MS Roald Amundsen Cruise Reviews

OUR ADVICE: CHOOSE A DIFFERENT COMPANY! Take your “inner explorer” elsewhere. We took the last cruise of the 2022 Antarctic season with Hurtigruten (Feb 28 to March 17). It turned out to be a COVID disaster for us and many others on the ship, MS Roald Amundsen, and Hurtigruten was completely disorganized, incompetent and unhelpful in its response. After two pandemic years avoiding infection with the virus, 11 days on the ship was enough time for us to come down with COVID. We believe, upon good information, that COVID came onto the ship through the incompetence (and greed) of Hurtigruten. Thirteen passengers bound for the cruise were on the same plane from Europe to Santiago. When antigen tested before boarding in Punta Arenas, two of those passengers tested positive for COVID and were turned away. The other 11 passengers from the same airplane did not test positive and, despite exposure to COVID from the two who were positive, were allowed to board the ship without any further restrictions or period of quarantine. That we believe is how the virus arrived on the Amundsen. Further, no efforts were made to enforce masking or social distancing on board. For example in the so-called Explorer Lounge, passengers would enter wearing masks but as soon as they were seated, usually within six feet of other non-affiliated passengers, they would remove the masks in order to consume coffee, etc. Thus an airborne disease is allowed to spread through a confined space. By day 11, both my wife and I tested positive and were sent to the so-called “Red Zone” on level four for quarantine. (I should say here that not everyone who was positive for COVID was sent to the Red Zone, since Hurtigruten soon ran out of space there and thus allowed some passengers to quarantine in their more comfortable original quarters.) Despite our many requests for information about the state of the illness on board so that we could understand what protective measures to take (e.g., remaining in our cabin), such as the number of infected passengers, Hurtigruten refused to give any information, claiming that such information was confidential which is of course absurd because we were not asking for the names of the ill passengers. For those infected who were sent to the Red Zone, food was delivered to us cold and often inedible and by the end of our stay there, on sodden paper plates. Two times in each 24 hour period, we were allowed to go onto an outside deck of the back of the ship, filled with ship machinery, with other ill passengers for “fresh air”. I am 70 years old and my wife is in her 60s. Despite that, only once, early in our confinement in the Red Zone, did the incompetent so-called ship’s doctor knock at our door to determine if we were still alive; he appeared fully decked out in a HazMat suit, did not offer to enter our quarters and did not check our vital signs or even apply a pulse oximeter to determine if we were oxygenating appropriately. As we arrived again in Punta Arenas, letters were distributed to the ship’s passengers. Incredibly enough, the letters conveyed the information that those passengers who did not get COVID, would be compensated by receiving either (passenger choice) a 40% reduction on a future Hurtigruten cruise or a 15% refund from the amount paid for the current cruise. Those of us who were infected with COVID on the ship were offered just one thing—-the advice to seek compensation from our travel insurance! I had several calls with members of the staff on the Amundsen about the crazy inequity of this arrangement and was told that it was a decision made by Hurtigruten corporate headquarters. Insult followed injury. When the passengers were disembarked from the ship, the uninfected passengers went first, having been told to place their luggage outside the door of their cabin to be transferred by the staff to the buses awaiting below. Those of us who were sick/infected, having waited to leave our cabin until after the well were removed, had to carry our own bags to the first level and out to the buses. Imagine, the well were not to carry their bags but the sick had to do so. Very typical of the Hurtigruten experience. We were then taken by bus (35 COVID positive passengers—-we counted) to a “COVID quarantine hotel” (awful—-see our review on Trip Adviser). There we waited in queue for an hour in the cold outside (again, sick elderly people!) to be allowed to check in. I will not go into detail about the terrible COVID hotel experience except to say that Hurtigruten refused to pay for any part of it, and we were charged an additional 50% for early check-in at 11 am. We were told that there would be a “team” of Hurtigruten representatives at the hotel to facilitate; there was a single port agent who was not a Hurtigruten employee and did nothing whatsoever to “facilitate” anything. The final insult was that due to our need for additional quarantine time (Chile requires 7 days after a positive test), we missed the charter flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago that we had previously paid for as part of the Hurtigruten package so we had to purchase our own air tickets which of course Hurtigruten took no responsibility for, since we had made the mistake of getting COVID on their ship and thus obviously could not get on their charter flight. DO NOT TAKE A HURTIGRUTEN CRUISE!

