We Tried the World's Best Polar Bear Cruise (Aurora Expeditions Svalbard Cruise)

The polar bears like jumping around. We are currently watching two polar bears eating a whale just eight degrees south of the North Pole. We are just 12 degrees south of the North Pole here in the tiny town of Longyearbyen, home to just 2,500 residents in Svalbard, Norway. This is the northernmost city on the planet. Svalbard is known for its otherworldly landscapes, abundant wildlife, and extreme phenomenon including the midnight sun where the sun never sets or rises in the summer. Over the next two weeks we're going to be sailing with Aurora Expedition and we're going to show you exactly what it's like to explore some of the northernmost places on the planet. We just arrived at the ship and it looks incredible, so you want to go on board? Yeah, let's see our home for the next two weeks. I can't believe how beautiful this ship is, Jess. Jess and Justin. Nice to meet you. Oh, you said Justine? I thought you were saying my name with like a little flare. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. It's so nice and cozy. Jess, it has a balcony! Look at this room! This is so nice. This room is so nice. Aw, and it has little polar bears on it. Dang. Pretty spacious. Every surface in here is like polished marble and fancy wood. I think I'm probably, though, most excited about our very own balcony! Oh my gosh, look at that, Jess! That is very cool. That looks so good on you! Do I look like an arctic explorer? Yes! Apparently they've got refreshments, snacks, and champagne down in the lobby. All right, uh, champagne. So this is an expedition cruise, meaning there's really no set itinerary other than exploring Svalbard. Our expedition leader makes a decision every day where we're going and what we're doing based on ice conditions, weather conditions, and wildlife sightings. Every day on this trip, we try to do two expeditions that are led by real-life polar experts like biologists, geologists, or ornithologists. They'll explain some of the behaviors of the wildlife we're seeing and give us information about our environment. And every night, we learn even more from them during our daily briefing. We are headed out on our very first expedition soon, and we are super excited to see what Svalbard has to offer. Well, this is a very exciting morning here in Svalbard. The crew are absolutely buzzing. We are going to a bird cliff that has over 60,000 breeding pairs of guillemots. It looks absolutely epic. We're going in zodiac boats. They're going to be flying overhead, possibly pooping on us. We just got the overhead chime that our group is ready to hit the zodiac, so we'll see you in the mudroom. Wait for us! We're coming! So the birds that we're seeing are guillemots. They kind of look like arctic penguins. They're black and white and kind of chubby. But surprisingly, they look like they shouldn't be able to fly, but clearly it is not an issue for them. They're so portly. Portly is a nice way to say it. I feel like there's only a handful of times in my life where I felt like I'm straight up in a National Geographic documentary. This is definitely one of those experiences where I just feel totally, totally immersed in what... There's got to be tens of thousands of birds just flying everywhere all around us. It's incredible. Very exciting news, guys. Jessica got blessed with bird poo. I've officially visited Svalbard. I think getting pooped on by birds is supposed to be good luck, right? I'll take it. I hate to tell you this, but you may have gotten bird poop on your nose. I'll wipe it off. Hold on. Are you going to touch bird poop? Well, I have to. No, don't do it. Forever unclean. Oh, it's inside your jacket too. No one else is getting bird poop on me. It's just you. Life of an expeditioner, eh? There is an arctic fox den around here. We're hanging around the glacier where the den is supposed to be, but one of the other zodiacs spotted it, so we're going to go check it out right now. I see a bunch of zodiacs up front gathering around, so hopefully we get to see it. Oh, there he is. Oh, cool. We just woke up and this is a very exciting morning because we've been sailing north along the east coast of Svalbard and we are just in front of the pack ice. I am so excited because we are going to be surrounded by ice for the next two days. Look at this. I've definitely never seen any kind of landscape like this before. This should be the best place to see polar bears because this is exactly the kind of environment where they hunt. We are at 81.8 degrees north, which means we are just eight degrees south of the North Pole, which is incredible. I didn't think we'd even be going above 80. I want to show you this. Look at this. We are so far north right now. We're hidden behind the search gear bar. That's where we are right now. That's the North Pole. We're at the top of the world. It's really hard to describe this feeling. It's like no place I've ever been before. It's just so unique to be surrounded by sea ice in every direction. Our main goal today is polar bear watch. So we need to get out our big cameras, our binoculars, and we need to... I came prepared. Just in case a polar bear dives out of the sky, I am prepared. So we need to go fill up our bellies and then get the binoculars out and be on lookout. Jess and I had just finished eating breakfast and they chimed overhead and said they spotted a polar bear on the ice. We have to be quiet when we go outside. The