The Coral Geographer is the newest ship in the Coral Expeditions fleet. At 160 passengers, she is by far the smallest ship or should I say luxury yacht that I have ever sailed on!
I had a beautiful balcony suite which was quite spacious, with a queen bed, a large wardrobe with plenty of space under the bed for my case and a lovely bathroom. The balcony was a standard size with room for a small table and two chairs. It did not have a safe, fridge or TV, valuables were at your request kept down in the pursers office. The other surprising fact that I have not come across before is the open door policy, so there are no locks on the cabin doors, no keys, however if you are really uncomfortable with this they can somehow add a lock to the door and then a key is required.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all taken together - there is just the one sitting for each and depending on the day’s activities these are announced daily in your cabin information letter. Sitting together and socialising is encouraged with no tables for two, however I’m sure they’d set them up on request. The dress code was very relaxed, so no dressing up at all, I did manage to sneak a semi formal dress for the Captain's Cocktail Party.
Alcohol is included with lunch and dinner but they were very relaxed about it and if you had a pre-dinner drink I’m sure it wasn’t always on the bar tab.
There are no ports of call on this cruise - every excursion (which are all included) is done from the back of the ship and the crew go above and beyond to assist anybody who needs it to embark the tender boats. Sometimes you are on the tender boats for the whole excursion or sometimes you get transferred to the Zodiacs so you can explore up close and personal and sometimes you go ashore but I can not stress enough how amazingly organised and seamless this is.
The shore excursions included Montgomery Reef, The Horizontal Falls, King George River, Indigenous rock art at numerous sites. I also went on a helicopter flight to Mitchell Falls - phenomenal. It was all amazing, my words will never be able to do this cruise and the experiences justice.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I would recommend it to anybody, if you are not fully mobile the crew and staff go out of their way to help you and there are different excursions for people that are not so mobile so you do not miss out and there is a lift on the ship. There was a young autistic man on my cruise with his mum and the crew made him feel so special and he loved every minute of it and there were people of 85, who were fitter than me that also said they were so glad they took the plunge and did the cruise!
I would highly recommend Coral Expeditions and The Kimberley itinerary to anybody - it’s the trip of a lifetime!
