Birger Vorland is the captain of the Crystal Serenity, and he doesn’t shake hands. When I met him onboard the ship on Sunday, we touched elbows.
“Make sure everybody stays healthy,” said Vorland. “It’s a Crystal handshake.”
I don’t blame him for taking precautions. The Crystal Serenity is carrying 980 passengers on a 32-day journey from Anchorage to New York City. It’s the largest cruise ship ever to navigate the Northwest Passage. And it’s a voyage of many other firsts for Crystal Cruises, according to Captain Vorland.
“I mean, this is the longest single cruise we’ve ever made,” he said. “And it is the most expensive cruise we’ve ever made. And it’s the one that sold out the fastest. 48 hours, it was basically gone.”
A trip like that comes with a lot of pressure.
“The captain never sleeps heavy,” said Vorland. “He always sleeps a little light.”
Vorland’s biggest concern is the ice that the ship might encounter farther north. To detect that ice, the ship is equipped with searchlights, an ice radar, thermal imaging technology, and a Canadian navigation program called IceNav. Plus, the icebreaker vessel Ernest Shackleton joins the cruise in Ulukhaktok. And Vorland thinks that ice isn’t all bad.
“This goes two ways,” he said. “We don’t want ice, but we do want ice because if we don’t have ice, we don’t have polar bears.”
This is one paradox of the Crystal Serenity’s current voyage. The ice is the greatest threat to the ship, but it’s also why the ship is travelling through the Northwest Passage in the first place. John Stoll is the Vice President of Land Programs at Crystal Cruises, and he reckons that the passengers are on this cruise, first and foremost, for the Arctic wildlife sightings.
“So if we have to, we’re going to convince the captain to go where we need to go to spot the wildlife,” said Stoll.
In the Crystal Serenity’s open, airy Palm Court lounge, Stoll showed off the ship’s Cineflex system. Giant television screens line the dance floor. During wildlife sightings, the onboard cameraman will zoom in on the animals and broadcast those images to the screens, as well as to the TVs in all the state rooms. And the system has already been put to use. On their way to Nome, they spotted a pod of whales.
But on this voyage of new experiences, one thing isn’t new: the passengers. Keith Steiner is a passenger who has sailed 81 cruises with Crystal. He said he’s seeing a lot of familiar faces onboard.
“Many of them are seasoned cruisers,” said Steiner. “I think all but 6 people have sailed Crystal at least one time or more beforehand. So that’s very unique. You have people who cruise every year, they cruise for many days.”
There are even three passengers who currently live full-time aboard the Crystal Serenity. And although many passengers participated in a variety of tours while in Nome, approximately 200 passengers never de-boarded the ship. To some, the Northwest Passage is a chance for a new adventure, and to others, it’s cruising as usual.
Back in the Palm Court lounge, Captain Vorland looked out the window at the rain. He sees himself as part of tradition as well. Not a tradition of cruising, but a tradition that hearkens back to Roald Amundsen, who became the first explorer to travel the Northwest Passage by ship in 1906. Amundsen was Norwegian, just like Vorland. And like the seafarers of old, Vorland isn’t above a little superstition.
“I told my wife when I went on the world cruise in January, I said, ‘Honey, when I come back from the world cruise, I’m going to stop shaving. And I am going to keep it that way until all the ice is behind me, and then I’m going to shave again.’ Once we leave Greenland, and all the ice is behind us, the beard is going off.”
On this voyage, Captain Vorland isn’t taking any chances. Not even with his facial hair.
To see the inside of the Crystal Serenity for yourself, click through the photo gallery below.
