Duck Travel

06/09/2026

✨ABSOLUTE BARGAIN ✨

❄️🎅🏼 🇱🇻RIGA CHRISTMAS MARKETS 🇱🇻🎅🏼❄️
Step into a winter wonderland in beautiful Riga and experience charming Christmas markets, magical lights and the enchanting atmosphere of the historic Old Town!

📆30th November 2026
🌙4 nights
💷Total price £289 per person!

Highlights:
⭐ Wander through Riga’s festive Christmas markets
⭐ Explore the charming Old Town
⭐ Soak up the magical Christmas atmosphere

Price includes:
✈️Depart from Leeds Bradford
🏨4* Rixwell Old Riga Palace Hotel
🍽️Room only
🥾Old Town Walking Tour included
🎒Under seat cabin bag included
❌No Transfers

🪙Pay to hotel on arrival : £4 per person
🌍 Pay to Agent : £289 per person
👉 Total ONLY: £293 per person

✨ Full payment required ✨
Based on 2 sharing

⏰ Flight times
🛩️ Leeds Bradford to Riga - 0605 / 1040
🛩️ Riga to Leeds Bradford - 2200 / 2255
Operator- Travel Solutions
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☎️ to book call 01772 657222 | 💬 message us
📧 email [email protected]
🧡Independent franchise of Hays Travel
🙋 ABTA L3832
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05/09/2026

🇬🇱The Greenland Icesheet🇬🇱

🧊The Greenland Ice Sheet covers nearly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the secondlargest ice sheet in the world and has an average thickness of 1.5km, and it is over 3kmat its thickest point. It is believed that most of the ice sheet is destined to melt under the expected climate conditions, unless the current rate warming is reversed.

🥾Less than 400 people a year get to walk on the ice sheet.

🚁Once again the helicopter team and expedition team pulled out all the stops to ensure that everyone on the ship got to go to the ice sheet.

🦺 In advance of our arrival the team establish a landing spot, set out a pole to pole route and drop all the survival gear in case of a stranding.

🥶We got over an hour on the ice, got to wade into a cravass, climb into the cravass which was like a cave, and fill our water bottles with arctic water 💧.

🐋On the way back to the ship we spotted a humpback whale close the the ice sheet. The colour of the water made it easy to spot the contrast of the whale.

🇬🇱This afternoon, some local Greenlanders have been aboard with some handicrafts and to demonstrate a drum show.

05/09/2026

🇬🇱Prins Christiansund & Aappilattoq🇬🇱

🧊We were on for zodiac cruising in the morning - up close to a 65m high glacier. As we approached, with care, it carved in front of us and created some waves highlighting the need to respect the distance between us and the glacier.

🪶 Hidden in the cliff face was a sandpiper - just the one - so well camouflaged it was difficult to make him out.

🐋 casually spotted a whale from our cabin

🏠We headed out to the village of Aappilattoq. It has a small pier so we could land without getting wet. It translates to ‘the red thing’ in Greenlandic and is in reference to the geology above the settlement. The settlement has 77 inhabitants as of January 2025 and the main occupations and source of income are fishing and hunting. There’s no street names, just coloured houses that show what type of building it is eg schools churches and shops are red.

We were treated to:
☕️Kaffemik - soup and cake
🎶 a Choir Performance in the Church
🎣Hunter Story Telling
⚽️a football match with Aappilattoq Locals which ended in a 4-1 win for the locals. In the defence of Aquamarine, the locals team did have about 16 players and the pitch was questionable. Russ did score the only goal for our team!

04/09/2026

🇬🇱Nørrearm - Lindenow Fjord🇬🇱

After our slight diversion to Eastern Greenland, our Expedition Leader Sarah made the decision to head to Nørrearm.

🐻‍❄️On our way, using the very powerful scopes situated on deck, one of the guides spotted polar bears. Cue mass scramble for cameras and binoculars! The announcement was made inside only with a call for quiet on deck. Everyone rushed outside and the Expedition team made sure all passengers were able to find them in the distance. It was a mother and cub - not easy to locate them but once you had them you could find them more easily. There are regulations on how close you can knowingly get to the bears, so once everyone had their shots, the ship retreated.

🛶After lunch it was our turn to go out paddling. These are inflatable two person canoes - 5 canoes and guide. We paddled quite a way, investigating a waterfall, seal spotting, iceberg observing and paddling over some of the smaller bits of ice.

🥶 Then it was the polar plunge. 78 people on board the ship chose to participate - many doing it for the 2nd or 3rd time! I can confirm that water is COLD - gives you a tingling and takes your breath away. We certainly earned our polar plunge badge.

🧖‍♀️This called for a warm up in the sauna and a hot shower before dinner.

📍After dinner, one of the guided did a talk on living in Longearbyan in Svalbard - absolutely hilarious stories for living in the dark for mot n on end.

03/09/2026

🇬🇱Skjoldungen Fjord - part 2 🇬🇱

⚓️ Towards the end of the day, we were called for our zodiac cruising.

