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Hurtigruten has waived the solo supplements on numerous cruises for the upcoming season. They did last year as well.

I think what surprised me is that in some ways the larger ships allowed for better opportunities to experience the nature and culture in depth due to the availability of small boat/longer excursions with guides who had more local knowledge and experience than the excursion leaders on the RA. Certainly walking around town was much more interesting and pleasurable in the smaller ports used by the smaller ship, and the lack of sales presentations/materials was a great improvement over the large ships.

I wanted to share some thoughts for anyone considering Hurtigruten for Alaska based on my recent trip on the Roald Amundsen. As a preface, I want to say I enjoyed the cruise and am still strongly considering Hurtigruten for Antarctica. I have previously done Alaska cruises on Holland America and Celebrity, mostly on their older, smaller ships (Volendam x 2, Infinity, and Nieuw Amsterdam). My comments below are directed specifically at Alaska, where there is a wide variety of excursions available to passengers on large cruise ships, both through the cruise line and independently. My experience with crew members was similar across all lines. They were friendly, helpful and welcoming. The Roald Amundsen was only at about 50-60 percent capacity, so nothing seemed crowded or required much of a wait, if any at all. They did seem very organized and prepared to smoothly handle many more passengers than were present. The food was good and varied. The cruise was bookended by a hotel night. Generally the Hurtigruten arrangements were easy and information accessible. There was some difficulty before getting our rooms on the last night, but that seemed like the teething pains of a new arrangement between the hotel and cruise line and Hurtigruten representatives remained available throughout. It didn’t seem to me that the expedition format necessarily provided a closer look at Alaska beyond the lectures and interactions with the expedition personnel on board. Going off the ship on the zodiacs was generally limited to a hour or a little more during the course of the day. The need to cycle through the various groups limited how far the zodiacs could go from the ship. I don’t have any mobility issues, and did not find them difficult to get in or out. However, I did find the required life jackets very bulky, making it more difficult to look around and take in the experience. The zodiac operators, at least those I rode with, had general information about various aspects of Alaska but limited knowledge of the specific details of the locations. They did not provide any kind of ongoing narration about the location and what we were seeing. Specific questions about the location often elicited a “I don’t know” response. This may be due, in part, to the requirement that each zodiac operator have certain Coast Guard qualifications, limiting who could be hired. As compared to expeditions off the larger cruise ships where the guides typically provided an ongoing discussion of the details we were seeing with suggestions of specific plants, animals or geology to look for, and have often been exploring the same locations for years, the zodiac explorations were lacking. There were some additional commercial excursions at some ports but only a few. The lack of advance schedules made it impractical to make individual arrangements. While the smaller ship could get into some locations unavailable to larger ships, I don’t think we saw more than I did taking longer small boat excursions off the larger cruise ships. Over all, I enjoyed the trip and the smaller ship. However, someone making the decision based on access to locations will need to look closely at the itinerary and excursions offered rather than assume the smaller ship will provide tours of areas not accessible during a more traditional cruise.

Thank you. I do plan to use an agent. I’m just initially kind of getting an idea of the various pricing brackets. It looks like all the companies have pretty deep discounts at times.

Thank you both for the help.

I’m just starting to look at Antarctica cruises, so not yet consulting a travel agent. I am confused on the Atlas web site pricing. I will be going alone, but also may want a cabin other than those available as solo ones. The pricing says something like price per person based on double occupancy where second guest is free. I can’t tell if this means that is the price for the cabin if occupied by one passenger. I would appreciate any insight on this so I can factor in accurate pricing as I gather initial information.