Quark Expeditions

I would have expected slightly different planning to avoid us getting stranded out there for 5 days. Would love to discuss with your team when available. Regards,

This was my 5th Quark trip. Trips 1 (2008) and 2 (2015) were great. Trips 3 and 4 (2016), the NE and NW passage aboard the KK were filled with disasters and disappointments. We were given a credit to make up for all that went wrong on the NE passage. I decided to give Quark 1 more change, to apply that credit to this Baffin to Greenland trip. My verdict is in - Quark charges high prices and provides consistent low quality. It does not provide what it markets and it’s the literature is filled with disclaimers which in essence means Quark does what it does and gives what is gives; too bad for the customer! I booked this trip on the Sea Adventurer. That ship wasn’t ready and the Ocean Atlantic was substituted. I was told that it was a great ship and everything would be the same. NOT TRUE! My room on the OA didn’t have a closet or shelves. It did have a sink and shower that poure out rusty water that turned the face cloth orange. On Day one, my floor was soaking wet from a windo leak. The solution was to put a blanket on the floor promising that everything would be fine on Day 2. That was not the case. A soaking wet blanket was the first thing that I stepped onto when I woke up on Day 2. I was given a different room of the same poor quality and no one helped me move my things and I had to move the items that were stored in that room. In the new room, the termperature could not be controlled and if there were times when the room smelled of paint and glue. The the bridge of OA could only be reached by going outside. We had limited access to the bow, something I never experienced before on a Quark trip. Aside from the ship, the staff aboard this trip were far less experienced than on the other expeditions. Their lectures were mediocre and I felt that what they presented was something they did for a college assignement. With the exception of Colin who was great, most of the others, gave mediocre lectures. During this expedition we crossed the Arctic Circle. It was never announced or celebrated. We did get certificates at the end of the trip to mark the non-event. At the beginning of the trip, we seemed to arrive late at eac destination, landing at dusk and visiting a village in the dark. Solan told me I should have expected this based upon the time of the year the trip makes this journey. The staff also seemed very self-centered. Perhpas it’s the generation they represent, but there were more photos of them appearing on the daily monitor and in the final slideshow then there seemed to be of the passengers. We weren’t informed about the Daily schedule being available on the ships intranet untl close to the end of the trip. Greenland is beautiful. We were blessed to experience the Northern Lights. I hope to someday visit Eastern Greenland. Despite my eligibility for a 5% discount, I will seek a company that reflects quality, honesty, provides good value for what it charges, and who values its customers. It is sad that Quark is no longer the great company that it once was. Three bad trips out of 5, isn’t a very good track record. When we were asked to do our evals at the conclusion of the trip, we were told that many people gave a 1 star as opposed to 5 stars and they knew that, that wasn’t the passanger’s intent. Let it be known that 1 Star is my rating and it reflects POOR!