The Hurtigruten cruise company operates a number of ships that sail up and down the Norwegian coast along the fjords and well into the Arctic Circle. The MS Richard With is one of the ships built in Germany in 1993 and is over 121 metres long and 19 metres wide with 464 cabins. It travels from Bergen in the south all the way to the northern town of Kirkenes, stopping at several ports on the way, before doing the return journey. The ship can be boarded at any point for shorter cruises.
I joined the ship at Tromsø travelled to Kirkenes and back to Tromsø for a 3 night cruise into the Arctic Circle chasing the Northern lights.
Bar and restaurant
There is a bar on the observation lounge on deck 7 but bear in mind with Norwegian prices drink are very expensive in range of £10 for a small beer or glass of wine as an example. It is a small intimate bar and in the evenings a pianist sits in the corner with his electronic piano providing background music.
There is another bar called the draugen troll bar on deck 4 next to the library but usually the bar is closed and it is just a sitting area with the added benefit o internet WiFi.
The ship has one main restaurant called the Aurora, serving the main meals breakfast, lunch and dinner, and one cafeteria style snack restaurant open at all other times. The main restaurant serves a buffet breakfast offering the usual hot and cold international breakfast items, and few Norwegian fish items. It gets pretty busy at breakfast times especially when the ship is full and generally most passengers are in the senior years so it’s pretty much playing dodgems at the breakfast buffet with unsteady hot cups of coffee being carried from counter to table.
Lunch is optional and dinner is served at two sittings and you are allocated to one of these sittings for the duration of the cruise. It is normally a fixed menu served at the table but you can opt for the vegetarian option if you wish. On at least one of the evenings there is a fish buffet which is one of the best I have had, the king crab and lobster are the main attraction along with a huge range of other fish. It is the real highlight of the eating aspect of the cruise.
Building and facilites
The ships is more like a Dover/Calais ferry rather than a Caribbean cruise ship but then this all about the Norway and the Northern lights rather than the ship. Décor is mostly kitsch and the various paintings hanging all over the ship from the famous Harr family are very dull and uninspiring depicting Norwegian rural life in a Thomas Hardy style of unending hard work and suffering. Just want you don’t want to feel on a holiday.
There is a lot of shiny brass and glass fixtures and fittings with mirrored ceilings trying to create space where none exists. The carpets are colourful and IKEA like but do not complement the walls and seems rather odd. Nevertheless, it is all practical and seems to work, neither does it hurt the eyes our how one feels. It is just a practical and efficient ship.
The ship has a small gym on deck 7 and a couple of Jacuzzis outside on the sun deck but this is little used on account that only about 8 to 10 persons could use them at any one time, while the rest of the 600 or so passengers in their puffy North Face arctic coats would look on in astonishment. So the Jacuzzis just sit there looking sad and rejected.
Your room
The cabins are very compact and well equipped, the standard cabins offers two pull down single beds and a small dressing table. There is more than enough storage space, in fact probably more than one finds in a normal hotel these days. This seems to be because of the caravan style approach of creating storage in every nock and cranny. The shower/toilet unit is a delight but cramped. The heated floor is just what is needed on an Arctic cruise.