Review of Atlas World Traveller

[Bruce4fun]

Quick review of Atlas from my views. Ship is excellent, lovely design. Very comfortable cabins. Large balconies. Great bath and best shower ever with body sprays!

We did circumnavigation of Svalbard for 11 nights in August. Daytime 24 hours.

Expedition staff are quite good, some better than others however. Odd thing is ship Captain and expedition leader are both Russian. We loved the small ship, personal interaction with staff and guests. Met lots of fun people. Varied crowd onboard for sure.

Zodiac landings in Svalbard were good. We saw a dozen Polar bears, whales, puffins, Reindeer, Arctic Fox. Thousands of birds. Beluga Whales.
Beautiful location in Northern Norway. Hundreds of Glaciers. We went all the way to Polar Ice cap above 81*.

Crew mostly go out of their way to be fun and helpful. Cruise director had a lovely voice and entertained often. Piano singer nightly in observation lounge. Not any other entertainment really, but not expected on expedition ship.

 

There were some issues with dining imho. The staff tried hard, but orders were mixed up, courses came in wrong order, table served at different times.

The Maitre d' addressed our concerns, but issues continued. Food was overall good, not excellent. Not up to Seabourn or Regent standards. Meats overcooked, ingredients drenched with balsalmic vinegar(they own vineyards).Wines were screwcap variety and few in number to choose from. Nice to have included cocktails as well. Those were much better than the wines. I am not an expert, but all the wines could be bought for $10-20 at shops.

There is only 1 dining room with buffet lunch and breakfast. Good selection, but some odd choices like Mongolian beef with french fries for dinner?

Excellent Vegan and Vegetarian selections all the time.

 

I often judge chefs by soup, and they were bland and average every night and day. Lots of variety, but not very good.

 

Paulas Pantry had coffees and snacks all day. Great baristas. The pastel de Nata were just ok, quite dense and not fluffy like in Portugal and on Crystal.

Most pastries onboard were frozen and not made onboard, breads were excellent and cooked from scratch.

 

I would recommend them to Antarctica and Arctic, prices are good value. Not sure they would be a good experience for Med, etc. They can however get into really small places other ships cannot.

Overall a B+.

[Primus]

We were also on this 11-day circumnavigation of Svalbard cruise on the World Traveller and had an overall A+ experience.  It exceeded our expectations.  The scenery and wildlife were spectacular.  The very first briefing was interrupted due to a large pod of belugas swimming towards the ship.  That was a sign of what was to come. Viewing large waterfalls flowing from glaciers, watching calving glaciers from our zodiac, spotting our first white rainbow, being close enough to walruses to see them blink, watching juvenile polar bears playing in the water, participating in a polar plunge above 80 degrees north, and watching and listening to ice breaking beneath and alongside the ship, were just some of what we experienced.  Animal sightings included 12 polar bears across 3 different locations, hundreds of walruses, plus arctic foxes, reindeer, bearded seals, and harbor seals.  The quantity and variety of arctic birds was amazing.  Our favorite birds were the guillemots and kittiwakes.  During one zodiac cruise along the base of cliffs we saw over 60,000 mating pairs of guillemots, plus their offspring, plus other birds, plus arctic foxes.  We even saw a glaucous gull kill a baby guillemot.  We were often off the ship twice a day with some planned landings changed to zodiac cruising due to spotting of polar bears in the area. No specific route was followed by the individual zodiacs giving the expedition team members the freedom and opportunity to explore with the guests.  They seemed to be having as much fun as us.  On our down time we liked to watch the birds and ice go by while bunded up for a walk on the top deck or soaking in the 95-degree heated pool.

There were super friendly, happy, and helpful officers and staff throughout the ship. It was a very team-oriented environment with staff often stepping up to help others.  The knowledgeable expedition team was readily available to answer any question.  The open bridge and engine room tours were nice additions. 

Dining can really make or break a cruise, at least for us.  I’d rate our previous Epicurean cruise on the World Traveller as a B primarily due to the food.  This time our dining experience was excellent but we did meet others on board that were not as satisfied.  We quickly figured out our favorites among the dining staff and we were very happy with almost all of our dinner selections.  Our food was well prepared and presented and the timing of the four courses was consistently spot on.  Still not thrilled with a different country theme each night though, especially starting with American.  A dinner highlight was the night the chef prepared cod caught by the captain earlier that day.  We ordered from the menu for breakfast and generally from one of the two chef stations at lunch.  The pastries and breads were excellent and there was a nice variety throughout the cruise.  We only had a couple issues with breakfast.  We didn't care for the bacon (it was too thick and hard) and the omelettes rarely matched what we ordered.  There were two lunch highlights to mention.  The chef was happy to make special dishes which we took advantage of twice. Eating a BBQ lunch on the top deck above 80 degrees north with everyone bundled in parkas for those brave enough to eat in the cold was a memorable experience.

 

We plan to continue expedition cruising on small ships and this itinerary with Atlas is likely one we will want to repeat. 

 

[lkloc]

Thanks for both reviews! I'll be on the Voyager maiden voyage Nov 8 to Antarctica. First cruise, so nothing to compare it to but we have high hopes! Very excited!