Spitsbergen/Svalbard Cruise Cost

[Gggggss]

Hello

 

Having been on an antarctic, Falklands and South Georgia cruise in 2015 (a cracker of a deal with Ponant when we got a free upgrade to a balcony too) we are now looking for a cruise around Spitsbergen/Svalbard. 

 

I'm checking out the usual polar cruise specialists and comparing prices. It will likely be a week/10 days in June or July 2023. I'm just comparing prices and I wondered if anyone would be willing to share what they paid and for what cabin. Prices seem to vary wildly and I know for Antarctica there was always an option of hoping for a last minute deal in Ushuaia. 

 

At the moment the cheapest seems to be a quadruple share on Oceanwide for about £2800pp 😬 and we were hoping for a private cabin for two but prices on Oceanwide and others are at least £1500pp more.

[tim_london0]

if this is just about saving money surely the basic Hurtigruten cruises on the Nordstjernen can't be beaten:

 

Spitsbergen and Polar Bears – an Arctic Adventure (Sunday to Friday) | Hurtigruten Expeditions

[ColdCruise]

@Gggggss

There were some very good promotions for Black Friday (US) and I think a few are still on the table. I’m not sure how much a “thing” that is in the UK but it’s all via internet & snail here, so I’d think most offers would be an option for UK residents ?

 

We visited Svalbard this past June/July on Ocean Atlantic - an older ship with a wide variety of cabins and reasonable pricing that for our trip started in the 2000s (USD). Despite being older, the ship was more than up to the task, good expedition team, food was varied and good (great 4th of July BBQ at 14th of July glacier!) and it more or less lived up to expectations.

 

you can PM me and I can share agent and more pricing details.

[tim_london0]

I missed the chance to search for this year's BF offers (I was in South Georgia that day 😀 ) so I have no idea if there were any cruise offers to Svalbard (though I did get a few Antarctic cruises in my in-box at 50% off, what a pity I had already taken advantage of one of those).

 

But I do get frequent mailings offering me stonkingly large discount (up to 85%) on Ocean cruising (very occasionally with a Longyearbyen call), via companies that I don't think I'm supposed to name here, but there is nothing much on offer for Svalbard circumnavigation (and often what there is doesn't stand up to scrutiny - with an offer price more than the brochure price).

 

Though I think you got lucky with the Ocean Atlantic (that's albatros-expeditions, yes?).  That has a brochure price of $9000 per berth in a twin, and I can't find anyone offering offers from that company.

[jeff74]

Last week I booked a Svalbard cruise on Hapag Lloyd for my family for next year.  The price was just under 27,000 EUR for the three of us for a Jr suite.  It would have been maybe a few thousand cheaper to book two separate cabins but there weren’t any connecting ones that were available.

 

 We also looked at Hurtigruten and Silversea when deciding on a cruise line.  Hurtigruten was coming out to be more expensive while Silversea was slightly less after adjusting for the fact that flights were included.  The cabin size on both of these other ships would have been much smaller than where we ended up.

 

FWIW, I decided to pay in euros because the quote in my local currency of USD was at an unfavorable exchange rate to what I believe my credit card will charge when the payment in euros comes due.  

[ColdCruise]

I had not looked at Hapag Lloyd for Arctic cruising @jeff74 I hope you love the trip and review it here as I don’t think there are a lot of cruise critic mentions of this operator (big for commercial shipping though they are).

[jeff74]

14 hours ago, ColdCruise said:

I had not looked at Hapag Lloyd for Arctic cruising @jeff74 I hope you love the trip and review it here as I don’t think there are a lot of cruise critic mentions of this operator (big for commercial shipping though they are).

Thanks!  I’ll definitely post a review after the cruise.  It feels forever away at this point.

[whylion]

We’re booked on hanseatic inspiration for May 31 2024 voyage that starts in Hamburg and ends in Spitsbergen. We did a Patagonia trip on this ship in November 2022 and liked it a lot - Montevideo to Ushuaia. It’s a great ship and great food. There was only one other English speaking couple on board. But the waiters spoke English and there was a special English speaking guide. And our zodiac was English speaking. 

[tim_london0]

Update to previous post, Hurtigruten currently offering no single supplements for their remaining cabins on 2023 sailings of MS Nordstjernen, and flight times have been updated so that same day departure and arrival is now possible (which wasn't the case when I last looked in October).