In groups we went out and approached the Thrums Glacier. Our expedition guide also happened to be a glaciologist so we got some inside information into the glacier that we
could see as well as the smaller icebergs that had broken off.

🧊We couldn’t get too close due to the risk of the glacier calving and creating waves, and in fact it did calve twice!

🍸We also collected some bits of ice to take to the bar to put in drinks - not every day you get to put ice formed thousands of years ago in your drink.

🚁It was also a great opportunity to see the helicopter take off and land from the ship.

🤸The day finished with a talk from one of the cultural guides born and raised in Greenland. This included some old videos of Greenlandic people doing gymnastics using a rope, playing drums for the hand of a woman and hunting using traditional methods.

A great day involving all the staff working together and really hard to give guests an unforgettable experience.

02/09/2026

🇬🇱Skjoldungen Fjord🇬🇱

🧊You cannot explain how it feels to wake up with icebergs floating past your cabin!

☀️The weather gods have certainly remained on our side and we sailed into the fjord with clear sunny skies which are excellent for our programme of activities.

🛟After breakfast we were called to the ready room to head out to reach land on a zodiac. Very stable very easy to get in and out of. Quark provide Muck boots and a life jacket and we were required to also wear our dry suits.

🇬🇱Stepping onto Greenland should not be underestimated - it’s a land that few people have visited so it’s a privilege.

🦠As part of their commitment to leave no traces, Quark disinfect boots and walking poles on return to the ship.

🥾Marie Dal was the area for our hike. Split into four groups according to perceived personal fitness level, we hiked across the tundra for about 2 hours in groups of 15 with two guides - one of which is armed.

🐻‍❄️The team do a thorough sweep of the route beforehand from several positions to ensure that there are no polar bears - coming face to face with one on land would be very dangerous.

🦊 Several groups spotted a young arctic fox.
🦭I spotted a bearded seal!

After lunch we eagerly waited to be called for our flight seeing 🚁.

🗻After being weighed and allocated seats we were treated to some stunning scenery. Travelling at 145mph from 500m to 3500m we got to see glaciers in some really remote spots. We all had a window seat - such an adrenaline rush!

02/09/2026

Thrums Glacier

02/09/2026

02/09/2026

🚢 Sailing the Denmark Straits 🚢

We have spent a couple of days at sea and already experienced the spirit of expedition.

🇬🇱At the welcome briefing, our Expedition Leader Sarah announced that we would be heading to Eastern Greenland first - not in the original plan!

📲Communication on board is done on a variety of ways - announcements, briefings and through the Quark App. The App is accessed using the free on board Wifi and has our daily programme of events.

⚓️During our time on board we were given an exclusive Bridge tour with the Captain. This was an opportunity to see how it all works, ask questions and find out how we are going to sail into a fjord that has no charts! 🗺️ The answer is 🐝 WASP - a system deployed in front of the ship on a zodiac that uses sonar to scan the sea floor and relay depth information back to the bridge. This information is then shared with other vessels.

🚁We also got the fantastic opportunity to see the two helicopters (Airbus H145) twin engine on board up close and again ask the pilots questions. Interestingly there are three pilots on board for this voyage - most are ex military with many flying hours under their belts. Cost of the helicopters new - €10million.

🦺There have been a couple of mandatory briefings on safety - for the paddling activities and helicopter.

💦We’ve been issued our complimentary Quark Parka, dry suit and muck boots for our excursions.

👩‍🏫We’ve also had some talks from the various experts on board - we have a marine biologist, ornithologist, historian and glaciologist amongst others!

🌌We also saw a brief glimpse of the Northen Lights.

Then there’s the wildlife :
🦆Shearwaters and Northern Gannets
🐋Minky, Fin and Northern Bottlenosed whales
🐬Dolphins

Weather is looking favourable for tomorrow so a full day is planned! 🛶🚁🥾

01/09/2026

🚢 Embarkation Day 🚢

We were very fortunate to be allowed to come aboard the ship early and get a guided ship tour before the rest of the guests arrived.

🛌This meant we could view all the different cabin types on offer and orientate ourselves with all the spaces on board.

🤔So i suppose if you only have a maximum of 199 passengers per cruise you might think the ship would be more ferry and less cruise ship.

Wrong ❌ There’s a boutique, sauna, gym, steam room and spa facilities just like on any other cruise ship. 🛍️🧖‍♀️🏋️‍♀️

🍽️There’s a more formal restaurant and a bistro and a theatre for presentations, plus a panaramic space with comfy chairs to watch for wildlife. They also provide binoculars if you haven’t brought any, and there’s tripod mounted monoculars too. Some members of the the Expedition team can usually be found here so great to ask questions and help identify birds and whales. It’s also equipped with a bar and there’s a library space📚 too. ☕️You can get tea and coffee 24hrs a day, and water stations 💦on each deck so you can refill the bottle Quark have kindly provided.

Quark also operate an “open bridge” policy, so as long as the sign on the door is green, you can go in look around and ask questions.