Polar Star Expeditions was a specialty adventure cruise company owned by Karlsen Shipping Company Ltd. out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2001, Polar Star began operating a single expedition cruise ship, MV Polar Star, a 87-metre (284 ft) converted Swedish icebreaker with 105 berths. The company conducted cruises mainly in the northern and southern polar and sub-polar regions. Polar Star Expeditions did not have an easy time of it. In 2010, its only vessel lost one of its engines and had to operate part of that season on just one. Then in January 2011, the vessel suffered serious grounding damage in the Antarctic, which led to the failure of the parent company.
MV Esperanza was a ship operated by Greenpeace. Previous to being a Greenpeace ship it was a fire-fighting vessel owned by the Soviet Navy, built in 1984. It was recommissioned in 2000 and relaunched in 2002 after being named Esperanza by visitors to the Greenpeace website. It had undergone a major refit by Greenpeace to make it more environmentally friendly. A new helicopter deck and boat cranes were also added. The ship is powered by two Sulzer V12 marine diesel engines.
Mein Schiff Herz is the second of two Century-class cruise ships operated by TUI Cruises. Built for Celebrity Cruises at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, she was launched on 11 July 1997, and was christened and entered service as MV Mercury on 27 October 1997.
Professor Molchanov is a Russian ice-strengthened oceanographic research vessel. The ship was built in Finland in 1983 and is now converted to passenger duties for the expedition cruise market.
MV Gemini is a cruise ship operated by Miray Cruises as of 2021. She was built in 1992 by Union Navale de Levante, Valencia, Spain for Crown Cruise Line as Crown Jewel. She has also sailed under the name Cunard Crown Jewel. She also operated as SuperStar Gemini for Star Cruises from 1995 to 2008.
MVGlory Sea is a China-registered passenger ship. The ship was built in Germany in 2001 by Blohm + Voss and originally named Olympia Explorer. The ship was later renamed MV Explorer when it began sailing for the Semester at Sea program in 2004. The ship remained with them until 2015.
Kajama is a three-masted former cargo schooner, that currently operates on Lake Ontario as a cruise ship.
RRS Shackleton was a Royal Research Ship operated by the British scientific research organisations the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in the Antarctic from 1955 to 1983. She was subsequently operated as a seismic survey vessel under the names Geotek Beta, Profiler and finally Sea Profiler before being scrapped in 2011.
MS World Discoverer was a cruise ship designed for and built by Schichau Unterweser, Germany in 1974. During construction called BEWA Discoverer, the ship was completed in Bremerhaven, Germany. In 2000, the ship struck an underwater obstacle and was damaged; it was subsequently grounded – to prevent sinking – and abandoned in the Solomon Islands.
MV Coral was a cruise ship in service for Louis Cruises until 2011. She was a Cunard Line cruise ship that operated from 1971 to 1977. She was the first of the company's vessels in the 20th century to bear a name that did not end in "ia" or begin with "Queen."
MS Marina is an Oceania-class cruise ship, which was constructed at Fincantieri's Sestri Ponente yards in Italy for Oceania Cruises. Marina is the first in a duo of cruise ships, and was followed by MS Riviera in May 2012. The option for the third ship was declined. The ship was named in Miami by Mary Hart on 5 February 2011.
MV Lyubov Orlova was a 1976 Yugoslavia-built ice-strengthened Maria Yermolova-class cruise ship, which was primarily used for Antarctic cruises. After being taken out of service in 2010, she sat in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada for two years. Decommissioning was fraught with problems and the ship eventually became a floating derelict in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2013. She is believed to have sunk.
MV Akademik Shokalskiy is an Akademik Shuleykin-class ice-strengthened ship, built in Finland in 1982 and originally used for oceanographic research. In 1998 she was fully refurbished to serve as a research ship for Arctic and Antarctic work; she is used also for expedition cruising. She is named after the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky.
MV Plancius, formerly HNLMS Tydeman (A906), is a renovated oceanographic research vessel of the Royal Netherlands Navy now employed as a polar expedition cruise vessel by owner and operator Oceanwide Expeditions. She was commissioned into the Royal Netherlands Navy on 10 November 1976, and served until 2004, before being renovated for commercial use. The vessel was used for both military and civilian research and had a fracture zone named after it.
La Belle Des Oceans is a small, yacht-type cruise ship operated by CroisiEurope. She has previously been operated by a number of cruise lines under different names, the most recent of which was Silver Discoverer.
MV Corinthian is a cruise vessel that operates on the Great Lakes, in the Mediterranean, and around Antarctica. Summer ports of call in the Great Lakes include Toronto, Port Weller, Little Current, Mackinac Island, Houghton, Michigan, Thunder Bay and Duluth, Minnesota. She was launched in 1990, built by Cantiere Navale Ferrari-Signani in La Spezia, Italy and was operated by Renaissance Cruises and Great Lakes Cruise Company as the Renaissance IV. After Renaissance Cruises ceased operations, she was known for a time as the Clelia II.
Piloto Pardo was a Chilean Navy auxiliary ship from 1959 until 1997. After decommissioning she was converted to an Antarctic expedition cruise ship and operated as such until 2012 under the name MV Antarctic Dream.
Oceanwide Expeditions is a Dutch company specializing in expedition-style voyages to Antarctica and the Arctic. Deploying its own fleet of ice-strengthened vessels, Oceanwide emphasizes small-scale, flexible tours that provide passengers close contact with polar wildlife, landscapes, and historical sites. Tours usually take place in regions only accessible by sea, with little to no infrastructure. The locations visited are first reached by ship, after which expedition guides take small groups of passengers to landing sites by way of Zodiac Milpro RIBs, enabling safe cruising and maximum shore time.
Rembrandt van Rijn is a Vanuatu-flagged three-masted schooner currently employed for Arctic cruises by owner and operator Oceanwide Expeditions. She was built in 1924 as a fishing lugger and has served as a coaster and schooner under the flags of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Panama. The ship has been lengthened three times, fitted with four different engines, and has had a change of IMO number during her career on the seas.
S/V Noorderlicht is a two-masted schooner built in 1910 as a light sailing vessel for the German Navy. Since the 1990s, she has served as one of the expedition cruise vessels for Oceanwide Expeditions, sailing to some of the most remote locations in the Arctic, particularly the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.
Russia
Netherlands