Hurtigruten MS Fridjoft Nansen November 13, 2023 - Antarctica

[Drinkpackageplease]

Quick Trip Report: 

1st time traveling with Hurtigruten. 2nd time on a cruise. 1st time to Antarctica.  

 

PROs

• Booked via the Norwegian site per the recommendation of others and saved at least 15%.
• Emparador Hotel in BA was nice - so is that tasty exchange rate if you use an american credit card.  
• Ship was very nice and so was the staff.  Happy to have the gym and walking track.      
• We're not too picky, so the food and drinks seemed pretty good to us.  Especially the $6 daily drink specials (tasty). 
• Room 531 was nice.  Thought it would be noisy being so close to the stairs...but nope.  It was mid-ship which helped w/Drake swells.
• Drake had +20 foot swells...but Bonine is a miracle drug.  I took it as we left the dock and it worked like a champ.  Lots of other folks were sick. 
• Had 3 perfect weather days for landing, kayaking, etc.  Beautiful scenery...just wow.  Penguins are very stinky BTW.
• Putting on the excursion lifevest was an IQ test that I failed 3 days in a row. 

 

CONs

• Had picked a mid-ship deck 4 room 9 months prior during booking (I get really seasick).  Room was unavailable at check-in and they offered a room right at the bow.  Nope.  We had to ask for a manager to get it straightened out.  Then they lost our luggage for a while...
• Trip was cut short after 3 perfect days in Antarctica due to a serious injury (heard it was hot tub related).  High-tailed it back to Ushuaia and remained docked there for 3 days (they offered a few excursions).  The Dublin bar there is fun.
• We decided to fly back to Buenos Aires early and do day trips rather than stay in Ushuaia (Uruguay, Iguazu).    
• Hurtigruten offered a 10% discount on the trip total or 30% off a future trip.  Not sure if that's a PRO or CON as they weren't responsible for the injury (according to them).  Any insight? 

 

We definitely recommend a cruise to Antarctica.  

 

John / Erika

[tashaaa]

Thank you, for your trip report 😊
I’m looking forward for my trip highlights of Antarctica in dec 2024. Actually tomorrow one year we will be in Buenos Aires, I’m already excited. 

did you go kayaking? Was the ship sailing at full capacity, or did you have the opportunity to go on land more? 

Did Hurtigruten arrange the flight change for you, because you left early?

I am looking for staying in Ushuaia after the cruise, we have already arrange the plane ticket from Hurtigruten, but maybe we can stay 2 days longer. Need to speak with them. 
 

I also reserved the cruise via Norwegian site, it really was cheaper 🙂 so nice that this forum exists and we get a lot of useful information. 

[CDNPolar]

1 hour ago, Drinkpackageplease said:

Quick Trip Report: 

1st time traveling with Hurtigruten. 2nd time on a cruise. 1st time to Antarctica.  

 

PROs

• Booked via the Norwegian site per the recommendation of others and saved at least 15%.
• Emparador Hotel in BA was nice - so is that tasty exchange rate if you use an american credit card.  
• Ship was very nice and so was the staff.  Happy to have the gym and walking track.      
• We're not too picky, so the food and drinks seemed pretty good to us.  Especially the $6 daily drink specials (tasty). 
• Room 531 was nice.  Thought it would be noisy being so close to the stairs...but nope.  It was mid-ship which helped w/Drake swells.
• Drake had +20 foot swells...but Bonine is a miracle drug.  I took it as we left the dock and it worked like a champ.  Lots of other folks were sick. 
• Had 3 perfect weather days for landing, kayaking, etc.  Beautiful scenery...just wow.  Penguins are very stinky BTW.
• Putting on the excursion lifevest was an IQ test that I failed 3 days in a row. 

 

CONs

• Had picked a mid-ship deck 4 room 9 months prior during booking (I get really seasick).  Room was unavailable at check-in and they offered a room right at the bow.  Nope.  We had to ask for a manager to get it straightened out.  Then they lost our luggage for a while...
• Trip was cut short after 3 perfect days in Antarctica due to a serious injury (heard it was hot tub related).  High-tailed it back to Ushuaia and remained docked there for 3 days (they offered a few excursions).  The Dublin bar there is fun.
• We decided to fly back to Buenos Aires early and do day trips rather than stay in Ushuaia (Uruguay, Iguazu).    
• Hurtigruten offered a 10% discount on the trip total or 30% off a future trip.  Not sure if that's a PRO or CON as they weren't responsible for the injury (according to them).  Any insight? 

 

We definitely recommend a cruise to Antarctica.  