government of Norway and Svalbard has set a high bar for polar regions, implementing rules for operators that ensure the protection of wildlife, allowing us to observe animals in this extraordinary place without disturbing them. And even though we're 100 miles north of Svalbard during this encounter, Aurora is part of IACO, which is an international association of operators whose members have committed to responsible, Because we were parked in front of the pack ice overnight, we were fortunate enough to see this incredible once-in-a-lifetime scene. Or so we thought. Please make ready if you want to enjoy the sight. Ladies and gentlemen, I must remind you, don't run, don't slam doors, don't make any metallic or any other kind of noise while you are outside. We just saw a bear, so we came back down to our laptop because it was so incredible that we were like, we have to get this footage onto our laptop in case like some tsunami comes and sweeps our camera away. And the expedition leader just came on and said, there's another bear. I told Jess before we left. I'm so excited right now. This is my favorite. My favorite thing on the planet is seeing wildlife and seeing it here in this epic place. I literally have goosebumps. Okay guys, we just got outside and we found another polar bear. And I think this one is eating Miguel on the ice. We are watching this polar bear just knocked down on a ring seal. He's ripping pieces of flesh off. I feel like David Attenborough should be narrating this moment right now. This definitely feels like the most wild and untouched place we've ever visited before. This is such a vicious display of nature. Just so incredible because it's the stuff that you only see on TV documentaries. We're just witnessing a polar bear decimate this ring seal. Just in front of the bear, there's some ivory gulls. They're scavenger birds, but apparently they're extremely rare up here. One of our guides just told us they've never seen them up here in the Arctic. That's a very interesting situation. We just came back to the room for the second time to dump memory cards. And Kristoff comes over the announcement again saying there's a field of seals and two more polar bears going after them. Approaching the seals. This is, they're just like, this is insane. It's a possibility when you come here that you don't see any bears. That happens. Like, they're wild. This is a very wild place. The fact that we're, this is just like, bam, bam, bam. This is incredible. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We are in front of a scene that is very, very uncommon. Such a big gathering of hot seals. And we have four polar bears on a team now. Because the polar bears have succeeded in hunting two of these seals. So we just came on a family of polar bears. A mother and her three adolescent cubs that are eating a seal. They attacked it, grabbed it. They're running across the ice grabbing the seals. The seals all around them are diving into their ice holes. It is just an extraordinary sight to see. Something incredibly rare. I don't think many polar bears have three cubs. So the fact that we're seeing three. I think, fortunately, being a polar bear is pretty tough, if you can imagine. So I think it's incredibly uncommon that we're getting to see this right now. You know it's a special and unique experience when all of the guys on the ship are freaking out along with us. It's so overwhelming. Now we have five bears in front of us next to these thousands of seals. I've never seen that in my life. Ever. No. Bears normally are solitary animals. They won't hunt peacefully next to each other? No. Okay. They can, if they are starving, they can even kill each other. But there's such an abundance of food here. In that case, yes. It's so much food and they are just playing with each other, tolerating each other because they are all belly full, basically. Sometimes we see like rafts of seals swimming together or we see seals on the ice but I've never seen that much. You've never seen this many seals and you've never seen this many bears hunting seals before? This is truly a rare sight. I think this is the most excited I've ever seen guides get on any expedition cruise before. It's because when we see something like that, there is no way. This is why we do the job, right? It is currently 3 p.m. We have probably seen around eight polar bears. There's one right behind me. We got to see four that were together that we think are a family feeding on seals. I was hoping we'd get to see one polar bear. So the fact that there's been continuous polar bear sightings the entire day, it's just been... If you are a photographer or wildlife enthusiast or somebody who's remotely interested in polar bears, this is kind of a dream come true. We're going out to enjoy the hot tub and we just ran into someone else in the hallway who said there are two more polar bear following along the side of the ship. There's no shortage of polar bear out here. Right there. Wow, that's incredible. I was like, oh my gosh, a polar bear. And then Jess is like, oh, do you mean that one over there? And it turns out there's two polar bears. And you can see from the hot tub. Wow, this is so incredibly beautiful to be surrounded by arctic pack eyes just eight degrees south of the North Pole in a private hot tub. I mean, this is as good as it gets. Good morning. Good morning, good people. So it's 530 a.m. And Kristoff just said there's a whale carcass outside. And more importantly, there's