6 Star Expedition Ultra-Luxury

Settling into my Veranda suite , we made good time departing Santa Cruz de Tenerife, bound for neighbouring La Palma. This first stop, a dramatic island that gets a small fraction of visitors compared to its neighbours, has the obvious upside of a serenity seldom found elsewhere - Dominating the landscape from every vantage is the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge. Included excursions had local guides taking us to the caldera ridge, then a second viewpoint having its access blocked entirely with a 10m deep lava flow, from its most recent 2021 eruption.

An evening departure had us ocean bound with the novel ‘open bridge’ policy onboard, giving you free rein to explore this most technical area of the ship. Snippets of knowledge include the in-built ocean stabilizers, which are 50% larger than comparably sized vessels, inspiring confidence for their Arctic Ocean and Drake Passage traverses. Also, it’s Ice Class 1A Super rating is the highest achievable for passenger ships (only surpassed by dedicated icebreakers)

Those more extreme polar journeys take full use of the additional hardware onboard, including a fully self contained submersible, but the pair of Airbus H130 helicopters (two!) were the talking point of the cruise. These each have their own hangar on deck 8, and speaking to a pilot onboard, their technical crew are able to have these operational & airborne with 6 passengers, in just 20 minutes!

Lunchtime arrival the next day has us in Madeira, with a nature tour in an otherworldly forest landscape, 600m up from sea level, of the port city capital of Funchal

Scenic do offer an ‘Expedition Forward’ experience. Capacity of 228 passengers (200 on polar trips) is a different world to most people’s idea of a ‘cruise’ on a vessel that would accommodate 7000+ souls

This Australian owned experience (like that country) is very casual, with an absence of formality. As they portray themselves, this is the ‘World’s First Discovery Yacht’ - A stunning experience