 

John / Erika

 

Wow...  Sorry to hear that you headed back early.  We were 16-17 hours into our departure from Ushuaia and had to return for a broken hip fall in the Drake Passage.  

 

It is not uncommon for the ship to return whether it is caused by the ship or not.  If the medical situation is too much for the ship to deal with or life threatening, they turn back.  This is just something that you must accept when you book an excursion like this.  There is no help closer than 2-3 days of travel.

 

Every cruise line is going to have a different offer for something like this.

 

I bet if you read in detail your cruise contract, that it states that you may cut short for medical reasons, but in general they don't 100% promise or guarantee any landings or kayaking, etc., it is based on weather.  We lost one day to weather and only had four good days, you got three.

 

Legally, I don't think that Hurtigruten owe you anything, but if you take the 10% is that on the total cost of your just finished trip?  In cash?

 

Do you plan to sail with Hurtigruten again to take advantage of the 30%?  
 

 

[Drinkpackageplease]

Hi Tashaaa & CDN.  Thx for the responses. 

 

We tried to answer a few of your questions below:

• Yes we went kayaking.  We were lucky to get chosen in the lottery for a spot on a kayak.  They had 5 kayaking groups that went out over 3 days.  We were on the last one.
• The ship's cabins were mostly full (350 passengers) - however it didn't feel that way as many passengers were traveling solo so we didn't hit full capacity of ~500.
• We booked our escape flight back to BA on our own.  Hurtigruten was not offering to change flights due to the sheer # of folks impacted. 
• The 10% discount is based on what we paid for the cruise (excl. flight/excursions/etc.).  Here's the detail from their offer letter: 

  Option 1) Receive a Future Cruise Voucher 

  You have the choice to receive a Future Cruise Voucher towards a new expedition. The voucher is valued at 30% of your current sailing price (excluding international flights, pre/post programmes and arrival/departure packages). 

   

  To redeem the voucher, the new booking must be made for sailings that depart before 31 December 2025. If the booking is made whilst onboard or before the end of 2023, you may combine your Future Cruise Voucher with the standard onboard discount (which we will continue to honour) and any applicable loyalty offers and benefits. The Future Cruise Voucher may not be combined with other discounts or offers. 

   

  Hurtigruten Expeditions’ general terms and conditions will apply to your booking. The voucher cannot be exchanged for cash.  To register for your Future Cruise Voucher, please contact us using the phone number or email address found below. 

   

  Option 2) Request a Partial Refund 

  You can receive a partial refund worth 10% of your paid sailing price (excluding international flights, pre/post programmes and arrival/departure packages). 

• We're not sure which option we will end up picking - and we hope the info helps others.  

 

Though we do not know if there was any liability on their part for the injury, we do appreciate they reached out with an offer.  We also hope the injured passenger has a speedy recovery.    

[PghCruiser84]

Wow, after hearing these stories, I’m thankful for just how lucky we got. We took the same Hurtigruten cruise on 11/23 and got a Drake Passage with 10 foot waves both directions, five days of absolutely perfect weather for landings where every planned activity got to happen, and last but not least, we won the lottery for the camping, which was the only activity we really wanted.

 

Thank you for the review, and I’m sorry your trip got cut short. I hope the injured passenger is okay.

 

Agree on the Emperador in BA, it is a fantastic hotel. We actually splurged and stayed an extra night there on the way home. They even held onto one of our bags for 10 days (of items we wouldn’t need for the cruise) so that we could meet the baggage allowance for the charter flight to Ushuaia.

[Wildcat85]

PGHCruiser84- Wow I was on the 11/23 Antarctica sailing too and had the best time of my life!  I went camping as well. I guess 10 foot waves are mild cause the captain said we were lucky both ways. 
 

We also had lots of solo travelers due to the waiver of the single supplement. It made the ship less crowded and was nice for those of us to be able to connect. 
 

I got a corner suite at BA Emperador which was gorgeous. Too bad wasn’t there long to enjoy. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Wildcat85

[mlgb]

Did you find your passengers were about 40% Chinese? We have 100 of 250 passengers Chinese. They line up before the dining room opens so they can have all of the window seats. Plus they can enjoy a leisurely evening meal as the Chinese language briefing does not start until 8:15pm. The rest of us can gobble down dinner in 20 minutes to make a 6:30 briefing or get stuck sitting along the back wall. 

 

Tomorrow is forecast to be our first day of good weather but there is no plan for anyone who doesn't have any special excursion out in the morning.( Despite missing one zodiac and one landing, one zodiac in heavy snow and one landing today in high winds and on ice.)So our first good morning and we are stuck on the ship.

