Silversea vs Hurtigruten?

[antarcticanewbies]

We were due to travel to Antarctica this Saturday on the Silversea Silver Cloud (booked in December 2020!). We cancelled yesterday due to family illness and are hoping to rebook a cruise for next year.

 

We chose this particular cruise as it included both the Falklands and South Georgia. Silversea do not include the Falklands in January 2024 unless you take the Endeavour, which is double the price of the equivalent cruise we were going to take. There is a Silver Cloud cruise that we are looking at that dos not include the Falklands, however, we have found a Hurtigruten 23 day Antarctica cruise that includes the Falklands. 

 

This will be our first "proper" cruise (we have used Ecoventura in the Galapagos and also toured the Yangtze River) and were so looking forward to our Silversea cruise. We do not have much time to research as we need to book soon. Any thoughts on Hurtigruten, I appreciate it is not as luxurious but will we get the same Antarctica experience? Any thoughts/comments/advice welcomed...

[PerfectlyPerth]

On 1/25/2023 at 8:28 PM, antarcticanewbies said:

We were due to travel to Antarctica this Saturday on the Silversea Silver Cloud (booked in December 2020!). We cancelled yesterday due to family illness and are hoping to rebook a cruise for next year.

 

We chose this particular cruise as it included both the Falklands and South Georgia. Silversea do not include the Falklands in January 2024 unless you take the Endeavour, which is double the price of the equivalent cruise we were going to take. There is a Silver Cloud cruise that we are looking at that dos not include the Falklands, however, we have found a Hurtigruten 23 day Antarctica cruise that includes the Falklands. 

 

This will be our first "proper" cruise (we have used Ecoventura in the Galapagos and also toured the Yangtze River) and were so looking forward to our Silversea cruise. We do not have much time to research as we need to book soon. Any thoughts on Hurtigruten, I appreciate it is not as luxurious but will we get the same Antarctica experience? Any thoughts/comments/advice welcomed...

we've had a few trip reports for Hurtigruten on the Trip Advisor Antarctica Adventures forum. This is the link 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/thread/19/hurtigruten

 

if it helps with searching and decision making you can also view all the trip reports sorted by expedition company 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/8/trip-reports-sorted-expedition-company

 

and sorted by ship name 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/7/trip-reports-sorted-ship-name

 

Or sorted by year so you can see the most recent ones from Dec 2022 as we just had a batch of people post reports recently. 
https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/6/trip-reports-sorted-year

 

that probably gives you too many options now !!!

 

my opinion - having been 4 times. Luxury is of zero interest to me. All the vessels are comfortable. That is all that is needed. Don't waste your money on luxury. A posh cabin does not enrich the experience you will be having outside on the ship and during landings.
Look for the smallest vessel, least amount of passengers, longest voyage your holiday allowance permits, and definitely include Falklands and Sth Georgia Islands. 
 

feel free to post your question on Trip Advisor as well. While there are a few of us that post in both forums there are many that post only in one or the other. 
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowForum-g1-i12337-Antarctic_Adventures.html

 

[donaldsc]

The moderator may feel that he has to delete this and I know the rules about recommending TAs.  However a Google search will lead you to TAs that do only Antarctica cruises.  That is how I booked my Falklands and S. Georgia cruise a few years ago.  They will be able to answer all of your questilns if you find the right Antarctica TA.

 

DON

[kaisatsu]

I wouldn’t consider any polar expedition cruise (even on Silversea) to be a “proper” cruise by CruiseCritic expectations! 😂 

 

Unless someone in your group doesn’t really care about Antarctica and is more interested in dining and spa treatments, then I wouldn’t worry about the difference at all.

 

Which Hurtigruten ship would you be traveling on? I did a very similar itinerary once on the Fram, and it was much more than comfortable. Not luxurious, but sitting in a full glass lounge sipping drinks and watching the dying icebergs off the coast of South Georgia felt like enough of a justification between luxury and ecology that I’m not sure I’d want to go down on a ship much nicer than that!

