![]() ![]() According to Crystal Cruises, the Ernest Shackleton, a British vessel, will offer logistical and safety support. ![]() The Crystal Serenity’s first Northwest Passages voyage, according to Crystal Cruises, was three years in the planning, and the voyage itself included the advice of ice-pilots, guides and community leaders.ĭuring the voyage itself, an ice-breaking support vessel was on hand and ice pilots were on the bridge of the vessel. The full list of 100 activities, as well as the “unplanned adventures” the likes of Zodiac landings on glaciers, is billed by the firm as “unprecedented adventures and unsurpassed luxury.” Such activities include scuba-diving, an “overland adventure” in Nunavut from Pond Inlet to Grise Fjord, visiting other communities, fly fishing and golfing. During the trip, passengers will have the opportunity to “immerse themselves in the nuances of the local communities and breath-taking nature and terrain of the region.” (Courtesy Crystal Cruises)įares for 32-day cruise, which departs Seward, Alaska on August 15, start at $21,855. The ship is again slated to sail the Northwest Passage in 2017. In an undated handout photo, the cruise ship Crystal Serenity sails waters off Antarctica. The Crystal Serenity, which has a capacity of 1,700 passengers and crew, made history in the summer of 2016 when it became the largest passenger vessel to sail the waterway passing through Canadian Arctic territory.Īs with the 2016 voyage, this summer’s route will start in Alaska and visit Greenland en route to New York. It means the end of a big ship for a while.Physically and financially capable travellers looking to visit the Arctic are in luck: the Crystal Serenity, a luxury cruise ship, will be staging a repeat of its 2016 transit of the Northwest Passages this summer, according to an announcement from Crystal Cruises, the firm that operates the vessel. … People say, 'Oh, does that mean the end of it?' No, that doesn't mean the end of it at all. "I think what they're doing is building up a bit of a passenger list, if you will. "Going across the Northwest Passage is not going to the Caribbean," he said. Nome Mayor Richard Beneville said this week that he's felt a bit "put out" as people have asked him about the Crystal Serenity not returning. The Crystal Serenity stopping in Nome on its route to New York City was a major event for the town, which hadn't seen a cruise ship of that size before. "It's going to give us more flexibility, to give us more diverse itineraries that offer more variety of stops." "With a bigger ship, it's harder to get into some areas," he said. He said the downsizing to a smaller ship isn't related to a decreasing demand. In 2016, the company's Northwest Passage cruise was full, Stoll said, and this year it was about 90 percent full. ![]() Stoll said the price to get aboard the Crystal Endeavor for its expeditions through the Northwest Passage will be "similar or higher" than that. The Crystal Serenity cruises through the Arctic, with a price tag anywhere between about $20,000 and about $120,000, targeted the affluent. Stoll said that it sold out so quickly that they needed to add a second departure in 2017. The company started planning its inaugural Northwest Passage trip - the one in 2016 - years in advance. "When we first went into it in 2013, we only planned one sailing," he said. John Stoll, Crystal Cruises' vice president of land programs and project manager for the Northwest Passage, said that taking a year off from the route in 2018 was previously planned and the itinerary wasn't necessarily intended to be an annual event. The mega-yacht Crystal Endeavor has a passenger capacity of about 200, significantly smaller than that of the Crystal Serenity, which can carry more than 1,000 passengers. "We will be returning to the Northwest Passage at a future date with our new expedition ship, Crystal Endeavor, which will be a polar-class vessel," said Crystal Cruises spokeswoman Susan Robison, in an email. Instead, a mega-yacht the company is building will sail the passage. Now, the company says its large ocean ships, such as the Serenity, won't traverse the path in the future. (Erik Hill / Alaska Dispatch News)Ī cruise line's much-ballyhooed itinerary through the Arctic's storied Northwest Passage will take next year off, and the company plans to return with a smaller vessel in 2019 or possibly early 2020.Ĭalifornia-based Crystal Cruises' ship Crystal Serenity last summer made the 32-day voyage through the icy Northwest Passage from Seward to New York City - the largest cruise ship to ever take that route, according to the company. The cruise ship Crystal Serenity stops to view Johns Hopkins Glacier from a distance on Sunday, August 13, 2017, in Glacier Bay National Park. Updated: SeptemPublished: September 22, 2017 ![]()
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