 

I am being asked to recommend or not Hurtigruten to a travel agent friend.  I would  first want to know if this preference to the Chinese market is true of all of their cruises. 

 

 

[PghCruiser84]

On 12/19/2023 at 5:32 PM, mlgb said:

Did you find your passengers were about 40% Chinese? We have 100 of 250 passengers Chinese. They line up before the dining room opens so they can have all of the window seats. Plus they can enjoy a leisurely evening meal as the Chinese language briefing does not start until 8:15pm. The rest of us can gobble down dinner in 20 minutes to make a 6:30 briefing or get stuck sitting along the back wall. 

 

Tomorrow is forecast to be our first day of good weather but there is no plan for anyone who doesn't have any special excursion out in the morning.( Despite missing one zodiac and one landing, one zodiac in heavy snow and one landing today in high winds and on ice.)So our first good morning and we are stuck on the ship.

 

I am being asked to recommend or not Hurtigruten to a travel agent friend.  I would  first want to know if this preference to the Chinese market is true of all of their cruises. 

 

 

No. Very few Chinese passengers on the 11/23 sailing. The other languages things were presented in were German and French.

[PghCruiser84]

On 12/19/2023 at 5:32 PM, mlgb said:

Did you find your passengers were about 40% Chinese? We have 100 of 250 passengers Chinese. They line up before the dining room opens so they can have all of the window seats. Plus they can enjoy a leisurely evening meal as the Chinese language briefing does not start until 8:15pm. The rest of us can gobble down dinner in 20 minutes to make a 6:30 briefing or get stuck sitting along the back wall. 

 

Tomorrow is forecast to be our first day of good weather but there is no plan for anyone who doesn't have any special excursion out in the morning.( Despite missing one zodiac and one landing, one zodiac in heavy snow and one landing today in high winds and on ice.)So our first good morning and we are stuck on the ship.

 

I am being asked to recommend or not Hurtigruten to a travel agent friend.  I would  first want to know if this preference to the Chinese market is true of all of their cruises. 

 

 

I’ll add that you have the option to reserve dinner times, correct? Why not book dinner for a later time, after the briefing or something? You could go at 7:30 or something like that and avoid some of what you’re talking about.

 

With that being said, I don’t think it’s fair at all to say Hurtigruten has a “preference to the Chinese market”, as this just doesn’t check out as far as my experience and seems borderline xenophobic (and this is coming from someone who is frequently frustrated with the way a lot of Chinese travelers operate in a lot of tourist settings).

[Host Jazzbeau]

I can understand @mlgb's reaction.  Any large affinity group, especially one with different cultural expectations that yours, will tend to dominate the resources on a cruise.  We had a similar problem on Ponant, where the Francophones ran roughshod over us Anglophones.  I think Ponant was trying to be even-handed, but the Francophone passengers just ignored us and pushed ahead.

[mlgb]

No reservations in either main dining. First come first serve. There's a third restaurant for suites guests. Don't know how they do it but the menu is the same. 

Last night I lined up 10 minutes before opening and as it was buffet was able to serve myself ahead of the crush, gobble it down time to make the 6pm talk. 

 

Dinner ends at 8pm.

Edited December 24, 2023 by mlgb

[AlanCruise]

We were on Roald Amundsen, the sister ship, in Antarctica last Christmas. No significant chinese passengers. Presentations were in English and German, the vast majority of passengers being english speaking - Many from UK, US and Australia.

[mlgb]

38 minutes ago, AlanCruise said:

We were on Roald Amundsen, the sister ship, in Antarctica last Christmas. No significant chinese passengers. Presentations were in English and German, the vast majority of passengers being english speaking - Many from UK, US and Australia.

Thank you for that reply. Could be that specific sailings were held by Chinese oriented travel agency and then released when not booked ?   There was heavy  Black Friday promotion on Facebook  no solo supplement. And we are barely half full still.

I spoke to another passenger who booked early at higher price and when she saw the Black Friday advert was given that lower price. Good on  Hurtigruten (for living up to that part of their promise).

[mlgb]

1 hour ago, mlgb said:

No reservations in either main dining. First come first serve. There's a third restaurant for suites guests. Don't know how they do it but the menu is the same. 

Last night I lined up 10 minutes before opening and as it was buffet was able to serve myself ahead of the crush, gobble it down time to make the 6pm talk. 

 

Dinner ends at 8pm.

Internet is spotty so couldn't edit in time. 

It's a 6:30 talk, with dinner hours are 6 to 8 pm only.  Chinese presentation version is at 8:15pm. So they have time for a leisurely 90 minute dinner and freshen up. Rest of us gobble it down in less than 30 minutes or line up at 7:15 and wait for a table to open for the food that's been sitting for an hour.

