5. Life on board

Now that we have been on board a couple of days the day to day routine is becoming more defined. Breakfast and lunch are both open seating whilst dinner is at a set time unless there are special circumstances and the rest of the day revolves around the time spent stopping in each port.

As I have mentioned before, this is not a cruise in the conventional sense. We did a fair amount of research before booking and so nothing I will describe below is a surprise to us but anyone who comes on this trip expecting luxury, entertainment and non stop food is going to be very disappointed.

The ship is carrying 380 passengers, the majority being British but with a fair number of Germans and a smattering of other nationalities. We are certainly amongst the younger ones on board but all those on the voyage appear to be experienced and seasoned travellers.

There are 5 working decks, as follows..

Deck 3- has the reception and is the car deck.

Deck 4- has the main restaurant, a cafeteria which is open 24 hours, the expedition team desk, a small shop and a lounge area reserved mainly for talks and presentations.

Decks 5 and 6- are both exclusively for accommodation .

Deck 7- has a very large panoramic lounge and a bar, also with sweeping views.

There are outside viewing areas on decks 5,6 and 7, deck 5 being the walk around promenade deck.

There is nothing to speak of in the way of organised entertainment although one of the expedition team is supposed to be singing in the bar later tonight and a quiz night is promised. Having said that, who needs entertaining when the view out of the panoramic lounge is like watching a 24 hour National Geographic channel, especially as we seem to sail just a couple of hundred metres or so from the coastline for most of the way.

The expedition team gives talks throughout the day as and when we pass a point of interest and in addition gives a daily talk at 5pm with an update on progress, weather, northern lights forecasts etc.

The cabins are small and functional with two single fold down beds, and storage and moving around inside require military planning and precision. But again, the cabins are only used for sleeping so it is not an issue.

Having a small number of passengers has definite advantages, the main one being that there is no queuing for anything, not at mealtimes, not getting on or off the ship, not ever. The crew numbers around 60, all Norwegian and many, especially the waiting and cleaning staff, appear to be doing sandwich courses or taking a gap year.

All in all its a very different kind of holiday!