Swan Hellenic · Polar Class 6 · 192 guests
SH Diana
The largest of the Swan Hellenic sisters, built in Helsinki in 2023 with a Polar Class 6 hull, 96 staterooms facing the sea and a sauna with a window on the fjord. The ship we send to Svalbard.
Swan Hellenic
Built for the ice, and for the hours between.
Helsinki Shipyard launched her in January 2023 and Swan Hellenic christened her in Amsterdam that spring, the third and largest of three sisters drawn by Tillberg Design of Sweden. A Polar Class 6 hull, 125 metres, 192 guests and 141 crew. One open seating. A Basecamp with a locker for every stateroom. In the Arctic she sails Svalbard, where ten nights take her round the whole archipelago and the Zodiacs go out before breakfast.
Tillberg Design of Sweden
Polar Class 6, Helsinki-built
The expedition, every day
The Swan Restaurant, deck 4
Diana moments
Between the landings the ship keeps her own rhythm. A sauna on deck 8 with the glacier in full view. A long lunch in the Swan Restaurant while the ice slides past the window. The jacuzzi at midnight, under a sun that will not set until late August. The quiet luxuries that make ten nights feel short.
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Heat, on deck 8
The sauna sits beside the gym and spa on deck 8, with a window the width of the room. After a cold morning in the Zodiacs, sit in the heat and watch the fjord wall go by. It is the thing guests mention first when they write to us afterwards.
Heat, on deck 8
The sauna sits beside the gym and spa on deck 8, with a window the width of the room. After a cold morning in the Zodiacs, sit in the heat and watch the fjord wall go by. It is the thing guests mention first when they write to us afterwards.
Life on board
Swan Hellenic began in 1954 as a company that took lecturers to sea, and the habit survived the rebirth of 2020. On Diana the Observation Lounge doubles as the lecture hall, the library sits beside the Basecamp, and the bridge is open to guests. The rest of the day is spent in a quiet Scandinavian house that happens to be moving.
Deck 8: a gym with a view astern, a spa and beauty salon, the sauna and the outdoor jacuzzi. The heated infinity pool is one deck down. None of it is ever crowded.
Elegance and calm
Staterooms and suites
Ninety-six staterooms and suites, all of them outside, four in five with a balcony. Interiors by Tillberg Design of Sweden: pale timber, a flame-effect fireplace, marble in the bathroom. The room is where the long light comes in at two in the morning, and where you will want to be when the captain announces a bear on the port side.
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Oceanview
Deck 4 Two single beds or a double bed Bedroom with living room area Picture window Flame-effect fireplace Marble bathroom with walk-in shower
Oceanview
Deck 4 Two single beds or a double bed Bedroom with living room area Picture window Flame-effect fireplace Marble bathroom with walk-in shower
SH Diana
Polar engineering, Scandinavian manners
SH Diana is the third and largest of Swan Hellenic’s sisters, delivered by Helsinki Shipyard in 2023 and classed Polar Class 6 by Lloyd’s Register. At 125 metres and 12,100 tonnes she carries 192 guests in 96 staterooms and suites, with 141 crew. Hybrid diesel-electric propulsion with a battery bank lets her sit silently beside a glacier front; oversized stabilisers steady the open crossings. She carries 15 Zodiacs, two tenders and eight kayaks, with an endurance of 40 days.
In the Arctic she is at home in Svalbard and along the Norwegian coast: the ten-night circuit of the archipelago, the long way north from Tromsø by the Lofoten Islands and Bear Island, and a week in Svalbard shared with her sister Vega. Swan Hellenic built her for exactly these waters.
- 192 guests · 141 crew
- Polar Class 6 · 125 m
- 15 Zodiacs · 8 kayaks
The expedition
How a day ashore is made
On Diana the expedition is the point, and the ship is arranged around it: Basecamp and Zodiac platforms on deck 3, the Swan’s Nest at the bow, the Observation Lounge for the briefing.
Naturalists, a historian, a geologist, a photographer and a doctor, roughly one specialist for every ten guests. They brief each evening in the Observation Lounge and set the next day’s order with the captain at dawn, by the ice and the wind.
Her Arctic season
Voyages aboard SH Diana and SH Vega
Svalbard in ten nights from Longyearbyen and the sail north from Tromsø or Reykjavík aboard SH Diana, with her sister SH Vega taking the Greenland and Canada routes. Tell us the month you have in mind and we tell you which sailing suits it, which stateroom, and what we can do on the fare.
All expeditions
Good to know
SH Diana, in practice
The questions we are asked most before guests choose this ship.
192 guests in 96 staterooms and suites, served by 141 crew. Oceanview staterooms sit on deck 4, the balcony staterooms and suites on decks 5 and 6. The whole ship goes ashore in one wave of Zodiacs.
Her hull is Polar Class 6, ice-strengthened for the summer pack of Svalbard and the fjords of Greenland. Oversized stabilisers steady the open crossings.
All meals, wine and beer with lunch and dinner, the expedition programme, Zodiac outings and landings, a parka to keep, boots to borrow, gratuities and Wi-Fi. Kayaking is booked in advance.
Every stateroom faces the sea and most have a balcony. Tell us how you like to travel and we suggest the deck and the side that suit your voyage.
Via Copenhagen or Oslo for Svalbard, via Tromsø for the Norwegian coast, with the Swan Hellenic charter onward where it applies. We arrange the flights and the nights either side so the whole journey sits in one booking.
Made to measure
Tell us your Arctic, we build the rest
Every guest sails differently. Tell us what you are hoping for and who you are travelling with, and we shape the voyage aboard SH Diana around it: the sailing, the stateroom, the flights from Australia, the nights either side, and the offers we hold for Arctic Cruise guests. One specialist, from the first conversation until you are home.
The fleet
Other ships we sail
Each ship we work with has her own character and her own Arctic. SH Vega is Diana’s sister for Greenland and the Canadian Arctic; Le Commandant Charcot is the icebreaker for the North Pole.
Learn more
