Expecting to Fly: Summing up the Prince Albert II

The ship and cabins:

The PAII is an expedition ship with an ice-strengthened hull. Silversea gutted the ship, increased the cabin size and rebuilt the ship to fit in with it’s fleet of small luxury ships. We really enjoyed the ship – it is well laid out and nicely decorated. Reception, boot room, expedition leader’s office and gangway are on deck 3. The light, airy restaurant is on deck 4 along with a small exercise room, small beauty salon and a self-service laundry. There is a unisex sauna and steam shower room on deck 6 with one massage room across the hall. There are two hot tubs on deck; no pool. There are two lounges – the Panorama Lounge on deck 5 aft where the main bar is located and the Observation Lounge on deck 6 forward. There is a large theater on deck 6 for lectures, briefings etc. The library/internet room, stocked with plenty of nature books, is on deck 5. (Given our position there was only rare Internet connection.)

silver suite

Maximum passenger capacity is 132. There are 66 suites ranging from 185 to 675 sq ft. All the suites have marble bathrooms, flat screen TV’s, wi-fi access, safes and stocked mini-bars. Our Silver Suite was lovely. At 460 sq. ft. it was the size of two regular cabins with a sitting room, spacious bath and enormous closet, (not just a walk-in, but a walk-through closet.) The bedroom and living area were divided by a sliding door, which I thought diminished the feeling of openness and size, but which we appreciated if one of us got up earlier than the other. The brown marble bathroom had a tub and separate shower, complete with a rain showerhead, a large elevated counter vessel sink and pale green accent pieces. The bed was very comfortable and the curtains adequately screened out the 24-hour daylight.

We toured all the cabins before we disembarked; the porthole cabins, located in the front of the ship on deck 3, were “cozy” as expected at 185 sq ft. Until you get into the larger suites the bathrooms are all the same with combo bathtub and shower. The Vista, View and Veranda suites are virtually the same, with the window size being the only difference; some have 2 chairs, some have a love seat couch which converts into a bed. The French balcony cuts a bit off the width of the veranda suites but they looked the same size as View and Vista. The Owners, Grand and Medallion Suites are on Deck 7. I liked the layout of the Medallion Suite (350 sq ft.), but felt that the Owners (626 sq. ft.) and Grand (675 sq. ft.) suites were too compartmentalized and did not feel at all spacious.

Food:

The food was very good with lots of variety. Breakfast & lunch were buffets, although they had an extensive menu you could order from for breakfast. They served tea at 4 PM and served tapas in the Panorama lounge over cocktails. At dinner the menu featured three appetizers, three "intermezzos" and three or four mains followed by a few desserts, including a lower fat option, plus cheese cart and ice cream. They liked to offer “trilogies” of things as one of the appetizers; one night it was duck done three ways, one night it was artichokes. Wines were so-so; a mix of South African (Footprint), California (Beringer chardonnay, Kendall Jackson sauvignon blanc), Australian and French whites; nothing terribly interesting offered for the daily pours, but you could always get a chardonnay (can't report on the reds.)

Staff and Service:

Overall I would give high ratings to all of the ship's staff; the dining room and bar staff were friendly, efficient and remembered your preferences. They could have used a few more housekeepers as frequently our room was not made up until well after the morning’s excursion. Our Indian butler was quite charming although a bit forgetful at times.

Likewise, kudos to the expedition staff. Our main lecturers/interpreters were Robin (marine biologist) from the US and Juan Carlos (geologist) from Columbia. Both were excellent with a high level of both enthusiasm and interpersonal skills. Conrad, the expedition leader (S. African) and Daniel, the assistant expedition leader (Latvia) were organized and good at communicating what was going to happen and when.

The other expedition staff included Stefan, a geologist for the German speakers, who also briefed us sometimes and translated the captain's announcements into German. He had a great dry sense of humor (as did the captain); Christian, an anthropologist/historian, currently living on

Easter Island; Kristine the staff assistant and left handed zodiac driver from Belgium who would zip up your pockets as you left the side gate; Monika, a botanist, mainly for the Germans, two gun toting "bear guys", and a few more zodiac drivers. Camille, the photographer, made a DVD of stills and video of the expedition, available for $150. She also did some camera consulting and photo walks on shore with passengers. She generously gave me permission to post some of her photos on this blog.

The expedition staff was accessible for the duration - they conducted the briefings and popped into the bar during cocktail time and had meals with the passengers as well as talked during the excursions and landings.

Itinerary and excursions overview:

Our cruise spent the week off the coast of Spitsbergen, north of the Arctic Circle, and venturing into a number of fjords. We reached 80°11.5’N, 011°59.5’E while crunching through pack ice. Excursions were all included and consisted of zodiac cruises and wet landings ashore. The passengers were divided into 4 groups that rotated into the zodiacs. Since our cruise was bi-lingual, two of the groups were German speaking, two English. Every evening we gathered in the Observation Lounge for a recap of what we’d seen, a daily overview of marine animals, birds, geology and other pertinent topics and an overview of what was planned for the following day.

We were really fortunate with the weather - we had many sunny days and mostly calm seas. The temperature range was between 28° and 32°. We had only one windy/choppy day and no rain. The scenery was spectacular - there are beautiful fjords, glaciers, icebergs, mountains and just gorgeous views all the time. The history is also quite interesting. It is unimaginable how the whalers survived in some of the areas they set up their camps.

We were not as fortunate in the wildlife viewing department, seeing a polar bear on only one day, walruses on another, plus a few seals, whales and reindeer along with a wide variety of seabirds. To put the likelihood of seeing polar bears in perspective, the islands of the Svalbard archipelago cover almost 24,000 square miles of which 60% is covered by glaciation. The coastline of the main islands is around 4,000 miles long; with the Spitsbergen coastline covering around 2,500 miles. Feedback from staff was that as the summer progresses and the ice melts, the ship can gain access to more areas and fjords the wildlife sightings increase; this has proven to be the case according to the expedition reports for the two cruises following ours.

Passenger make up:

Total passenger count was 114; there were 21 from the U.S, 10 from Britain, 62 from Austria and a smattering of other nationalities with about 40 in the English speaking camp and 74 in the German speaking. Although the bilingual announcements were a bit of a pain, I am pleased to report that the Austrians were well behaved, mixed a little bit and there were no incidents of bad behavior such as we unfortunately had with the Germans on our Antarctica cruise on the Hanseatic.

Age-wise, there was a range, but I'd say the concentration was in the mid 50's to high 60's range. Everybody appeared to be "with the program", geared up for an expedition and had their rubber boots and waterproof clothing.

We enjoyed seeing all the different furs and fur accessories on one of the Austrian ladies and we also enjoyed the two bald look-a-like brothers (twins?) who were nattily dressed alike on most days and always smiling. Given the overall good weather nobody was grumpy.

Interestingly, a majority of people we chatted with had already been to Antarctica. We all came away with the suggestion that if you are interested in polar type trips that you do the Arctic first and then Antarctica. There is just so much more wildlife in Antarctica, perhaps due to more historical presence of humans, whale, sea and polar bear hunting, etc. The scenery is fabulous though and is ON all the time!