Review of Ortelius Antarctica Expedition.
Reviewer
Patrick Cantwell from Australia.
Cruise Line
Ship
Destination
Antarctica.
# of Nights
20.
Departure Port
Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
Date of Cruise
October, 2022.
Overall Experience Rating
1 out of 5 stars (5=excellent, 4=very good, 3=good, 2=poor, 1=terrible)
Ratings for Specific Areas
-Food Rating: 3
-Service/Crew Rating: 3
-Cabin Rating: 1
-Itinerary Rating: 5
An Ortelius twin porthole cabin on deck 4. * Photo: © Monica Salmang for Oceanwide Expeditions
Ortelius Antarctica Review
Review of Oceanwide Expeditions and Antarctic cruise on the Ortelius October 2022.
Our cruise to the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic was plagued by extreme weather. Unfortunately you cannot do anything about several severe weather fronts and the repercussions this has on an expedition cruise.
Let me start with the positives. I was able to set foot on the Antarctic continent on one occasion on this trip.
So I was fortunate enough to tick off my final continent.
The Hotel and food and beverage staff were incredible, all hailed from the Philippine’s, they were forever smiling and attentive to all our needs in some very trying weather conditions. As were the seamen who handled our zodiacs for shore excursions.
This is however where the positives of this trip and company end.
The Ortelius is an outdated supply ship from Russia. It is no longer the leader in its field of polar expeditions. The new small purpose built cruise ships do this with luxury, comfort, and much better accessibility.
The lecture room onboard was on one of the lower levels of the ship at the bow. It was rarely used as the equipment for lectures were not of a good standard and passengers generally became nauseated in the room. Therefore lectures were held in the bar area, the only other public space on the ship. Essentially if you did not wish to participate in the many lectures you had nowhere else but your cabin to go to. The decks were often closed during the voyage.
As for these so called lectures, they were essentially Wikipedia-sourced and when those were completed we were subjected to “lectures” of photos and expedition staff stories of “this is what I did last summer.”
The expedition staff were condescending to the point of often being outrightly rude. I and fellow passengers were made to feel like we were an inconvenience to the expedition staff.
One older expedition guide regularly yelled and berated passengers for no apparent reason.
The expedition leader was approached on numerous occasions by myself regarding the behaviour of this guide and his homophobic comments. This resulted in my being berated by the guide for making a complaint.
It was clearly obvious by the cruise mid-point the expedition staff were inexperienced and well out of their depth when it came to customer service and remote expedition cruising.
There are many small ships now plying the Antarctic waters and you should look very carefully at what they offer and be warned as to the terrible product offered by Oceanwide Expeditions.
Number of Small-Ship Cruises Taken (Under 300 Passengers)
4
The 108-pax Ortelius from Oceanwide Expeditions. * Photo: Oceanwide Expeditions.
Contribute to our pool of honest reviews by real passengers. QuirkyCruise wants to hear about your latest small ship cruise for our Reader Reviews, a growing reservoir of opinions by small ship cruise lovers around the world. We don’t edit or sugarcoat, we just present QuirkyCruise reader reviews straight from travelers to you.
SUBMIT a QuirkyCruise Reader Review, click here to access the FORM.
And here’s an INDEX of ALL our Reader Reviews. Have a look at what fellow travelers have to say and see what floats your boat.
Don’t miss a post about small-ship cruising, subscribe to QuirkyCruise.com for monthly updates & special offers!
© This article is protected by copyright, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author. All Rights Reserved. QuirkyCruise.com.
HEIDI SARNA
