The ship is a 57 cabin former Norwegian coastal service ship, and for our trip we had 52 passengers on board. It had recently been totally refurbished and there were a few teething troubles with some bits of the boat - stiff doors and new furniture glitches for example. The categorising of the cabins is a bit questionable, too, you need only look at the original catalogue and compare it with the latest plan to realise that some cabins are borderline - ours was one of those that was originally a class below (should have stayed there too) even though is was nice enough, we were expecting something a little better for the money.
There were about 50 crew members on board and, in our opinion, they were all brilliant. The service and attention given to the passengers was first class - everyone tried hard to please even though some of the crew's English was limited (most were Croatian), though it was certainly better than my Croatian despite the "Croatian word of the day" printed on the daily programme.
The expedition staff were also excellent, most doubled as the zodiac drivers, and they clearly enjoyed every moment they were there, and that kind of enthusiasm rubs off on you.
The food was excellent - always a choice at mealtimes - though I believe some people complained at the lack of choice. I am not sure what they were expecting from a small ship at sea for two and a half weeks without the possibility to take on stores.
There was no night life - the days were tiring and there were movies shown on the TV in the cabins after dinner, so the resident musician played to a virtually empty bar on most occasions. He, too, enjoyed what he was doing - well, he looked like he did. There were a couple of people who occupied the quiet lounge to catch up on journal/diary writing or just reading.
For the Antarctic voyages dress onboard is very informal which suited us perfectly, we are not ones who enjoy dressing for dinner every night, here there is the right balance - once at the start and once at the end, and even then you needn't dress up if you don't want to and no one will care.
The crew changes regularly between cruises - if you go on this ship I hope you get as good a lot as we did. Likewise the expedition staff, many will be freelance, so there is no guarantee that the same team will be on future cruises.
All in all we had a good sized ship, with a small enough party, great crew and staff - combined it created an overall very friendly atmosphere.