 

If they would just shift our talk to 7 and give us a 6pm seating we would have a flying start even without a window seat 

 

Breakfast is fun to watch also.

Edited December 24, 2023 by mlgb

[Drinkpackageplease]

On our cruise we were asked to use the app to reserve a main dining room breakfast, lunch and dinner time based on availability. If you wanted to change it after making the online reservation you could by asking the main dining room host.  They were very accomodating with changes.

[PghCruiser84]

12 hours ago, mlgb said:

Internet is spotty so couldn't edit in time. 

It's a 6:30 talk, with dinner hours are 6 to 8 pm only.  Chinese presentation version is at 8:15pm. So they have time for a leisurely 90 minute dinner and freshen up. Rest of us gobble it down in less than 30 minutes or line up at 7:15 and wait for a table to open for the food that's been sitting for an hour.

 

If they would just shift our talk to 7 and give us a 6pm seating we would have a flying start even without a window seat 

 

Breakfast is fun to watch also.

Don’t the talks also get streamed to your cabin to watch later?

[mlgb]

In theory but it doesn't always happen.Second time only the Chinese uploaded (the night before the Weddell Sea).

 

Again last night before our first planned Falklands landing. Which had critical information such as rain forecast, no food off ship,  need to wear muck boots. Not all of this is available from another source. Mostly we have to find another passenger who went, or one of the Expedition Staff who are often busy.

 

I watched most of it streaming and then went down to a disappointing a la carte dinner (skip the porchetta entree!) 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by mlgb
Typo

[CDNPolar]

On 12/25/2023 at 9:23 AM, mlgb said:

In theory but it doesn't always happen.Second time only the Chinese uploaded (the night before the Weddell Sea).

 

Again last night before our first planned Falklands landing. Which had critical information such as rain forecast, no food off ship,  need to wear muck boots. Not all of this is available from another source. Mostly we have to find another passenger who went, or one of the Expedition Staff who are often busy.

 

I watched most of it streaming and then went down to a disappointing a la carte dinner (skip the porchetta entree!) 

 

 

 

I would think that you should have talked to Hurtigruten about putting the briefings sometime other than during the dinner period.  That is a miss on Hurtigruten's side as dinner should be relaxing.

 

My husband is Chinese and I have traveled to China several times now.  Chinese tourists are a force to be reckoned with and they travel extensively throughout China as well.  You just have to learn to go with the flow and if they were in line 15 minutes before dinner then you can go and line up 20 minutes before.  

 

This is not something to let ruin your cruise.  So what if you don't have a window table.  Not like you cannot see the sea from the lounge and other places in the dining room.

[mlgb]

Thank you again for your thoughtful reply. It had much less to do with the window seat than the fact that the choice was to either miss the evening briefing, and hope that it was recorded which it was not at least 3x, to go down before 6 and then gobble it down (and yes, some of us took to lining up 10 minutes ahead of the seating time), or to go after 7 when again you did not have even an hour as you waited for a seat to be vacated and then to be served.  What was most unfair was that one group had the full two hours to enjoy dinner (which is only from 6 to 8).

 

I did speak to many of the Expeditions staff about the recordings not posting. The second and third time that the recordings did not post one of their staff gave me an individual briefing. One of them replied that there had been some discussion in the back offices about the timings of the briefings.

 

From one of my conversations with a bilingual guest from Los Angeles, I understood that the Chinese were part of a tour group. It appeared that  nearly half the dining room was reserved (the entire back and port sections), but that didn't mean that some did not also occupy about half of the window seats on the starboard side. Very few European heritage passengers ever had a window seat at early dinner. Some took to abandoning the Aune dining room completely and having a burger at the casual place.

 

There was really no one to complain to about the timings. The two places I tried early on I got brushed off onto the Expedition staff about the recording issue.

 

The cruise was still a wonderful experience, thanks to the Expedition team (and my room steward). The breakfasts and lunches were good, it was dinner that was the big miss.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by mlgb
typos

[mlgb]

On 12/24/2023 at 5:25 PM, Drinkpackageplease said:

On our cruise we were asked to use the app to reserve a main dining room breakfast, lunch and dinner time based on availability. If you wanted to change it after making the online reservation you could by asking the main dining room host.  They were very accomodating with changes.

Not an option on our cruise. It was first come first serve. I was standing by the host stand once, and it seemed like they were directing some of the Chinese guests to another dining room (I could only understand a little of what was said, obviously).

Edited December 30, 2023 by mlgb