing problems were getting too warm on shore.

Make sure you have bag/backpack to carry the discard layers.

 

The boots they provide are excellent, spend the time to get proper fit. (DW US 7 = 37 eur sizing) a little on the loose side is better but not sloppy loose.

They are tall and provide a lot of warmth and weather protection. Some complained they were heavy, but we liked them (we tried to buy them).

Some, including me, had complaints that the supplied red jacket wasn’t wind proof enough, but DW didn’t have issues with that.

Make sure you bring good quality light wind rain proof shell bottoms. We found wearing a thin base layer underneath the shell pants, with the boots was more than enough.

Repeating, bring the layers, how warm/cold it will be is really going to depend on the exact weather during your trip.

 

Hurtigruten is very poor on communications. Ask a lot of questions about what is going on, when things are happening, where you will be tomorrow etc.

You are generally expected to read the program on the App or on the TV screens, no printed material to the room each day.

There is usually a briefing (repeated once) the day before any port stop, pay attend to these (or watch in the room on the TV), there will be important information that isn’t available elsewhere. They were not recorded/replayed for us, but they said they are working on the technology to do that.

Due to Covid we elected to watch most of presentations in our room.

 

Stay on top of the Canadian entry requirements, it will probably change by the time you cruise, but the itinerary meant we entered/left US/Canada multiple times,

So had to interact with ArriveCAN app a lot, which has some hard to answer question about where you left and when you are arriving.

 

Multiple people had to complain before they sort of started doing the normal sorts of announcements you get on other cruise lines about where is the ship and what scenic sites are going past outside.

Their default position is they don’t want to annoy people with lots of announcements.

The worst lack of announcement happened on evening when there was truly spectacular Auroa (on the south side of the ship, note), about 10pm onwards.

They claim they announced it, but for some “technical” reason no one heard it.

The official photographer on the ship wasn’t woken up and didn’t get any pictures of it.

 

Hurtigruten embarkation/disembarkation organization is also hit and miss. It’s another one to pay attention to what is going on, read everything and ask questions. Don’t assume someone will tell you where/when you need to be somewhere, their crowd control skills are lacking.

Definitely don’t schedule an early flight on disembarkation day. We stayed the night in Halifax, others missed booked excursions. The issues were primarily baggage handling delays.

 

Had a couple periods of rough seas, make sure you are ready for that. It’s a smaller ship so it does move around more. There were one or two really good thumps when the bow slammed into a big wave, shuddering the whole ship. DW swears by ginger candies.

 

Was quite foggy in the early part of the cruise, so missed a couple scenic views because of that.

As they repeated often, this really is an “expedition” style cruise so almost everything is subject to weather and sea conditions.

There were folks onboard from the previous attempt at the northwest passage that actually got blocked by the sea ice and had to turn around.

Most places you are going ashore in the zodiacs. Only in the larger places with proper ports did they use the traditional tenders.

 

First stop in Ulukhaktok was a highlight for us, smaller and more of the local culture preserved.

Prince Leopold Island was very scenic, we were supposed to cruise around in the zodiacs but good news/bad news: there were polar bears.

Radstock Bay was a pickup stop, LOTS of wildlife here, 18 polar bears (3 cubs), hundreds of beluga whales and harp seals etc.

 

It’s an interesting balance, on the one hand it seems like a normal cruise, you are on a modern shiny cruise ship, going to places with people and other shipping around.

On there other hand you are completely in the middle of nowhere, everything is very desolate almost nothing taller than moss and lichen. Towards the end of the cruise, it was a surprise to see trees/shrubs again.

If there is a problem with the ship no one is coming to get you for days.

 

Overall, we would definitely do this cruise again.

[HeadNorth]

Hi mrmoviezombie

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experience and pass on so much information. I didn't really take it as negative at all. Yes, Hurtigruten could do better on a number of points, but overall you were very pleased you went.  I've read a couple of threads on this years Le Ponant NW passage and *they* are what I'd call negative!

 

It's really helpful to get such a full picture of your experience. We will be on the Nansen, heading in the opposite direction to your cruise, but the two ships are, I believe, essentially the same.

 

It was interesting you watched the briefings in your cabin - I've noted from other posts about other cruises that the lecture space in both the Nansen and the Amundsen are nowhere hear big enough to accommodate all passengers, so it's a positive step that viewing from the cabin is an option.

 

I've seen Hurtigruten jackets before and had reckoned they weren't going to provide much warmth - unlike the anoraks other lines provide. We already have a store of merino layers and know they will be our main form of clothing - especially when there's no public laundry on a month long cruise!!

 

Thank you for all the tips and hints - really useful to know and to have.

 

We were at a lecture recently by a polar scientist with specialist knowledge of the Arctic and NW passage area and he is totally against these cruises - primarily on safety grounds for the reason you mention that if there's a problem you are going to be waiting quite a while for help. We didn't let on our plans to any other attendees at the lecture...

 

Was there quite a mix of nationalities on board? I'm presuming mostly a mix of Europeans and North Americans.

 

Thanks again for your time and sharing.  You've not said anything that puts us off, and plenty that makes us more prepared!

[HeadNorth]

Hi again mrmoviezombie

 

I should have asked, based on a question you asked before you sailed yourself, what was the connectivity like? I appreciate things may change in the next 2 years but were you out of internet contact for basically the bulk of the cruise? It's not an important issue for us, but just interesting to know.

 

Thanks again!

[mrmoviezombie]

Amazingly it was almost never out. There were plenty of dropouts for minutes. Don’t remember any period more than hour when it didn’t work.

No Cel roaming coverage on the ship. However ATT Wi-Fi calling and text messages also worked just fine over the internet.
 

Interestingly there was no coverage on shore when out of Wi-Fi range of the ship. I think the remote communities have locked out roaming on their cel service’s which makes sense.

 

The Greenland and larger east coast Canada stops had normal roaming.
 

Early in the cruise one of the lectures showed the satellite footprints. There were two that had coverage over the whole cruise.

[mrmoviezombie]

The suite level gets you free laundry (once per day) and the bag is decent sized.

I did the math on the amount of laundry, and it would have been a couple hundred dollars if we had paid the sticker price.

 

We upgraded to suite because our original cruise was covid cancelled, and there were the only balcony rooms available for rebooking. Free use of the Lindstrøm restaurant was also a nice perk but watch out, a full 3 course meal with wine 3 times a day is way too much food, even with European style portion sizes.

 

This is the official breakdown they gave in the logbook at the end

Nationalities on board

107 BRITISH

64 AMERICANS

135 GERMANS

8 DANISH

23 CANADIANS

5 FRENCH

27 SWISS

10 NORWEGIANS

13 AUSTRALIANS

5 NEW ZEALANDERS

2 SWEDES

2 DUTCH

1 AUSTRIAN

1 FINNISH

403 IN TOTAL

 

Everything was done dual language English / German. The lectures have live translation for the German's. 

 

They had a quiz night that tested your knowledge of things learned in the lectures. For some reason that was only done in English the first time. Rightly, the German's complained, and they sorted out doing it again in German the next night, it was a lot of fun giving that a try.

 

[HeadNorth]

That's all really interesting, thank you! 

We won't be in a suite, and won't be sending our merino clothing to the laundry! That's a cost too far. We'll probably treat ourselves to the Lindstrøm a couple of times, but I'm sure the Aune will do us fine, with casual meals in the Fredheim when we're too tired for anything more fancy.

It's interesting how varied the reports on the quality of the food are on the Amundsen and Nansen across the forums. I'm fairly sure we won't starve, however.

I may get a chance to improve my very rusty German over the month too.

Thanks for taking the time to share everything you have - most useful!