The most ridiculous design fault of all is that there is no public area where you can just chill and watch the scenery . The so called observation room is no such thing. If you sit down your view is obscured by solid rails so you can see nothing . You have to stand and even then the view is limited. The bar / meeting area is on a low level and has blinds on the windows which are often closed. It is where happenings such as quizzes happen so you are basically in a dark room if you want to socialise or drink! And there is no outside walkway circuiting the ship so if you brave it outside and see a whale you cannot follow it around the ship. Ridiculous . (I should say that access to the Bridge is usually allowed but you are so high up that any whales , for instance, are too far away to be seen properly. )
There is no public lounge where you can quietly sit and have say a tea in the afternoon and watch the scenery. A huge omission.
Cabins:
Almost all rooms are BLACK decor with a little dark grey! . Shelves , couches, tables, wardrobes, walls, chairs, blankets, carpet, Towels, dressing gowns. . Everything. Even the mirrors are blackened. So the cabin is a dark unwelcoming place. Lighting is also low key and not even bright enough to read.
The towels are the hardest I can remember. Really rough and no fluff. . They made my sore hands and face (from the wind and cold) so much worse. They are dark grey.
The sink is utterly ridiculous. It’s one of those trendy flat trough sinks you get in public toilet facilities where the water just runs over a flat area to a trough so there is no way of having a full sink to shave , wash your smalls etc.
Restaurants.
For dinner you can reserve the sushi restaurant or good French restaurant or night market - the latter being about an 8 course tasting menu of, on my night, Asian type food. It changes every few days to say Indian influence one evening and Malaysian another . Very nice .However each of these restaurants is very small and very hard to get a reservation. If you cannot get a reservation you are limited to azure ( burgers, pizza and hot dogs) another specialising in Italian but also having other meaty dishes and also a pan Asian . All get very full and there is often a long wait for a table unless you arrive late. And all the food is rather poncey. There is no general buffet restaurant you can just walk into which is a shame as the lunch buffet is very, very good. So the evening dining is quite limited. I would strongly suggest the ship adopts buffet dining for the evening - that would free up one of the restaurants for an observation area or lounge.
Positives.
On the positive side there is a nice spa area where the sauna steam room and plunge pool are free to use. The bar is extremely well stocked and bar tenders make very good cocktails. The expedition team is good although their presentations are less professional and informative than we are used to on expedition ships.
Summary: Greenland was a superb cruise destination but we were not enamoured with the ship (Silver Cloud the previous year to Greenland had so much more public space and brighter and more functional cabins
