Roald Amundsen: Sanitation Record & Health Report

Let's talk about the Roald Amundsen, because Hurtigruten's ice-strengthened little expedition ship is out here quietly making the mega-resorts look sloppy. A latest CDC score of 94, an all-time average of 92.5, and a trend that's literally labeled "improving" — this is a 530-passenger vessel with 150 crew acting like it has something to prove. Two inspections on record isn't a massive sample size, sure, but going from 91 in September 2024 to 94 in July 2026 is the kind of trajectory that makes you assume someone in the galley got a stern talking-to and actually listened. The Food Safety Score sits at 90.0 with a "Clean Kitchen" grade, which, combined with the CDC numbers, paints a picture of a ship that treats hygiene less like a chore and more like a personality trait.

Context matters here: this is not a floating water park. At 20,890 tons and 140 meters, the Roald Amundsen is built for polar routes and hybrid-powered expedition cruising, not umbrella drinks by a wave pool. Its current schedule bouncing between Buenos Aires (21 sailings), Vancouver (4), and Whittier (3) tells you exactly what this ship is for — Antarctica, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska's glacier country. It's a norwegian-registered, dual Polish-and-Norwegian-built oddity that trades size and speed (a leisurely 15 knots) for the ability to go places 5,000-passenger ships simply cannot.

Who it's for: people who want their cruise to feel like an actual expedition — glaciers, remote coastlines, small enough that you're not standing in a buffet line behind 400 strangers — and who appreciate that the ship's inspection scores back up the "we take this seriously" vibe. Who should skip it: anyone who wants a mega-ship's endless entertainment, or anyone hoping for a long, deep inspection history to pore over — with only two CDC records logged, you're trusting a trend line more than a track record. We don't have outbreak data available for this one, so we're not calling it spotless, just solidly, improvingly clean on the numbers we can see.