On a recent cruise with ORION out of Australia I learned some valuable lessons about expedition cruise's.  The ship/ cruise trip is run in basically 3 different areas, each basically/ generally separated.  1. Ship, Captain and operations  2.  Hotel accomodations and meals  3. Expedition outings and events.

In the case of the Orion the first two areas are the finest available.  The third less than professional. 

We left Cairns Australia right before a catagory 5 typhoon hit and never saw a ripple in the water as we headed for Milne Bay In Papau New Guinea.  It wasn't luck, just a great captain and a lucky sailing date.

As cruises go, the ORION was on its maiden expedition trials into the Solomon Islands and Papau New Guinea.  Many things were very well done by the ship captain and crew and the accomodations and meals are incredible.  The expedition part of the cruise however left very much to be desired and was seriously in need of professional staff in that area.  The size of the ship lends itself well to a wonderful commrodery of the passengers. 

Once off the ship onto some wonderful and beautiful islands and locations one is pretty much on their own even in a group.  Looking into the first aid trunk for example you will find not so much as iodine nor alcohol wipes nor a bandaid for coral scrapes and the expedition staff relying on luck that nothing is going to go wrong.  There was, upon my inspection, nothing but life jackets in the first aid trunk.

On this trip nothing did go wrong where lives were lost or any major accidents occured but we were into places and situations where there is always that possibility.  Had there been a serious problem a life could have been further endangered due to lack of planning or preparation. When this happens there will be an exacerbated problem due to the staff  having done little to no planning for problems that was so much as mentioned or discussed with the passengers. 

Landing sites on Beaches consisted of an aluminum trunk with a red cross on it and a table, a large umbrella, snorkeling gear, boxes for the zodiac life vests and water containers which were set up and simply abandoned while passengers were snorkeling. 

What brought all this to light for me is that after asking the staff before snorkeling off the original landing site if it was OK to put my camera and hearing aids in the nearby shade the natives stole all my belongings.  We were told the island was "uninhabited".... Later I was told that didn't mean there weren't natives there.  The landing site had been abandoned after I had been assured it was OK to put my belongings in the shade close to the site.  If there had been an emergency no one was minding the store.  No staff was anywhere near the site when several of us returned from snorkeling.  The logical place for the snorkelers to go in case of a problem was the original site which was still in place.  I was later told that the expedition leader was "close by".  Several witnesses have stated that this simply was not true.  The cruise lines steadfastly refused to have any responsibility for their neglect in the loss of more than $6,000 USD worth of my possessions.  The run around and aquiecense put upon this passenger trying to find anyone who would even admit authority took three days.  The run around after that was shameful.

Expedition passengers were run down with zodiacs, (yes quite literally run over) with zodiacs boating right through the snorkeling passengers. There is a prop guard on only two of the many zodiacs.  The one in question did NOT have a prop guard.  Passengers who had paid for fishing expeditions were put in native canoes (small outriggers) to go on fishing trips out into the ocean with no life vests when they did not know how to swim.  Passengers were taken into live volcanoes without any briefing or proper clothing or shoes when they were told they were going into an in-active volcano.  Passengers were taken into bat caves (mud) again without proper planning and returned to say that the place did not appear to be safe nor any precautions taken if the mud walls had caved in or someone had fallen in the slime.  On one of the scuba dives we were told the dive was "close" then taken an hour and twenty minutes out into the open ocean in a rickety old beat up boat with no access to our equipment until we were in the water on site.  My equipment was faulty, first the regulator and then the gauges.  None of the advance work had checked out the caliber of the dive shops.  Other dive shops and dives were better however, one very professional but no thanks to the advance people. 

No one is saying passengers should be molly coddled on an "expedition" or over controlled either but with the resources and staff available it is sad how poorly the safety procedures and advance work were planned (if they were thought through at all).  There is, when staff tell passengers all the tiny details and demands of embarking and dis-embarking the zodiacs, a certain trust given in exchange for demands required of the passengers.  In the case of the ORION, off the ship, the trust was poorly warranted.  On board the ship is solid, well staffed, beautiful, well manned and a joy to experience.  The expedition staff  were  trained in the basics and did a good job as long as there were no passengers around.  They were nearly as much on vacation as the passengers once ashore and not well prepared for safety procedures.  They were for the most part boring in their post briefings and ill prepared in their briefings for each new adventure.  They were friendly pleasant people but not very professional nor well informed.  The advance work for the expedition part of the trip was in some areas good, in others negligent.

On several occasions the snorkeling passengers were put into areas with moderate to severe currents and at one point one zodiac with one Phillipino driver was looking after 18 snorkelers many hundreds of yards outside the bouy markers and headed out to sea.  No buddy system was called for, no briefing on the danger potential and no discussion offered on safety measures.  This happened again on later islands where 10 people were adrift and both zodiacs on site were beached.  One location we arrived at to snorkel was a junk yard with broken glass scattered over the entire one hundred yards of beach and underwater was a cump site... beautiful fish, virtually no reef and a poorly chosen site.  Kennedy Island out of Ghizo Island was a great choice for sheer beauty and historic event but it had quite a current for snorkeling,  which was an advantage if it had been scouted properly.  Information was poorly prepared and poorly informed to the passengers.  The check out system going off the ship by zodiac allowed that a person who forgot to turn their tag around could leave the ship without it being known and they would have been left behind had they gotten lost, abducted or drowned and not missed for some time.  Without a buddy system there was no backup system for simply forgetting to turn over your tag on departure.

We all know that an "expedition" ship can be by definition inherently dangerous due to locations and activities  which we all accept, however, failure to inform passengers of those possible dangers and not discussing in advance  emergency and safety procedures pre-departure is negligent.  When  staff assure someone it is OK to deposit their property at the landing site on an "uninhabited" island then abandon the site and afterwards say they are not responsible it is pure negligence. 

Negligence in one area, once observed and experienced by this passenger, showed an entire area of negligence in safety, scouting and emergency and even first aid planning or procedures. 

I write this because I believe this is a great ship, a great idea in a great location and that ORION has everything going for it except its main purpose to passengers which is the expedition itself.  There were some great landing sites chosen... there were some great sites completely bypassed with no mention what-ever but all in all it was a wonderful trip if the expedition staff had done better advance work and managed the emergency procedures as they are managed on the ship.  i.e. abandonment procedures and emergency discussions.  This experience is worth the work to improve it.

If you take this cruise you will find the state rooms extraordinary, the food top shelf and the Phillipino crew highest quality.  The maintainence and operations are top of the line and the ship beautiful.  You will also probably find a ship a hotel manager that will tell you anything you want to hear if you have any problems.  The truth or living up to the truth is not a habit of the owner nor supervisors of this cruise line.  I found them quite likeable but aberrant.  I do however think they can correct the several expedition problems easily enough, the rest is great.  However, to do that I beleive they first are going to have to learn that  truth is a habit of integrity and not a strategy to manipulate.  

Before you look into an ORION cruise check the safety procedures and expedition staff training and capabilities. Get yourself a bunch of insurance!  If you feel comfortable they have decided to take seriously those fundamentals discussed here-in then the greatness of the rest of the trip is assured.  It is a magnificent ship with a good itinerary and unlimited potential in an incredible part of the world.