Grande Dame gets ready for Arctic season
In the music industry, it’s pretty trendy to bring former stars back on stage and show that they don’t belong to the scrap heap. It’s a similar story in the expedition travel industry. Also here, some operators have brought stars back into the expedition scene spotlight instead of relying on new builds. In the process, the experienced tour operator Heritage Expeditions made a mega deal with the reinstatement of the former Hanseatic. Now the ship is getting ready for the upcoming Arctic season in Greece.
The current berth of the Heritage Adventurer, as the ex-Hanseatic is now called, could not be more fitting: Greece, the home of Aphrodite and Poseidon, is where the ship can currently be found and is being completed there. Because the Arctic season of Heritage Expeditions is about to begin and the “Grande Dame” shall enchant people in all her beauty like Aphrodite once did. Notabene not on a sandy beach in the Greek island world, but in the no less mystical world of the Arctic in the vastness of the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea and the North Pacific. And for this glorious return, the ship will be appropriately “dressed up”, with the touch and flair of Heritage Expeditions.
Heritage Expeditions owners Aaron and Nathan Russ visited their new acquisition a few weeks ago with captain Hans Söderholm to inspect the work. “We were pleased to see that the ship is in excellent condition, even though the Adventurer had been in Greece since it was purchased and had spent the entire pandemic period there,” the two owners said. “Every effort is now being made to ensure that the Heritage Adventurer will be ready for her long-awaited return to business.” The work includes an upgrade to ensure she meets the latest environmental standards. This is of utmost importance to Heritage Expeditions, as the company has been sailing in the Arctic and Antarctic for more than 30 years and has helped define these standards.
In addition to the modernisation work, the “Grande Dame” will also receive a new polish inside and out. This is because Heritage Expeditions wants to offer its guests on board a four-star service in an appropriate ambience, but with its own flair and family touch that had characterised the company over the past 30 years. In addition to excellent cuisine at the highest level in two restaurants, amenities include a fitness room, sauna and outdoor pool. The idea behind it: Heritage wants to offer guests the opportunity to recharge not only the batteries of their cameras, but also their own in a unique environment. However, Heritage’s excellent and well-known observation and teaching program will continue in its usual style aboard the luxurious Heritage Expeditions. Spontaneity, flexibility and lots of time outside in the middle of the action will also be at the top of the list. “Heritage has been known for over 30 years for taking its guests to those places that are off the beaten track, putting nature and the experience first,” explains Aaron Russ. “We’re not going to change that with the Heritage Adventurer. Only the wrappings become more comfortable.”
Heritage Expeditions managed to defy the pandemic during the last Arctic season and was able to make several departures in the Russian Far East, entirely without incident. The company intends to do the same with its new ship this summer. It plans to deploy the Heritage Adventurer in the Northern Hemisphere starting in June 2022. However, there will be innovations that should be very interesting, especially for European guests. This is because the plans call for takeoff not from Anadyr in Chukotka, Russia, but from Nome in Alaska. To do this, the ship will first sail from Greece to Japan. After that, it will travel to Alaska in several bookable stages. A total of four trips are then planned to Chukotka and Wrangel Island, more than any other provider. At the beginning of September, the “Grande Dame” will sail south again, but not without stops in Indonesia and Melanesia. After a refresher stop, she will then be ready to take guests to the island world of New Zealand, the sub-Antarctic islands and the Ross Sea region. Thanks to the New Zealand government’s announcement that it will once again allow foreign tourists to enter the country starting in October, European guests will probably once again be able to experience the magic of the rarely visited Antarctic region as closely as possible. And for this, the great lady of polar expeditions is now being prepared so that in a few months she will shine in new beauty… like Aphrodite once did.
Dr Michael Wenger, PolarJournal
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