a polar bear approaching the whale carcass. Even though I like my sleep, I think we should probably go watch that because that sounds like a pretty once in a lifetime thing to see. I'll see you at the polar bear. We just walked outside of her cabin and there is a polar bear eating said whale carcass. I haven't seen him yet, but there is actually another polar bear that's making its way towards us. So I don't know if we're going to see a fight. I don't know if they're just going to peacefully eat side by side, but definitely the most polar bears I've ever seen before 6 a.m. So the second polar bear that I was telling you about made it here. It walked right by the ship. First, it walked away from the carcass when the second polar bear arrived. And now, oh, now there's both of the polar bears are by the carcass. So I know that polar bears are the apex predators of the Arctic, but I'll tell you what, they are just big goofballs. There's one that's like rolling all over his back. It's so cute. One of the polar bears displayed some aggressive behavior and the other polar bear walked off. But lucky for us, there's another polar bear that just came. I still think it's probably before 6 a.m. and we've seen three great polar bears. I just saw the polar bear swimming. There's one just laying off to the left. One standing just to the left of the whale. And then there's another actively eating. Oh, my God. The polar bear's like jumping around. We just left the pack ice and are headed back to mainland Svalbard. We still have a lot of the trip left, but I honestly don't know how anything else is going to top that. That being said, Svalbard may not be like it is while we're visiting for that much longer. Svalbard is heating at a rate that's six times greater than the rest of the world. And current projections estimate that Arctic sea ice may be completely gone in 35 years or even sooner. This means that polar bears and other wildlife will have to seriously adapt to the changing environment or unfortunately face extinction. One of the things that we love about Aurora is that they balance highlighting the beauty of the Arctic with sobering bits of reality about climate change's impact on these lands. They're also pretty unique in the cruising industry because they're completely carbon neutral and a certified B Corp, meaning that they meet rigorous social environmental standards. This is the base of the planktonic bloom that is one of the very first steps of the food chain. Everything starts with planktonic, zooplanktonic or phytoplanktonic. And there is a bloom of that in the Arctic regions because there is pack ice. If we lose this, I think nobody knows what's going to happen. Krill eat the plankton, the fish eat the krill, the seals eat the fish, the polar bears eat the seals. Sure. And the first step of that is the planktonic bloom. And that is linked to polar regions, to the Arctic or to the Antarctic and to pack ice. Despite some of the grim statistics about the Arctic, the polar bear population is fortunately stable in Svalbard right now. In fact, we're just about to head out to a place where our expedition leader has lucked out with seeing polar bears previously, and we're hoping we're going to be lucky as well. During last night's recap, the plan was to go onshore and hike to a walrus haulout. Unfortunately, when we woke up this morning, the expedition guide spotted a polar bear on the shore right next to the walrus haulout. So we knew that wasn't going to happen. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit that we were sad about there being a polar bear on the shore. In Svalbard, you have to stay at least 150 meters from walruses while you're in the water, at least with respect to a haulout. But that turned out to be not very much of a problem. There was a polar bear on shore. At first, when we got there, he was sleeping, but eventually he got up and walked into this crowd. Dozens of them left the beach into the water. There was mass panic. And then the walruses decided to hang out in the water and come near the ship. The show was just incredible seeing their tusks come out of the water. Before coming to the Arctic, we kept hearing how it's so hard to see wildlife here. But every single day we've seen birds or walruses or polar bears or Arctic foxes. Like, it's just been this explosion of wildlife. So you remember Alcafiliette the other day? It was that incredible rock wall with 90,000 birds. Apparently, we're going to a smaller version of that this afternoon. There might also be polar bears and maybe walruses. So perhaps we'll have part two of this morning. Here's hoping. Our expedition leader has never been here before. And he was like, this is an expedition. So let's go check it out. At first, we didn't see a ton of wildlife. So I wasn't really sure to expect. But so far on a two-hour cruise, we've seen three Arctic foxes, one sleeping walrus, one reindeer, and an entire cliff of birds, which includes guillemots and puffins, which I didn't even know lived in Svalbard. We are currently on our way to see a polar bear. It's like our guides were saying, what did you guys do before this cruise? It truly feels incredible. The Zodiac cruise along the island, I mean, we saw everything in just two hours of Zodiac. We have seen walrus, bears, fox, reindeer, all the species of all sea birds, plus squirrels. And everything was there in just two hours of Zodiac cruise that I was just like thinking, OK, let's try. Let's see, maybe. And