With the Hurtigruten shipping line we might have found the perfect mode of transport to suit both Adrian and myself. I love travelling by ship, and we have previously enjoyed sailing through the Galapagos Islands, the Caribbean, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Mediterranean. However, I thought that the Free Enterprise and the Reef Experience were too small (though the latter did come with a hot tub), Adrian found the Crown Princess too tacky, and we both found the MSC Fanstasia uninspiring.

In contrast, the MS Versteralen was a great fit for us. Built in 1983 and refitted in 1995, she has 306 cabins to hold 510 passengers, and has a cruise speed of 15 knots (28 km/hr). As soon as we boarded, Hayden was welcomed aboard and given his own passenger ID card to use when disembarking and embarking at the ports. We were able to check immediately into our cabin, complete with old-fashioned porthole. It made things so easy to have a home base to shower, sleep, and change Hayden whenever we wished.

The Hurtigruten ferry route has its origins back in 1891 when the government put out a tender for an express route between Trondheim and Hammerfest, as at the time it took three weeks for a letter to travel between these two ports in summer and five months in winter. In 1893 Captain Richard With took the DS Vesterålen on her first tour from Trondheim to Hammerfest in only two days and nineteen hours. Today the same trip takes one day and seventeen hours, and is still subsidised by the government.

Sadly we didn’t have time to cross the Arctic Circle, and just took a 28 hour trip from Trondheim to Bergen, with a quick stroll through Molde while the ship was docked there. When our southbound ship entered a port during the day it would signal its arrival with two long, one short, and one long whistle blast (the Morse code for Q), while a northbound ship signals with one long, one short, and one long blast (Morse code for K). The ships also do this when they meet in a shipping line, with the northbound ship always greeting first. As we listened to this noisy announcement while pulling into port, Adrian noted that one would always know when it was 4:30pm in Kristriansund.

The scenery was spectacular. We could sit out on the deck or in the salon as islands of all shapes and sizes would drift past us. Inland the houses seemed to be painted muted earthy colours, however the coastal regions were edged with a whole spectrum of bright homes. Tiny white lighthouses could be spotted on rocky outcroppings to help the ships find their way between the islands.

Hayden was the youngest little sailor on the ship. He charmed many of the staff and passengers, and he spent quite a while in their arms looking at them in wonder as they chatted to him in Norwegian. Even when I went down to the gift shop on my own, the woman asked how the baby was doing and happily spent some time with me helping me pick out the best stamps for my postcards, describing the location of each scene and even finding the official MS Vesteralen stamp for postage within Europe.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time aboard the Hurtigruten and would love to return to these ships for a longer voyage. Once a year in Autumn they have a specially built ship that spends two weeks travelling from Spitsbergen to Greenland to Iceland. What an experience.

Note: Today there was a fire in the engine room on another Hurtigruten ship, the MS Nordlys. Two crew members were killed and four injured. All the Hurtigruten staff that we met were considerate, professional, so very kind and accommodating. My thoughts are with their families.

When I received our boarding tickets for the MSC Fantasia in November, I was very surprised. We had booked the cheapest room possible – a non-guaranteed category 1 windowless inside cabin on the lowest deck. When I looked at our cabin allocation, I saw that we had been somehow upgraded to a cabin on the 11th deck with an extra-long triangular balcony.

Photo from Travel Mole

As we tended to spend quite a lot of time in the cabin, this change was a very welcome improvement. Although it was usually too cold to sit out there, having a double-window view of the ocean and the coast gave us easy access to spectacular sunsets and peeks out to the other ships sailing nearby. On our first night, we stood out on the balcony, looking out as our ship churned though the seemingly endless expanse of black liquid. It was very easy to imagine that if someone fell overboard they would instantly be engulfed by the dark. It felt so dangerous that Adrian quickly huddled me back into the cabin. Despite the dangers of the ocean, I really appreciated the upgrade and the natural light that filled our cabin.

Photo from cote croisiere

The décor of the ship was really quite terrible. The interior designers seemed to have come from the Las Vegas school of thinking. That is, one can turn the tackiness of all-you-can-eat buffets and discount coupons into elegance if one just has enough gilt, velvet, and sparkles. The ship boasts four crystal staircases and enough mirrors to satisfy even the most demanding narcissist.

Photo from Francesco Federico

The jogging track was not under cover, and the weather was too cold and windy to motivate me to give it a go. The hot tubs at the stern of the ships were a great way to relax after a busy sightseeing trip. The theatre acts each night featured a bland ballad, some flailing dancers, and six excellent acrobats. The gym was located in a great position, on the 14th floor in one of the only forward-looking public areas. It was equipped with modern cardio machines, although there was usually about a 10 minute wait and they had a strict 25 minute limit.

Photo from about.com

We had two days at sea, which gave me a chance to try out the spa. I booked a two hour treatment that included a massage, a facial, and access to saunas and Turkish steam rooms. The massage and facial were both excellent – very relaxing my skin glowed afterwards. Like the majority of staff on the ship, my masseuse was from Indonesia. I talked with her and she told me that she had no other family members on board. During the course of the cruise we learned that MSC pays for the return ticket home, but those outside Europe must work a nine-month contract, rather than the six-month contract of staff based in Europe.

Photo from Francesco Federico

There were no gingerbread house competitions or pottery painting workshops on this cruise. Most of the activities were held on the open-air Aqua Deck, a cold and foreboding area during the winter. I went to one acrobatics class, but had to leave early due to the freezing winds. The Arts and Crafts activity consisted of stuffing crepe paper into a straw and calling it a flower.

Photo from about.com

The staff morale seemed to be very low. The ship provided a restaurant-style service for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but after a few days we started to avoid it. For dinner we had a particular table that we had to sit at, with two other couples who spoke Danish and Hungarian. The table was so cramped that we felt like we were imposing on their space, and the meals came out so slowly that it took at least two hours for us to eat. The food was tepid, bland, and not worth the wait. We paid extra to sit at the Tex Mex and the Pizzeria restaurants. They were practically deserted, and at the Pizzeria my meal consistently arrived fifteen minutes before Adrian’s. It seemed rude to have to say “could you please bring out both meals at the same time please”. We ended up usually just grabbing something at the buffet or eating off the ship. On our last night, the buffet dinner was advertised, but when we arrived the place was empty. The staff just shrugged when we asked them where the food was to be found.

Photo from Francesco Federico

Whenever there was a problem, staff members seemed unwilling or unable to help. There seemed to be a structure in place that restricted initiative and responsibility. The shore excursion office did not know if shuttles would be operating from the port. Every non-European had their passports confiscated on entry, and instead of returning them gradually, every person was required to turn up at 9:15 on the day of disembarkation to wait in line for hours for them to be returned. The captain did not turn up for his advertised question and answer session, and did not wear a hat when he posed for photographs with the passengers (for which they charged 40 euro for a digital copy).

While MSC functioned in its basic capacity to give us accommodation each night, and transport us to most of the ports advertised, there was no service above and beyond like that we experienced on Princess Cruises. We did enjoy our holiday very much, but this was due to our own efforts, and not of that of MSC Fantasia.

Unless they had a very enticing itinerary, we will not sail with MSC again.

Alas, a multilingual announcement came over the loudspeakers on the boat, and impassively stated that we would not be stopping in Gibraltar as promised, due to rough seas. Adrian and I both have a monkey-shaped hole in our hearts. Straight onto Malaga, Spain.