Hurtigruten’s North East Greenland National Park Expedition. 10th to 24th September 2015.
This voyage on the Fram to the North East Greenland National Park was so seriously flawed that we will not be travelling with Hurtigruten again. We had rated previous voyages as excellent, including one on the Fram, and the comment that Hurtigruten is Norway’s national treasure was, in the past well deserved. The voyage was booked two years ago and chosen because of the focus on Greenland’s National Park.
As soon as we set foot on board it became evident that something had changed. The embarkation process was chaotic with people milling around all over the place. Later the mandatory safety drill was so badly organised that it would be surprising if anyone knew what to do in an emergency. The drill was also disrupted by a large party who talked noisily amongst themselves throughout. During the evening introduction of the crew and the Expedition team we were dismayed to find that there were hardly any mature Arctic experts, or experts of any kind on the team. These observations were widely discussed by the returnee English and German passengers, many of whom had travelled on the Fram many times before.