We took the 14-cruise, which started with a charter flight from Oslo to Longyearben, and included Svalbard, Greenland and Iceland. Although we received numerous extreme warnings from Silversea about how luggage limitations would be strictly enforced on the charter flight to Longyearben, none of the warnings turned out to be true. We were told that under no circumstances could we have more than one piece, 50 pounds maximum, of checked luggage, plus one hand luggage of 11 pounds. In fact, SAS said they would be happy to check two pieces of luggage per person, and they showed no concern over the weight of our checked or hand luggage. SAS also said that Silversea pre-assigned all seats on the plane and had instructed them not to change anyone's seats. Despite the fact that the aircraft was only about half full, we were assigned middle seats in the next to last row.

We had a veranda suite category room, so our French doors opened onto a tiny balcony. This was especially important because we had views--including of a polar bear that appeared directly under our balcony, that could not easily be accessed unless you could step outside the cabin.

The cruise was pretty good, but overall we had mixed results. We had been on the same ship to Antarctica, which is a much more exciting destination with far more to see. Read more