 

so just booked for an August sailing saving me £800, which paid for my air fare.

 

Took the decision to fly optimally (I don't usually do that), arriving at 19:00 on day one of the trip to check into the included overnight pre-cruise hotel, and back at 12:15 on day 6 after an 8:00 arrival back in port (so it says).  Transfers included (but that's never going to be a deal breaker here).

 

Just need to work out how much cold weather stuff I need to pack and how much they will lend me (I see that today's temp is +5C, which is hardly going to be bothersome).  No mention of needing boots, so I presume that there are no wet landings, now they are a pain in the bottom.

[Hezu]

On 6/24/2023 at 4:56 PM, tim_london0 said:

Just need to work out how much cold weather stuff I need to pack and how much they will lend me (I see that today's temp is +5C, which is hardly going to be bothersome).  No mention of needing boots, so I presume that there are no wet landings, now they are a pain in the bottom.

My experience aboard MS Nordstjernen is already some years ago, but I think at least then there was no complimentary clothing (might been there was some available for buying, although I had a decent selection in my luggage). On landings there was portable steps on shore, so you could walk into the land with dry foot. However, at least on some stops before you boarded the boats they required you to step into desificant liquid to ensure your footwear does not bring any harmful seeds into the vulnerable artic nature, so it would be a good idea to have waterproof footwear. I had then light hiking boots with Goretex. In general, it is certainly a very good idea to have a waterproof outer layer as those boat rides can be somewhat wet.

[tim_london0]

So just got back from my 4 and a half day bargain bucket cruise around the West of Spitsbergen, so I'll post a mini review.

 

Firstly there's no point in me reviewing the ship, as due to changes in Polar safety requirements Nordstjernen is being withdrawn from this route.  I'm was told that they will continue with a different ship, but there's no offers on Hurtigruten's website for these short cruise in 2024.  There's still one final cruise for 2023 with cabin availability.  But good luck with finding connecting flights.

 

Food: Breakfast and mains were good.  Soups and deserts, decidedly average or worse.  One complaint (And ISTR that I had the same complaint of my other polar cruise - not with Hurtigruten).  Quantity of vegetarian choices was very very poor.  Even as someone who's not vegetarian but simply looking to load up their plate of meat with his "5-a-day", the possibility of doing this was very very limited.

 

The trip: weather was 4-8 degrees every day, with minimal wind and no rain, but some low cloud cover.  Accordingly UK-Winter gear was perfectly fine for this trip, no need for my polar jacket, extra scarf or doubling up on gloves.  Of course I can't guarantee that it's like that every trip.  Landings are by Zodiacs onto a beach, but they put down steps so that you don't have to get your feet wet. Though as has been posted, you do have to walk through the cleaning tray on the way back onto the ship, so you need shoes with some level of waterproofness.

 

First, you get a bus trip around LYB, taking a ride out past all of the (now closed) mines, to the dog's home and then on return a visit to the Svalbard museum, before being taken to the ship for boarding

 

Then each of the three full days there are two expeditions per day to various sites, so there are 6 landings per trip.  Unfortunately one of ours was cancelled due to the very slightly misty weather (bonus point for working out why a little mist might cause a landing to be cancelled).

 

We saw a bear, from the centre of a fjord at 1km away on the top of a hill.  But you needed a super magnification on your optical equipment to see it.  The rest of us just saw a fuzzy blob, that might have been a bear or could equally have been a patch of snow.  (It was a bear, participants with the super-magnification showed us the pictures.)

 

Whilst on the ship we encountered 2 pods of dolphin, 3 whales (different species), a walrus and a bearded seal.  But with one exception, they were all just fleeting sights, so you have to already be on the deck to see it.  If you waited until the announcement that it was there, to rush out to see it, you were greeted with "oh it's gone now".

 

Return landing at 9:15 in time to catch the 10:15 bus to the airport was tight, but we did it.  Though most had an extra-stop over or were on the later flight.

 

I personally got good value for my £2300 (cabin with en-suite, but no window) and I don't think that I could have achieved a significant upgrade in the experience to merit paying £10000 for the longer circumnavigation cruise.  YMMV

 

and FYI, the language group sizes were 60 Norwegian, 25 English and 15 German.  Of our English group only about 5 were British, the rest were mostly other Europeans, listening in English but speaking something else 🙂