Svalbard question

Over Thanksgiving, we had a fantastic trip to see the polar bears in Manitoba. So we now want to see them in Svalbard, and Silversea seems like an amazing option. I have some questions that I hope some here can answer:

- how are the seas? We do not do too well, in rough seas.....

- what is the 'usual' age range, if there is such a thing? We are late 40s and our daughter would be a young teen. I know there will not be specific activities for her, but she is the biggest animal lover of the family, and doesnt need bells and whistles. She could probably repeat everything our guide told us.... We have travelled on Crystal several times and she loves it.

Thanks

Michele

We have been to Svalbard twice with Silversea and loved it, but just so you know, you most likely will NOT see polar bears close up. You will probably see a few, but unlikely to be very close at all. We actually saw more on our Manitoba to Greenland trip with them. here is the link to my trip report from the summer. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2529797

As far as teenagers, my boys would have loved this when they were that age, but they were very self sufficient and didn't need entertainment. There was one boy on our recent trip--13 years old I think--very polite. Nice parents. They were having him do his homework!

We did this trip in 2011 at 42/43. Loved it. As Rachel says, the sightings can be far away but we saw enough for some good pictures.

I did a day by day review of the trip (link is way down in my signature) and I posted a bunch of pictures online too. The new link for my album is here:

As far as your daughter, had someone taken me to Svalbard or anywhere else so exotic as a young teen I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven. At that age, I thought I was on vacation any time that I wasn't shoveling cow manure.

As far as your other questions, I don't remember the seas being that rough but obviously it's a gamble. And we were not the youngest; there were a number of people within striking distance of our age group. We were certainly younger than average but did not feel like our age made us stick out.

Missed the roughsea question. Seas can be very rough going between Svalbard and Greenland , but usually when you are just sailing around Svalbard, they are not that bad.

Thank you - that was helpful! I have read both of your trip reports - maybe more than once......- and they are a lot of what got me excited!

Guess I was hoping that from the ship you could get shots like all those amazing Nat Geo photos of bears in Svalbard! Which I now realize is kind of silly....

And thanks for the feedback on the young teen too!

Did this cruise in 2015 on SS Explorer. We had 4 sightings of Polar Bears. 3 were far distance where I needed my 600mm lens. This one was off the ship on the port side. We followed him and drifted with the flow for almost a hour.

PaulMCO -- Wow what a fabulous photo!

PaulMCO -- Wow what a fabulous photo!

Just lucky there at the right time. Credit to the Expedition Team and Captain for getting this.

One of the reasons SS Explorer is one of the best.

We did this cruise in August 2012. Had 14 sightings of Polar Bears,all at fairly close range and one female that came right up to the ship with her two cubs.