Roald Amundsen - Landings in Antarctica

[Paul S]

If you were on the inaugural Antarctica expedition, can you please tell us how it went with the landings, especially having regard to the capacity of 500 pax and limit of 100 on the ice at any one time.

 

Were there also RIB rides which didn’t land?

 

Thanks in advance.

[jonikal]

Having recently experienced the crew's problems with the landing vessels on the Amundsen during our Nome to Vancouver sailing, I too would be most interested learning how the ship dealt with multiple daily landings in Antarctica.

We had sailed on a much smaller Lindbladt vessel with many years experience in Antarctica and had multiple daily landings that were flawlessly carried out by the crew and we were always accompanied by a member of the expedition team.   

[Gurnee2]

We are booked on the December 26 departure on the Roald Amundsen and fear the worse after reading reviews on Cruise Critic and Tripadvisor. I should have done more research before booking but instead took advantage of a 2 day Flash Deal on ***** that was too good to pass up. There does not seem to be anything positive to say about the ship. But worse, possibly many safety issues. I too am waiting for word from the first actual Antarctic departure that ends on November 30th. 

[Paul S]

The last two reviews on CC are in respect of Antarctic trips and both give the ship 5 stars.

 

it does seem that perhaps it wasn’t really ready to go for the first few departures, but hopefully the teething problems will have been resolved.

 

we booked on Azamara Pursuit as soon as the cruises were released, prior to finishing the major refurbishment after she was purchased. There were lots of complaints on the first few trips, but by the time we went on our cruise the hitches had been ironed out and everything was fine. 
 

If you don’t go with a positive attitude you won’t make the most of your trip. We are on the 14th February 2020 departure and looking forward it. 

[white_bear]

We're on the Christmas cruise and are also waiting to see some proper reports from the Antarctic voyages.  It would be good to believe the two 5 star reviews but I am viewing them with some scepticism (and indeed the recent one in the Sunday Times travel section) as that particular trip was the "christening" one, with journos on board who were "guests" of Hurtigruten.

 

We had a great trip to the Antarctic, some time ago, on Midnatsol, which coped fine with a similar number of people on board.  Just hoping that the experience of those expedition team has been transferred across to Roald Amundsen,

 

[SarniaLo]

I have to say the latest reviews sound a bit like infomercials, particularly the one boasting about the ship's hybrid technology and eco-friendliness. Although it's good that people are aware of this, I'm not sure the desalination of water or waste disposal would be the main source of awe during my first trip in Antarctica.

Also, all the reasons stated for which MS Roald Admundsen is eco-friendly during landings are general rules to which all expedition trips in Antarctica abide (washing boots and not bothering the animals are done on all ships).

I also would be interested to know how the landing rotations are handled in Antarctica with so many people.

[jakkojakko]

54 minutes ago, SarniaLo said:

I have to say the latest reviews sound a bit like infomercials, particularly the one boasting about the ship's hybrid technology and eco-friendliness. Although it's good that people are aware of this, I'm not sure the desalination of water or waste disposal would be the main source of awe during my first trip in Antarctica.

Also, all the reasons stated for which MS Roald Admundsen is eco-friendly during landings are general rules to which all expedition trips in Antarctica abide (washing boots and not bothering the animals are done on all ships).

I also would be interested to know how the landing rotations are handled in Antarctica with so many people.

 

I agree. The reviews are way too slick and are probably made by a pr person.

[Lady Meer]

29 minutes ago, jakkojakko said:

 

I agree. The reviews are way too slick and are probably made by a pr person.

I agree, I thought it was just me being cynical 😏.

 

 

[Gurnee2]

Hi all. Attached is a link to the Tripadvisor reviews. I am on the December 26th departure. If anyone is on a cruise before then, I would appreciate letting me know if there is anything I should know in advance. Clothing advice etc. My email is mnorman12@gmail.com  I know some people say not to write email addresses...but I will be glad to receive any helpful hints from previous cruise members. Also, is there any option for independent tours in Stanley since we are there 3 nights!  Or only ship tours? I googled Stanley and didnt find anything specific. However there is a pricey 4x4 car rental. I may email their tourist office also.

 

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Cruise_Review-d15691759-Reviews-Hurtigruten_Roald_Amundsen

[Gurnee2]

Latest News from cruisemapper.com  Over 200 pieces of passenger's luggage were stolen while being transported to the ship in Punta Arenas and not recovered. 

https://www.cruisemapper.com/accidents/MS-Roald-Amundsen-1455

[jonikal]

Wow! Another black mark and negative publicity for the Amundsen after several less than stellar reviews on CC and elsewhere on the web complaining of bad management, lack of communication, disappointed passengers and now a serious security issue.  Too  bad for the passengers who decided to go home, although can totally understand the reason why.  Hopefully they will be fully reimbursed.  

