Roald Amundsen: Sanitation Record & Health Report

Listen, the Roald Amundsen is named after a man who survived the actual Arctic, so a 91 on the CDC inspection is either a tribute to his gritty legacy or a mild concern depending on your risk tolerance. It passes — 86 is the floor, and she clears it — but she's sitting about four points below the fleet average of roughly 95, which means someone on that ship has been getting a little casual with the buffet tongs. The food safety score of 90 with a Clean Kitchen grade is genuinely respectable, suggesting the galley crew has its act together even if other parts of the ship gave inspectors something to write about.

As Hurtigruten's flagship expedition vessel, the Roald Amundsen is built for people who want to watch glaciers calve from a hybrid-powered ship, not people who are coming onboard primarily for the dining experience. It's a small-ship expedition product — intimate, rugged, deeply cool in concept — so the health and safety bar carries a little more weight when you're weeks from a major port and the nearest CDC inspector is probably a penguin. A 91 isn't alarming, but on an expedition ship where itinerary flexibility is limited and medical support is genuinely far away, you want that number closer to 97 than 91.

Who it's for: Adventure travelers who want expedition cred, a gorgeous hybrid ship, and can accept that "good enough" sanitation is still good enough. Who should skip it: Anyone with a compromised immune system, a deep need for buffet confidence, or a general philosophy that "below average" is never an acceptable answer when you're surrounded by pack ice and icebergs the size of your anxiety about getting norovirus.