Onboard Naturalists?

[cruisincarly]

Anyone know anything about onboard naturalists on Radisson? Are they any good?

[wolfie11]

That's kind of like asking what the weather will be on your cruise. Naturalists vary widely from ship to ship within a line, let alone between lines. There's a sort of heirarchy among naturalists. The best naturalists hands down are those on the small cruise lines with Linblad being the best of the best. They only hire people with master's and PhD degrees. Some of the day boat tours also have good naturalists because they hire locals, but others hire college kids and give them a book to read before they start. The park service and forest service have some really good naturalists and some that are just so-so - again they hire college students from the lower 48, but they do tend to give them a lot of training. Cruise ships vary. HAL has problems getting good naturalists (or at least they did) because naturalists were classified as crew and required to work in the shore excursions department as well as be a naturalist. Princess hires naturalists and treats them like passengers (nice cabin, eats in dining room, etc.). I'm not sure how the other lines hire their naturalists. If you're into natural history, the best book by far on Southeast Alaska is the Nature of Southeast Alaska by O'Clair. It can be ordered thru ANHA for under $20 http://www.alaskanha.org/_details.cfm?ProdID=912 (this is the book they give new naturalists).