2023 Greenland and Canadian Arctic Expedition Cruise - Cruise Summary

If visiting some of the most remote places on earth, learning about arctic cultures, and finding seldom seen wildlife like Polar Bears in their natural habitat is something you have always dreamed of doing, then a Silversea expedition cruise might be just the way to go.

Silversea, a well known ultra luxury cruise line, also has an expedition division that explores remote areas of the world like the Northwest Passage, Arctic Canada, Greenland, and Iceland in the North and the Chilean Fjords and Antarctica in the south.

We choose this cruise as a replacement for our world cruise we had booked with Silversea when it became clear that there was no way we could run our business remotely from the other side of the world.

We first fell in love with Silversea in August of 2021 when we traveled with them to Alaska on one of their traditional ships. We wanted to experience the Expedition product in understand the nuisances and differences between the traditional product and the expedition product.

We were quite impressed with the expedition experience. The ship was not that much different than the traditional ship, in fact the Silver Cloud was once part of the traditional fleet of ships, but was ice strengthen in 2017 to allow it to travel to polar regions. While the ship is ice strengthened, it is not classified as an ice breaker or polar class ship. As it was not originally built as expedition, the cruise line needed to repurpose some places for Zodiac storage and a small mud room for muck boot storage.

From start to finish this was a fully immersive experience from the embarkation via Zodiac in Kangerlussaq after flying in on a charter jet from New York to the search for polar bears in the remote wilderness of Nunavut, to the Ice Fjord of Isslulqut. Though the ship has a small entertainment team, the focus of this type of cruise was on the unique destination.

Our best days were spent on the Zodiacs exploring remote fjords, spotting polar bears, and taking in the remarkable scenery.

We also very much enjoyed our landings in remote areas of Nunavut Canada where we visited both historic sights and took in unbelievable scenery.

The Canadian, Danish and Inuit people of the region have a great deal of pride in there heritage and culture with interesting historical displays and museums. We also got to learn about the amazing ways that these people were able to make lives for them selves in such rugged territory and a harsh environment. They learned to use every aspect of the animal’s that inhabit the area to make clothing and supplies that allowed them to thrive in one of the harshest climates inhabited by humans.

We defitely felt the luxury touches that Silversea provides like a butler, three included open seating gourmet restaurants, made for an extremely pampering experience that engaged all the senses. With everything included there was no upsell, not sales pitch, no nickel and diming, just everyone on the ship dedicated to make sure that you want for nothing during your cruise with them.

If you are looking to explore the Arctic or Antarctic and due it in ultimate luxury style, Silversea will not disappoint you with the experience. Be sure to visit each of the pages for this expedition blog to see more pictures of the places we visited and the amazing experiences we had during the cruise.

Suzanne Klasen

Suzanne Klasen is the Owner / Travel Advisor of CruiseOne Suzanne Klasen. We have combined our love of cruising with computer skills to bring you a very informative and entertaining site that follows my cruising travels and thoughts. I hope that you will let me help plan your next vacation.