If clients don’t fancy joining the millions cruising the Med or Baltic, send them on an expedition cruise. Only the adventurous need apply.
By Jane Archer.

 
What are the main reasons your clients won’t consider going on a cruise? That it’s not very adventurous? Too formal? Too regimented? The ships are too big and full of old people?

If they quote just one of these excuses, they are prime candidates for an expedition cruise to one of the more remote places on the planet.

They are certainly adventurous – even today very few people can say they have been to the polar regions, sailed around the Galapagos islands, through the Northwest Passage or cruised the Kamchatka Peninsula (in fact, most people probably can’t even locate the latter on a map).

Ships that go off the beaten track are small, attract people who might not be in their first flush but are certainly young at heart, looking for an adventure and prepared to expect the unexpected.

While luxury lines such as Silversea and Seabourn have jumped into the market, they offer an adventurous experience that has stayed faithful to the expedition philosophy.

So on board you find expedition teams of botanists, naturalists and geologists who lecture about the flora, fauna and geology of the places being visited instead of a troupe of singers and dancers and glitzy shows. They also lead trips ashore – usually landing by inflatable craft on to beaches or rocks.

Clients heading to the Galapagos will need beach shoes for wet landings; those packing for Antarctica or the Arctic need to swap posh suits and frocks with jumpers, woolly hats, scarves and gloves. Many cruise lines sailing to the White Continent have Wellington boots for hire (either complimentary or for a charge); if not, clients will need those too.

Expedition cruises are not cheap – a 10-day voyage around Spitsbergen on Silversea’s Silver Explorer in June 2016 costs from £5,150 per person excluding flights, Ponant’s 10-night Emblematic Antarctica cruise departing in December 2016 costs from €5,860 per person excluding flights.

However, if the usual cruising paradigm works – that once people have taken their first holiday at sea, they will be back for another – everyone’s a winner. The client has found a holiday to love, agents earn good commission and the cruise industry has hooked a new follower.

Pole to pole

The polar regions are the top choices when it comes to expedition cruising thanks to nature documentaries on TV, Disney’s film Happy Feet and the excitement of following in the footsteps of explorers such as Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Cruise lines heading to the South Pole mainly sail around the Antarctic Peninsular, allowing passengers to go ashore and walk on the snow among the penguins. For those who want to explore deeper into the ice, Quark Expeditions has a few cruises that go south of the Antarctic Circle.

Most visitors to Antarctica are cruising on small ships that hold 500 passengers or less, as they are the only ones allowed to operate landings (the likes of Holland America Line and Azamara Club Cruises can cruise to the peninsular but only offer sightseeing voyages).

Passengers can also stay ashore only one hour, which is usually quite long enough as landing sites are small and there are tight restrictions on where they can walk.

Antarctica cruises are usually 10 days round-trip from Ushuaia in Argentina, but there are longer cruises that take in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, to see where Shackleton is buried, and the South Shetland Islands.

Starting September 2016, Hurtigruten is basing a second ship in the region and offering new two-week cruises to the White Continent from Punta Arenas in Chile (see news, pxx). Also new, Ponant’s new ship Le Lyrial makes its Antarctica debut in winter 2016/17 and will be one of three sister ships the French company has in the region.

Where Antarctica is all about penguins and visited in our winter (the austral summer), the Arctic is the land of the polar bear and visited in summer. Expedition teams take trips ashore here too, but only once they have made sure the area is clear of prowling bears. Once on land, it is important passengers keep together under the protection of armed guides.

Most cruise lines visiting the Arctic can get as far as the northern edge of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago; for clients with deep pockets in search of the ultimate extreme adventure, Quark has voyages to the North Pole on Russia nuclear icebreaker 50 Years of Victory.

The vessel carries just 128 passengers; at the North Pole they can celebrate with a ride in a helicopter or hot air balloon over the snowy wastes. From $28,745/£18,467 per person for 14 nights departing June 26 2016 including pre and post cruise nights in Helsinki and return flights from Helsinki to Murmansk. International flights are not included.

Quark also has an extreme adventure cruises in the Arctic on Kapitan Khlebnikov that take passengers through the Northeast Passage (across the top of Russia). From $29,995/£19,270 per person for 26 days cruising from Anadyr in Russia to Longyearbyen in Spitsbergen departing July 10 2016.

For clients who have cruised the poles, suggest Greenland or the Northwest Passage, the sea route from Canada to Greenland discovered by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on an expedition between 1903 and 1906, and offered by the likes of Ponant, Quark and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.

There are also expedition cruises around Iceland that nip and out of fjords and visit Akuyeryi for excursions to Lake Mytavn and to see boiling mud pool and steaming sulphur pits. From €2,860 per person for a seven-night voyage round-trip from Reykjavik with Ponant departing July 27 2016.

Turn up the heat

But adventure cruising does not have to mean icebergs, snow and ice – and clients are not restricted to choosing an ocean voyage.

Aqua Expeditions, Avalon Waterways and Rainforest Cruises, for instance, have adventure cruises on the upper Amazon River, where passengers can walk through the jungle, visit native villages and see monkeys, piranha fish, pink river dolphins, and exotic birds, and much more. Starting October, US-based Haimark is launching seven-night voyages on the Peruvian Amazon round-trip from Iquitos on the new 44-passenger Amazon Discovery (see pxx).

Clients can get up close to exotic birds and giant tortoises on Variety Cruises’ seven-night voyages around the Seychelles on the 46-passenger Pegasus, sold in the UK by Seafarer Cruises and Saga Cruises.

Silversea and Celebrity Cruises are among companies that offer voyages around the Galapagos, an archipelago of islands 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador where visitors can get up close to the animals as they have no fear of humans.

Ships sailing in the Galapagos are allowed a maximum 100 passengers – many are a lot smaller – and visit two landing sites each day so folk can see a good cross-section of wildlife, from giant tortoises and marine iguanas to booby birds and lava lizards. From £4,450 per person cruise-only departing October 10 for a seven-night cruise plus two nights in Quito and return flights between Ecuador and the islands.

In the Pacific, Silversea has expedition cruises in Alaska, Japan, in Eastern Russia (including to the Kamchatka Peninsula), and the Kimberley – for those still looking, it’s in Northern Australia – on the 100-passenger Silver Discoverer.

Clients choosing the Kimberley cruise will fly over the beehive-like Bungle Bungle mountain range, splash through the Horizontal Falls on Zodiacs and see the spectacle of seeing the Montgomery Reef appear to rise out of the water. From £6,550 per person cruise-only for a 10-day voyage from Darwin to Broome including all soft and alcoholic beverages and gratuities.

Hurtigruten goes exploring in Norway

Hurtigruten has revamped its Norwegian coastal voyage programme to offer more expedition-style cruises for those in search of adventure.

Starting January 2016, three of Hurtigruten’s working ships (Nordnorge, Nordkapp and Nordlys) will be sailing the coastal voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes and back with an expedition team on board who will organise hikes and lecture about everything from the local flora and fauna to Viking history and climate change.

Prices are the same as the traditional coastal voyage – from £689 per person cruise-only for a seven-day Classic Voyage North from Bergen to Kirkenes departing November 21 2016 – but clients will have to buy a hiking pass, payable locally.