SILVER EXPLORER - ARCTIC Overview of the cruise and the ship  Links below for details from Ngaire's 2009 and 2010 Voyages   Landing Reports July 2009 - August 2010 Cabin Reports What to Wear Overview of the ship and cruise.

Longyearbyen, Spitzbergen,  Svalbard Islands
Longyearbyen is the name of the town, Spitzbergen, is the name of the island and the entire archipelago of islands is named the Svalbard Islands. Cruise often begin or end in Longyearbyen some cruises are roundtrip from Longyearbyen.

The Svalbard Islands are not owned by any country and only Russia and Norway mine the islands.  The area is managed by Norway and the Norwegian government is trying to shut down cruise ships around the archipelago in order to protect the environment. Only 10,000 tourists visit each year, in comparison Antarctica has 47,000 tourists.  There are 5000 polar bears on Spitzbergen Island. 

Wildlife and Polar Bears: The first trip in June 2009 was really a little too early for a good chance to see polar bears.  We only saw one polar bear, seals, whales, and many walrus along with nesting arctic turns and other bird varieties.  The lack of polar bears was due to the fact we were only able to make it into one of the prime polar bear areas where we did have a polar bear sighting.  The rest of the polar bear areas were still clogged with sea ice.  As the season progresses more fjords that are good for polar bear sightings will open up. In just the week we were on the ship two more fjords opened up that the next trip will be visiting three fjords in search of the King of the Arctic.  

Later in the season more fjords open up others will lose all the ice and the bears will move so it will be a constantly changing situation. When we did this trip in 2010 we saw over 20 polar bears.   This was an incredibly ice free year and the ship was able to go into areas that are usually impossible to navigate to the the amount of ice. However as with anything in nature you can not predict wildlife sightings it depends on the weather conditions and situation you encounter on your trip. Each trip will be different. 

The scenery: Truly spectacular for about 90% of the trip, it was constant. The highlights were many incredible fjords, huge glaciers everywhere, breaking through the ice, getting north of 80 degrees, and the zodiac rides around the icebergs were super. There is a lot of history here with the whaling that took place in the early 1900s and the remains of that industry are scattered around the islands.  

The Expedition Team and staff: The expedition team was great, experienced and very easy to communicate with during the cruise. They are always around and if you wish you can have a lot of one on one time with the team.  There were not many lectures as the cruise was very busy with two landings a day.  They have improved their lectures with one of the naturalists staying on board to talk to the group that is still on board and the other group when they return. There was a short presentation at the nightly briefing but they have some great speakers here and we would like to have had more lectures. The information given was clear and concise. They communicated constantly when plans did change and explained why they made the change and what they were doing instead.  Every landing they reminded people to wear waterproof gear and gumboots. The man with the gun was from Longyearben and one of our Polar Bear experts who watches for polar bears during landings. The Staff:  Mostly Filipino but also some Europeans. The bar waitress shown below was from New Zealand and a delight.

The Ship: This is a great little ship that is comfortable, easy to get around with good cabins.  The main rooms are pleasant and spacious. We had a very full ship and never felt crowded.  I found the ship to be in wonderful shape. They have replaced the original carpet with a dark blue that looks wonderful and the woods and dcor are all very low key, similar to the look on the other Silversea ships.  I would take this ship again and recommend it without any hesitation. 

The Food: Food is always subjective. I had not anticipated the food would be up to normal Silversea standards on this trip.  They were not far off the mark from what we had on our regular Silversea cruises.  Silversea is adventurous with their food and have a lot of things people love and then things that really miss the mark.  You certainly will find enough things to make you happy.  Our farewell dinner was fantastic really wonderful Beef Wellington. 

The Passengers:  A mix of ages with some older than I thought would be on this cruise and more young people that I would have anticipated. The children we encountered were absolutely no problem at all. We had mostly Americans with a few Australians, English and two Italian family groups.