 

What is it about Silversea that you’re afraid you’ll be missing? If it’s the 5-star luxury? Yes. Hurtigruten is more of a 4-star. There are seated dinners with table assignments, attentive wait staff, and upscale cuisine, but it’s more like a nice restaurant than a gourmet experience. Cabins are similar to the standard cruise cabins you’d find on larger ships, and there may be fewer balconies and luxury upgrades. If I recall, their toiletry line is by an upscale Scandinavian cosmetics company, but it’s not globally iconic luxury products.

 

I guess I’d compare Hurtigruten to Silversea as something akin to a recently-renovated upmarket business hotel with comfortable amenities and a few nice flourishes compared to a place listed on Leading Small Hotels of the World.

 

As for the expedition experience, a lot of staff rotate between ships, so the company doesn’t really matter too much. I know guides from my trips on some of the most basic ships who have also done seasons on Silversea.

[antarcticanewbies]

Thanks for all the replies, we went for the 23 day trip on The Fram, a lot of positive reviews and counting down the days!

[donaldsc]

On 1/26/2023 at 8:57 AM, PerfectlyPerth said:

we've had a few trip reports for Hurtigruten on the Trip Advisor Antarctica Adventures forum. This is the link 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/thread/19/hurtigruten

 

if it helps with searching and decision making you can also view all the trip reports sorted by expedition company 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/8/trip-reports-sorted-expedition-company

 

and sorted by ship name 

https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/7/trip-reports-sorted-ship-name

 

Or sorted by year so you can see the most recent ones from Dec 2022 as we just had a batch of people post reports recently. 
https://antarcticafaqs.boards.net/board/6/trip-reports-sorted-year

 

that probably gives you too many options now !!!

 

my opinion - having been 4 times. Luxury is of zero interest to me. All the vessels are comfortable. That is all that is needed. Don't waste your money on luxury. A posh cabin does not enrich the experience you will be having outside on the ship and during landings.
Look for the smallest vessel, least amount of passengers, longest voyage your holiday allowance permits, and definitely include Falklands and Sth Georgia Islands. 
 

feel free to post your question on Trip Advisor as well. While there are a few of us that post in both forums there are many that post only in one or the other. 
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowForum-g1-i12337-Antarctic_Adventures.html

 

 

This is an extremely wise answer especially your comment about luxury except that I would very slightly disagree w you.  Try to do the Falklands, S. Georgia AND Antarctica just does not work in my opinion because you do not get enough time in any of the 3 places.  You should have at least 3 days in the Falkland and 5 or 6 days in South Georgia to have enough time to see the places properly.  On my last trip we had 3 days in the Falklands and I think 8 or 9 days in South Georgia.  This means 9 days minimum and maybe even 12 days for these 2 islands. 

 

Most longer trips are say 21 or 22 days total and it is hard to find one that is longer than that because of costs so lets be optimistic and say 25 days total.  You need 1 day to get from Ushuaia to the Falklands and 1 1/2 day to get from the Falklands to South Georgia so this means your trip total is almost 15 days before you even start heading for Antarctica.  For a 25 day trip this will leave you only 10 days to get from South Georgia (2 days), gety back from Antarctica (1 1/2 days) and just 7 days in Antarctica.  You just don't get enough time in any location.  

 

My suggestion is not to try to see all three places in 1 trip.  Do Antarctica in one trip and the Falklands / South Georgia in another trip although it will be hard to find a trip that will do just these 2 islands.

 

One more thing to add although you implied it but did not say it explicitly.  You do EVER want a trip with more than 200 people on it and you really want one that has less than 100 people.  This is because of the 100 people on the continent rule.  If you have 100 people you can be on land for as long as you want.  If you have more than 100 people you will have 100 on the continent and the rest of them waiting to do something.

 

Hope that this helps.

