What you see on a trip such as this is always dependent on being in the right place at the right time. However the hard work and depth of knowledge of the expedition guides made for a memorable experience. They were always up, (if they ever went to bed), scanning the land and sea and sea ice, out early in the morning in zodiacs looking for the best opportunities to see wildlife, and using their experience to take us to amazing places. As a result we had good encounters with five polar bears over three days, saw hundreds of Walrus, thousands of sea birds, whales, seals and dolphin. Although not seemingly planned, the captain and expedition leader decided a complete circumnavigation of Svalbard was possible, so that’s what we did. It felt like a true expedition and that we were in the hands of experts. If anyone tells me that we were lucky to see and do so much, I would reply that one definition of luck is preparation meeting opportunity and the efforts of the guides and leader ensured we were prepared to take advantage of every opportunity that arose.
This was an absolutely fantastic holiday and a true 'week of firsts'. We got to try lots of winter activities that we'd never done before, all in stunning surroundings. The basecamp was excellent and the food was amazing. All of the included and optional activities were excellent, as was sitting in the hot tub and sauna at the end of the day!
I am a grandmother of 56 who went on this trip with my 7 year old grandson. It was brilliant, my grandson played in the snow all day when not on other activities. He build his own igloo, sledged and generally messed about in the snow. It is a really safe environment for children and he was never bored. Any optional excursions that he was a bit young for (snowmobiling) they catered for him by coming up with a safe alternative without us having to miss the activity i.e. The main man pulled a sledge behind his snowmobile which was safe for my grandson and also fun for him and this allowed me to take part in the snowmobiling (which was great).