[Lady Meer]

3 hours ago, Gurnee2 said:

Latest News from cruisemapper.com  Over 200 pieces of passenger's luggage were stolen while being transported to the ship in Punta Arenas and not recovered. 

https://www.cruisemapper.com/accidents/MS-Roald-Amundsen-1455

 

Oh no - I have been seriously worried about our trip in January and this has done nothing to help. I feel so sorry for the passengers affected. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to continue with the trip. In fact, if we had the choice we would cancel now.

 

Regarding your query about the Falklands. We’ve been in touch with Patrick Watts of Adventure Falklands, who seems really clued up with Hurtigruten’s schedule in the Falklands. He explained that the ship will not be in Stanley for all 3 nights. It is difficult to arrange anything as we have no confirmed timings but he was able to provide some useful info. 

 

pwatts @ horizon .co .fk.     (Usual format).

 

Brenda

[jonikal]

Article with a few more details on how Hurtigruten is handling affected passengers.

 

https://www.travelagentcentral.com/cruises/robbers-steal-luggage-bound-for-hurtigruten-ship

[clo]

On 12/2/2019 at 11:30 AM, Lady Meer said:

Oh no - I have been seriously worried about our trip in January and this has done nothing to help. I feel so sorry for the passengers affected. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to continue with the trip. In fact, if we had the choice we would cancel now.

 

What has you worried?

[Lady Meer]

9 hours ago, clo said:

What has you worried?

The disorganisation of Hurtigruten in general. We were booked on the trip for Jan 2019 which, of course, was cancelled. At this point our TA was informed but our friends’ TA wasn’t. This should have been a warning but, in fairness, ALL of our money was reimbursed.

 

Also the reviews of the chaos in the dining venues doesn’t inspire us. When we originally booked, we were told about the 3 dining rooms but there was no mention of any extra payments but now it seems that 2 of them incur extra charges. Fortunately we are in a suite which, I understand, at the moment these are included.

 

The pre- and post-cruise extensions were advertised way after our flights were booked.

 

There has been no mention of the underwater camera / drone, so maybe that’s not operating.

 

There is no information regarding docking venues / times in the Falklands Islands which makes it difficult to arrange any tours. We have had information from a tour operator at how Hurtigruten operates in the Islands.

 

We really wished we had booked Silversea!

[clo]

On 12/4/2019 at 8:22 AM, Lady Meer said:

We really wished we had booked Silversea!

I hope it exceeds your expectations. We sailed on their 400'ish pax Midnatsol to Antarctica almost two years ago and loved every moment of it.

[Lady Meer]

32 minutes ago, clo said:

I hope it exceeds your expectations. We sailed on their 400'ish pax Midnatsol to Antarctica almost two years ago and loved every moment of it.

We hope so too! We’ve never been on a cruise that we haven’t enjoyed. We always enjoy meeting our fellow travellers and feel very lucky that we are fortunate enough to have these experiences.

 

I see you are due to experience Oceania. We’ve been on 3 Oceania trips - one for 28 days to the Amazon - and enjoyed them all. I’ll follow you on the O board.

[Vicky1126]

I was on the inaugural Antarctica cruise. Everything went extremely well. There were 20 reporters onboard to cover the naming ceremony so they had to make sure everything went smoothly . This is a bigger ship so there is only one landing per day and it was very well organized. You are assigned a group and they will schedule the landing according to to the groups. It ran like a clock. We only spent 4 days in Antarctica, with 3 landings, one zodiac cruising and one naming ceremony. So nothing to worry about the landings, you’re in good hands. I’m very happy with the trip even though we missed 2 ports on our way down to Antarctica. The weather was gorgeous during our trip so maybe we were just lucky. I was very worried when I read those reviews before boarding the ship but my own experience is very positive. Those two five star Antarctica reviews were actually pretty fair assessment of the trip. Maybe we’ll see very different reviews from people who have lost their luggage on the third Antarctica sailing.

[jakkojakko]

9 hours ago, Vicky1126 said:

I ............ This is a bigger ship so there is only one landing per day and it was very well organized. You are assigned a group and they will schedule the landing according to to the groups. It ran like a clock. We only spent 4 days in Antarctica, with 3 landings, one zodiac cruising and one naming ceremony. So nothing to worry about the landings, you’re in good hands. .............

 

Good that the landings were handled well, but..........

Only three landings in 4 day's! The whole point of an expedition cruise is going ashore, not staying on the ship for a whole day with just two hours on shore. With smaller expedition ships you get up to three landings per day in different locations. Personally I would never choose this ship, new or not, over the smaller and usually older ships. When paying such an expensive fare, I want as many landings as possible and don't really care about all the fabulous stuff on board, that is for regular cruising.

[Paul S]

11 hours ago, jakkojakko said:

 

Good that the landings were handled well, but..........

Only three landings in 4 day's! The whole point of an expedition cruise is going ashore, not staying on the ship for a whole day with just two hours on shore. With smaller expedition ships you get up to three landings per day in different locations. Personally I would never choose this ship, new or not, over the smaller and usually older ships. When paying such an expensive fare, I want as many landings as possible and don't really care about all the fabulous stuff on board, that is for regular cruising.