 

DON

[pdmlynek]

8 hours ago, antarcticanewbies said:

Thanks for all the replies, we went for the 23 day trip on The Fram, a lot of positive reviews and counting down the days!

Thanks for letting us know how you decided.  We'll be looking for a trip report when you get back, if you are up for it.

[pdmlynek]

7 hours ago, donaldsc said:

 

This is an extremely wise answer especially your comment about luxury except that I would very slightly disagree w you.  Try to do the Falklands, S. Georgia AND Antarctica just does not work in my opinion because you do not get enough time in any of the 3 places.  You should have at least 3 days in the Falkland and 5 or 6 days in South Georgia to have enough time to see the places properly.  On my last trip we had 3 days in the Falklands and I think 8 or 9 days in South Georgia.  This means 9 days minimum and maybe even 12 days for these 2 islands. 

 

Most longer trips are say 21 or 22 days total and it is hard to find one that is longer than that because of costs so lets be optimistic and say 25 days total.  You need 1 day to get from Ushuaia to the Falklands and 1 1/2 day to get from the Falklands to South Georgia so this means your trip total is almost 15 days before you even start heading for Antarctica.  For a 25 day trip this will leave you only 10 days to get from South Georgia (2 days), gety back from Antarctica (1 1/2 days) and just 7 days in Antarctica.  You just don't get enough time in any location.  

 

My suggestion is not to try to see all three places in 1 trip.  Do Antarctica in one trip and the Falklands / South Georgia in another trip although it will be hard to find a trip that will do just these 2 islands.

...

DON

 

Thank you DON.  As always I appreciate your comments. 

 

I wondered about this exact issue.  What you are writing makes sense.  Doing too many places in one trip will degrade the experience of the trip.  Ceteris paribus, I too would rather do two smaller trip than one twice as long trip.

 

A few comments and questions:

 

(1)  Although I agree with your premise that one should not do too much on a single trip because "you don't get enough time in any one location", is this true in this case?  By your calculations, you'd get only 7 days in Antarctica. But isn't that the same or even more than most Antarctic cruises to the Antarctic Peninsula?  

 

(2)  Are there many trips to just Falkland Islands (FI) and South Georgia (SG)?  I've noticed that most trips to FI & SG are combined with either a trip to Antarctic Peninsula, or are visited during the repositioning between the Arctic and Antarctic regions in Oct and Mar/Apr.  FI is also visited on larger vessels between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso.  But there do not appear to be too many cruises to just FI & SG.  And I would be interested in taking such a cruise.

 

(3)  A cruise that includes FI has less of an appeal to visit by a ship than SG, since FI can be explored independently by flying into Mount Pleasant from the UK or Chile, whereas SG has no airport.  Thus, I am OK with missing FI on a cruise.  Nonetheless, in your view do you believe that the ratio of time in FI:SG that you've had, 3:8 is appropriate?  Or would you have prefered a different ratio?  How would you ideally divide 11 net days between the two island groups?

 

Thank you!

[antarcticanewbies]

On 3/8/2023 at 4:31 AM, pdmlynek said:

Thanks for letting us know how you decided.  We'll be looking for a trip report when you get back, if you are up for it.

We go in January and will report back, thanks again...

[PerfectlyPerth]

On 3/8/2023 at 4:03 PM, pdmlynek said:

 

(2)  Are there many trips to just Falkland Islands (FI) and South Georgia (SG)?  I've noticed that most trips to FI & SG are combined with either a trip to Antarctic Peninsula, or are visited during the repositioning between the Arctic and Antarctic regions in Oct and Mar/Apr.  FI is also visited on larger vessels between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso.  But there do not appear to be too many cruises to just FI & SG.  And I would be interested in taking such a cruise.

 

Just FYI - Oceanwide has an offering of an itinerary that is only FI & SGI. (Not sure if link will be removed here so just go to their website and look at the newest itineraries). 
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/antarctica/cruises/hds21-24-south-georgia-grand-tour