I attended the 2025 Clia Expedition Summit in Svalbard – and I absolutely loved it. In fact, I loved it so much, I booked a Swan Hellenic cruise from Reykjavik as soon as I got home and three weeks later I was sailing on Vega along the East Greenland coastline. I said to myself “I need to get on one of those bad boys!”.
Ship visits are great, but actually getting onboard and sailing is amazing. Vega’s East Greenland sailing was my first-ever expedition cruise. It was very high end. The food and drinks served onboard were absolutely outstanding.
I travelled on my own. One of the most memorable things was dining with other passengers. Most of the time I sat with the Swan Hellenic expedition team but sometimes I sat with couples who were happy to share their table, or I sat on my own.
I would often meet people in the Zodiac in the day and then we would dine together in the evening. We would go out on Zodiacs twice a day. I could also sit with the guest speakers onboard. One was from the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) and another was Arielle Montgomery who is a Greenland expert.
Most people knew that I was a travel agent, but obviously I did not tell them I’d booked using an agent rate. There was a nice mix of guests onboard from the US, the UK and China. There were 108 guests onboard a 152-passenger ship.
Travel Chaps' Matt Phillips sailed on Swan Hellenic ship Vega last summer alone
On Vega I had a balcony cabin. I also had an electric fireplace at the end of the bed which was brilliant after you came in from the cold. The crew would also put M&Ms on my pillow. I just thought that was really nice. I also had my first sauna at sea. You can literally watch icebergs going past from the sauna. There was also an hot tub outside.
One of the evenings on Vega we did “Dinner on the Deck” in your parker jacket. You can have a glass of something on deck. When you get onboard, they size you up for muck boots which you wear when you’re off the ship and you get an expedition jacket which you can take home after the sailing. You also get a water bottle in a pack.
I’ve made six bookings after that sailing. Some of them were for Swan Hellenic, the rest were for other brands because the departure dates were not quite right. One couple has booked two Swan Hellenic cruises back-to-back next year. The booking is worth £35,000. The five other expedition cruise bookings that I’ve done were all within eight months of returning from that Vega sailing.
We’ve got a touring and expedition show this September. Swan Hellenic are among the 15 suppliers attending the event but they’re the only expedition cruise line. There are between 300 to 400 customers coming. I have now sailed with four expedition cruise lines. My clients know that I have lived and breathed expedition cruise now.
