Applying Two Decades of Experience to Two New Ships

      For the first decades of its existence, Aurora Expeditions had been using a variety of older, smaller, refurbished or even re-purposed vessels to deliver its amazing polar adventures.  The company’s founder, Greg Mortimer, had rightfully been focused on the off-ship adventures and expedition nature of these cruises.  Travelers were, in fact, called “expeditioners” and the company had become quite adept at creating unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences for these clients.  Of course, those experiences were sometimes emboldened by the simple nature of the ships… but sometimes the expedition attitude had to make up for the simplicity of those earlier ships.

     To put it simply, Aurora had gained an excellent reputation for its off ship programs and adventures… but also a reputation for having pretty simple ships.  So what would happen when this institutional focus on off ship “expeditioning” could be delivered by two brand-new, comfortable ships?  Could these things coexist?  I was keen to see it all first-hand.

     Of course, part of the answer would lie in the itinerary itself.  My 13-day “Across the Antarctic Circle - Fly/Fly” cruise was slated to spend a whopping nine days along the Antarctic Peninsula.  No other ship ever schedules that much time along the peninsula.  Four or five days is the norm, and six or seven days is a lot.  We had nine days!

     The expeditionary and exploratory attitude of the guides was evident from the get-go.  They were excited about the nine days, and excited about what that meant for how far south we could travel.  The decades of institutional knowledge was evident in the systems they had created, and the enthusiasm with which they took us ashore or on zodiac explorations.  This was clearly a successful marriage of old-school expeditionary attitudes and a brand-new comfortable platform from which to explore.