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Cruise lines · Expedition

HX

Antarctica, the Galápagos and Svalbard on purpose-built expedition ships, every one of them reached by air.

Who HX genuinely suits

  • Adventurous travellers who want raw nature over resort amenities: scientific lectures, zodiac landings and purpose-built hybrid-electric expedition ships (MS Roald Amundsen and MS Fridtjof Nansen among them) heading to Antarctica, the Galápagos and Svalbard.

When you'd be better off elsewhere

  • Anyone who wants to sail from a UK port without flying, unless the Scottish islands are the point. HX's only British sailings are a spring season of Hebrides island-hopping from Glasgow and the odd one-way positioning voyage; everything else begins at an airport.

What the ships are actually like

Purpose-built for the destinations rather than the ship itself: hybrid-electric propulsion, expedition-grade equipment, and a genuinely global portfolio covering Antarctica, the Galápagos (via the dedicated ship MS Santa Cruz II) and Svalbard.

The flight is not the compromise here. It is the beginning

Nobody sails to Antarctica or the Galapagos from a British port. It is not an oversight in HX's programme, it is geography, and no line on earth can offer you otherwise. Svalbard is subtler: large ships do reach it from Britain, but since January 2025 only ships carrying 200 or fewer may enter its national parks and nature reserves, which is where most of the landings are. The expedition version of Svalbard is a small-ship holiday that starts with a flight north.

Which is worth saying early, because on most pages a flight is the thing that makes an otherwise good option worse. Here it is simply how you get to the start line. If your idea of a holiday is a zodiac pulling away from a hybrid-electric hull at the edge of the pack ice, an airport somewhere in the middle is not the part you will remember. If a flight is genuinely the thing you were trying to avoid, HX's one answer is closer to home: a spring season of island-hopping in the Hebrides, sailing from Glasgow. For the ice, the airport is part of the deal, and it is better to know now than three screens in.

What the fare covers

Usually in the fare

  • Daily excursions and activities, and the onboard Science Centre

  • Meals, and drinks through the day and evening other than premium drinks

  • A polar expedition jacket and other exploration kit for the region

  • Wi-Fi, though the connection is limited in remote areas

Costs extra

  • Premium drinks

  • International flights, unless the Free Flights offer applies

  • Travel insurance, luggage handling and optional excursions

Read from the line's own website, October 2026. What a fare covers varies by sailing and by fare, so check your booking.

Tips and gratuities

Gratuities are included in the fare, so nothing for tips is added to your onboard account.

HX says it never adds discretionary charges to the bill.

Checked against the line's own website, October 2026.

Where HX sits

Class

Expedition, on our ladder from Mainstream through Ultra-Luxury.

A sample sailing

MS Fridtjof Nansen, 11 nights: Antarctica from Buenos Aires, guide price from £6,500pp.

Its only British sailings are Scottish island-hopping from Glasgow

12 of 786 sailings worldwide leave from a UK port (2% of the programme), from Glasgow, Portsmouth.

Counted 27 September 2026 against live cruise-line inventory. Sailing counts move week to week.

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