everything was there. It was extraordinary. I tried my luck. And wow, I got the prize. Most of the Zodiacs are focused on wildlife viewing or taking in the scenery or photography. But Aurora also offers something we've never seen on a cruise before, a citizen science Zodiac. Passengers can help scientists collect data to help with a bunch of different long-term projects ranging from studying whale and bird populations to glacial density. Like many of the oceans around the world, microscopic algae called phytoplankton are a keystone species here in Svalbard. Unfortunately, their abundance in these waters have dropped by an estimated 40% between 1960 and 2010 due to climate change. Because Aurora Expeditions sails to these incredibly remote locations around the planet, it is the perfect platform to do scientific research that supports these conservation efforts. Today, we're going to be helping a long-term global citizen science project that helps scientists measure the abundance of phytoplankton in these waters. We are joined by our resident marine biologist, Danny. The data that we collect today will be helping scientists protect the most important biology of our oceans. The idea for us is to collect data from phytoplankton, and we have a SACC disc and also I do have a little net for us to collect some samples and see what we can find back on the microscope, back on our lab. By measuring when the disc disappears from the light, scientists can extrapolate how much phytoplankton is in the water column. We also took a sample of seawater to check out phytoplankton under the ship's microscopes because, well, microscopes are pretty cool. Whoa, that's cool. This looks like a phelomantic colon. Most of our expeditions were zodiac cruises, but we also made a few landings where we got to see arctic flora up close and personal, and even hike up to a glacier and drink from it. However, you can't exactly just mosey around Svalbard by yourself. So we're going on our first long walk of the trip. You'll notice that protecting our group is Elena and Sydney with rifles, but they're not only protecting us, they're protecting polar bears. In addition to being equipped with some flare guns and then rifles for worst case scenario, they also have binoculars. And before we came on shore, they were on a lookout for polar bears to make sure it's safe. Obviously, this is their home and their territorial creatures. By they, he's talking about polar bears, not the expedition guides. Elena is not territorial. They're doing a really good job of protecting us. They also have somebody way up there on the hill. If they see one, then we'll have to head back to the ship. But I think we should be safe for now. In addition to the expeditions that we've done, there's a separate kayaking program that you can sign up for, where you essentially go paddling every time the other guests go out and the weather and wildlife conditions allow. We made some friends on board who are part of the kayaking program, and they said it was an absolutely fantastic way to feel totally immersed into the scenery. Whether or not you're part of the kayaking team, we usually spend about six hours a day going out on expeditions. But of course, we spend the rest of the time on the ship. Thankfully, the Sylvia Earle is super comfortable with two restaurants with big windows to take in the surrounding scenery, a beautiful library, observation lounge, two hot tubs, heated infinity pool, and a sauna with a giant window. Unlike some larger ships, the focus of this trip are the expeditions themselves. So definitely don't expect any Broadway shows or musical acts. But there are a handful of on-board activities, like lots of scientific lectures from some of the on-board polar experts, and some more fun stuff like a barbecue where everyone wears silly hats, and of course, a classic polar activity. You might be wondering why we're standing on our balcony, in our bathrooms, in front of a glacier. But first, we just wanted to say this was hands down one of the best wildlife and natural experience we've ever had in our entire life, thanks in large part to Aurora and its incredible polar experts. So we are incredibly excited to announce that we are going to be joining Aurora again at the end of this year on the opposite side of the planet in Antarctica. So if you're interested in joining us on that trip, definitely be sure to check the link in the description below for more details. We could think of no better way to celebrate this exciting journey and end this video than a polar plunge in one degree water in front of one of the world's most epic glaciers. I'm so nervous. Three, two, one, go. Two weeks in and this is our first time in the infinity pool. I thought it was cold, but turns out it's actually heated. Well, I cannot think of a cooler place to end this video than surrounded by glaciers on every single side of us. Thank you so much for watching. Be sure to subscribe and watch our adventures from pole to pole. See you next time. This video is dedicated to my grandma Clara. She was a beautiful human being full of empathy, love, and joy. Unfortunately, she passed away during this sailing. She would have been so incredibly happy to know that Jessica and I were out here. She truly made the world a better place with her beautiful smile. So do me a favor and in memory of Clara, next time you go out, lead with compassion and smile at your neighbor. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.