I just received another email/report. Not sure if this is from Leslie or Peggy, but here it is -


Monday 1/22:

We're back from the afternoon excursion -
zodiacs are streaming back to the ship. The
weather turned out to be fine today - although it
rained overnite it was just cloudy when we
disembarked via the zodiacs and this afternoon it
was mostly sunny so the afternoon hike was great
and everyone was shedding layers. The logistics
of disembarking are quite chaotic - lots of
elbowing and jockeying to get on boots and
lifejackets and many of the (ahem) other
passengers are quite keen to be first off through
the gangway. Achtung!

Ja, so now I will describe the ship. Ngaire
describes it as a more upscale version of the
Song of Flower - 400' long, 4 passenger decks,
92 cabins, all approx. 225 sq ft except 4 suites
which are twice as big.

The cabins have separate bed and seating areas,
flat screen TVs with free email via a private ship address, movies on demand and channels
devoted to documentaries and onboard lectures.
The bathrooms are small with cmbo bath
tub/shower, one sink. The toiletries are a mixed
bag - Moulton Brown shampoo and shower gel,
Crabtree & Evelyn lotion ad conditioner and
Escada Sport soap.

There is one main restaurant, the
Marco Polo, and the Columbus Lounge where
they serve morning coffee, pastries, lighter buffet for breakfast, a simpler buffet at lunch and sometimes in the evening it becomes the 'ethno' restaurant (more about that later.) There is a large lounge/bar, an Observation deck
lounge/bar, the Darwin Hall for cinema and
lectures in addition to a spool, hot tub, sauna,
small fitness room etc. Also several boot storage
rooms. The bridge is open to the passengers most of the time.

Being an expedition ship there are 14 zodiacs We have German brochures in our cabins, but the ship appears to do some really interesting itineraries in the Arctic, Antarctic, Northwest Passage, Japanese Islands, Polynesia and Indonesia in addition to some in Europe. The crew and staff are primarily German, Eastern European with some Asian zodiac drivers.
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more in a bit..