That’s your preference, which is fine. However, we are not so young, cruise in suites with balconies, want the same level of comfort and facilities, and will be happy on our 12th Feb 2020 departure to have one landing of 2 hours per day for each of the seven days we will be in Antarctica. If we were offered two landings per day on an expedition ship but had to accept a small cabin with perhaps bunks, a porthole and maybe a shared bathroom we probably wouldn’t go. Don’t forget there are plenty of people who are happy with a sail through and no landings. Horses for courses......

[jakkojakko]

9 hours ago, Paul S said:

That’s your preference, which is fine. However, we are not so young, cruise in suites with balconies, want the same level of comfort and facilities, and will be happy on our 12th Feb 2020 departure to have one landing of 2 hours per day for each of the seven days we will be in Antarctica. If we were offered two landings per day on an expedition ship but had to accept a small cabin with perhaps bunks, a porthole and maybe a shared bathroom we probably wouldn’t go. Don’t forget there are plenty of people who are happy with a sail through and no landings. Horses for courses......

 

Agreed

[Gurnee2]

Hi all. I just got back from the December 26th departure and you can see from my earlier posts, I was worried about going because of so many bad reviews. In truth, the trip exceeded our expectations. The ship is beautiful, large rooms, ample space in public areas for viewing the outside scenery. Every convenience...like lots of outlets to charge batteries and strong, free wifi 24/7, bathrobes and heated bathroom floor. The expedition team (22 in all) were specialists in all the relevant natural history fields and offered several lectures a day that could be enjoyed on the big screen TV in the cabin or in the lecture hall. One person gave an excellent series of lectures on the history of specific explorers. Communications from the team were excellent. Landings were perfectly executed and even though it was one per day...that proved enough for us. The food was amazing and I can not imagine anyone finding fault, given there were so many choices. We had a tour of the bridge and the ship's officers were visible, friendly and available for questions. They also sat in the dining room for lunch. All other crew members were service oriented and hard working. Could not have done more for us. We had 9 landings in all and also docked in Stanley for the day. Camping, kayaking and snow shoeing were also offered at additional cost. Our pictures are amazing. Just what we expected. So calm your fears - this is indeed a trip of a lifetime. 

[Bella0714]

Thanks for reporting back, Gurnee2. That's great to hear. Was any zodiac cruising included in addition to the landings? I saw from somebody's postings on Facebook that Midnstsol did a landing and zodiac cruising most days.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Bella0714

[Gurnee2]

After a morning landing on Petermann island we were scheduled to do zodiac cruising in the afternoon but it was cancelled because of moving ice. We actually bumped our way through floating, dense ice in the zodiacs on the way to Petermann.  I was happy with the experience we had there. Otherwise it was landings once a day. The bay was full of icebergs and easy to see from the ship. There were 7 landings in Antarctic and 2 in the Falklands on privately owned islands (sheep farms) which had amazing albatross colonies and rock hopper penguins. If you want to google them it was Carcass Island and West Point Island. We had tea and snacks at the farmers home after our trek to the rookeries. On the day in Stanley we booked a ship excursion for $149 to Bluff Cove Lagoon to see King Penguins which was excellent and we had OBC to use up. Later we had time to walk through Stanley and the ship had non stop shuttles from the dock to downtown. The Antarctic landings were  Yankee Harbor, Mikkelsen Harbor, Danco Island, Orne  harbor, Damoy Point, Petermann island and Deception Island. A google search will show the beautiful setting and history of these locations. We were so worried about the number of landings before the cruise and also wanted to do zodiac cruising near arched icebergs (yes, we saw wonderful arched icebergs), but in the end the ship got us very close to penguins on icebergs, humpback whales, seals etc. The deck 6 view points are very close to the water and we maneuvered through spectacular scenery. Naturalists are on deck 7 and 10 and very informative.   It was very sunny most days. Bring sunglasses and sun block.  I know I sound like an advertisement. I was just so negative about the booking before I went because of the reviews and was ready to be critical about everything. My only issue was not knowing what to expect before going. That fostered pre-trip jitters. I believe many decisions about landings were made on a daily basis because of weather etc. Each night we were given a detailed briefing about the next day. The daily events newsletter was delivered to staterooms at night and were on the TV in the room as well. I think a lot of my pre-trip issues were based on just not knowing the specific details of how each day would be managed. Everything was sorta vague. Oh, I forgot. One naturalist takes a boat out to gather plankton, krill and water samples for discussions in the science center. One can sign up to go out with him so that would give another off ship opportunity. Just a FYI...ask about it. Enjoy your trip. I think  you will be pleasantly surprised.

[Bella0714]

Gurnee2, I can tell from your writing how special you thought it was. We can’t wait to go. We’re on the January 26 departure and fully expecting it to be great. Thanks for all the details. We’re hoping to go kayaking. Thinking about snowshoeing, too, although we’ve never done it. We will report back. The most-recent reviews on Cruise Critic are very positive.