We have just returned from what was advertised as a 12 day sailing on Hurtigruten‘s new ship Roald Amundsen and what turned out to be a 10 day trip, to Svalbard, Greenland and Iceland. We are a married couple in our late 50s and early 70s from the UK and have travelled on over 30 cruises including 2 Hurtigruten Norwegian coastal voyages which we loved for their simplicity and variety and very reasonable pricing. We had originally booked on Fridjof Nansen the sister ship but this was cancelled as the ship is not yet ready. When my husband made the new booking for Roald Amundsen he was told there were no connecting flights available yet but would become available if we looked on the website. We were so pleased to see an announcement that flights and transfers were now available for U.K. passengers for £99 per person. When I rang to book these we were told that this price was for new passengers only and that our price would be £454 per person. We eventually felt we had no choice but to pay this. We had a very long flight to join the the ship in Longyearbyen - we left our home in Leicestershire at 10 am on the Friday morning and finally boarded the ship just after 5 am on the Saturday morning. I had previously asked Hurtigruten if we would be able to sleep on board that night and they said of course we would. This was not true. As a great and very welcome surprise to me my husband had upgraded us to a suite. We were supposed to have a priority champagne check in. This didn’t happen and we carried our own luggage on and queued in various places until we were able to check in, it was chaotic and not a good start after such a long journey. We finally got the card keys for our suite on deck 8 (841). This was one of the highs. A light spacious room with comfortable seating and a large set of French doors to a clear glass balcony, other suite and cabins towards the middle of deck have a metal fronted balcony because of the red stripe on the ship branding it ‘Hurtigruten’; this is not mentioned in the publicity literature or reflected in price differences. There was ample storage throughout and an excellent bathroom with heated floor and with a spacious glass doored shower. The huge advantage to having a suite is free laundry so when we arrived home we had little washing to do. We had been assigned breakfast and 5 out of 10 dinners in the speciality restaurant Lindstrøm. Lunch could be taken in the self-service Aune main restaurant or the free to us, but not other passengers, Fredheim restaurant. Breakfasts in Lindstrøm were always excellent - great service and choice. Dinner in Lindstrøm is from an a la carte menu with an amuse bouche, starter, main course and dessert - the main problem is that it did not change throughout the cruise - I don’t like fish and that left my choices even more limited - I ended up having the same beef main course three times and eventually left most of it. Service, however, is excellent and suite guests get free wine with lunch and dinner which is good quality and free flowing. We often had lunch in Fredheim which serves ‘street food’ - burgers, dumplings, sausages, tortillas, crepes etc - tasty, good quality and excellent service. However, the menu never changed and we got tired of eating the same food for lunch and for 4 dinners out of the 5 we had no table in Lindstrøm. We were assigned a table in Aune for the 6pm sitting for those 5 nights and went the first night. It was a chaotic buffet with no menus, huge queues with people pushing in. The order of food did not resemble standard eating. It started with ‘main’ courses served tapas style in tiny bowls, followed by soup, then two salad selections and then a very limited dessert selection. The main courses were cold but the food was good quality. On my first trip I gave up because of the queues and the strange selection. I went again later and got bread and a small salad. We didn’t go again for dinner but did go 3 times for lunch as Fredheim had got boring. The experience was similar. The ship itself is one of the highs - public areas are tastefully decorated in Scandi style, think upmarket IKEA not luxury cruise ship. The Explorer Lounge is the only inside bar and observation lounge. It is spacious with a wide range of seating and we were almost always able to sit where we wanted to. Bar staff are excellent and soon got to know names and preferences and always had a warm friendly welcome. Drinks prices are comparable with bar prices at home - a large gin and tonic being 7€. Downstairs on Deck 6 is the Science Centre where there were a wide range of lectures and talks on the next day’s itinerary. The lectures were generally well-presented and informative. The next day talks were fun and interesting but gave little concrete information about the next day and we had to wait for a late night or early morning delivery of a paper copy of the ship’s daily programme to find out concrete details which made planning difficult. The talks in English were generally held at 9.30 pm which seemed late and interrupted the evening. We had expected an action packed itinerary (we had to get a medical declaration of good health for the trip - this was problematic as our GP refused to complete and we had to go for private consultation which cost £200 for 10 minutes, nothing was cheap about this trip!). In the ten days we got off the ship 5 times on the RIBs. There were 3 x 90 minute walks on land - two hikes in beautiful countryside and guided by red flags not the explorer staff and one landing in the beautiful, isolated settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit. These were highlights but short and the rest of the day was spent sitting around. They were done in rotations of groups of about 100 - some got off early at 8.30 am, some had to wait all day till as late 4.30 - 5 pm. There was a spectacular trip in the RIB around the icebergs in the Bjørne Islands but this was only an hour and the member of the explorer staff accompanying us had to be asked questions rather than offering information; he wasn’t a specialist though he was friendly. The last day was a choice of excursions at our stop in Iceland. We chose the Highlights of Snaefellsnes. The tour was excellently organised, not by Hurtigruten, and very informative with a very knowledgeable guide. It was, however, very expensive at £144 for 5 1/2 hours. In all we felt we could have been offered more on such an expensive trip which led to long days. We fortunately had free WiFi to occupy our time and lots of reading matter. The WiFi is free for suite guests but 17€ a day otherwise. It was good in Longyearbyen and Iceland but intermittent elsewhere. We wouldn’t have paid extra for it. We booked the trip not only for the Arctic scenery but also for wildlife. We saw polar bears three times which was a great joy. We got good photographs and were pleased to see the bears looking healthy and well-nourished unlike the footage of lone bears on icebergs one sees in nature documentaries. We saw brief glimpses of various whales, a few seals and some birdlife though not nearly as much as we’d been expecting. When it came to our transfer to Reykjavík airport at the end of the cruise we were disappointed by the arrangements. We’d booked everything through Hurtigruten as we thought this would be efficient. Our flight was at 12.30 pm. We were told our transfer would be at 7 am for a 45 minute ride to the airport. We queried why it was so early. This was not well-received and we got the glib reply, “Well we have to clean the ship”. We knew the next group of passengers was boarding at 8 pm; it’s a new, spotless cruise ship. Larger ships we have been on manage to do the turnaround much quicker, often in less than two hours. We were told that we’d be called by deck at 7 am. In fact there was a general announcement for everyone on the 7 am transfer to leave the ship at 6.50 am. In conclusion was it a good trip? Yes, it was - the trip of a lifetime to see remote places and polar bears close up. Was it what were we’re promised in the itinerary? Not really. We were supposed to spend days 5 - 8 in the North East Greenland National Park. After our first day there at 10 pm a very serious captain told us that the Danish authorities wouldn’t allow it as we didn’t have a pilot, they are required for ships with over 250 passengers - Hurtigruten should have known this. Our alternative was days spent in the beautiful Scoresbysund. We didn’t feel we’d missed out but many passengers did. Would we do it again? Very unsure about this - a good cruise but it could have been so much more. Hurtigruten must do better with this beautiful ship and her attentive staff.