This port is the furthest one north on the cruise, at a latitude just short of the 79^thparallel.   It isn't really a port but the dock for the International Research Station operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute.   One would imagine that outsiders are not welcome, but here is what the managing director said about this when asked.

A Cruise Critic member asked the director of the research station at Ny-Alesund, at the tip of Spitzbergen, what he thought about having cruise ships coming to his village. Hello Sir! Thanks for your mail, I normally don't have time to respond on “small talk”, but you made some interesting points.   Last summer 31,000 cruise tourists visited us.   2/3 were overseas tourists, the rest came by local boats.   It’s only tourists by ships who can visit us in addition to researchers and my staff. For the moment it isn't really crowded here.   Including my staff and the researchers from Germany, France, Korea, China, Japan and some constructors we are nearly 60 persons.   We are only 1231 km from the North Pole, but living in a well situated society.   Due to the Golf-stream the conditions are better than expected. Regarding the cruise tourists, - yes they make some disruptions from time to time.   But we can manage!! You have to stay on the roads in my village, it’s prohibited to walk on the tundra due to environmental damages.   And please, don't leave any garbage as plastic, paper, cigarettes, etc. Some also try to feed the polar foxes, and that’s not allowed.   We try to leave the wilderness undisturbed to the best for arctic research and monitoring, (flowers, birds and animals).   The crew from your ship has to establish armed guards at some road junctions to fight polar bears, if they appear. We have an information centre you can visit, and we also have a small museum which tells the story about the northernmost settlement and the mining period and polar expeditions.   In addition our small shop will be open, and they accept both visa-cards and different currency (dollar, euro).   Many like to buy some souvenirs as T-shirts, socks, pullovers, etc. Hopefully you will enjoy your stay. :-) Best regards Roger Jakobsen Managing Director

We didn't dock here, as this was a "Tender Required" port.   However we didn't anchor in the bay either.   Because this is a marine sensitive area, the captain (or the bridge crew) manoeuvred the ship all day, while we tendered ashore and enjoyed ourselves sightseeing.   Now that is what I call devotion to duty, and putting the passengers first.   I only found out about this later when I heard Thom Faulkner talking about the fact that we did not display the black ball, which meant we were not at anchor.   This is where the tenders offloaded.

We had no excursion booked here, in fact there are no excursions here, except for one lucky pair who have friends on site.   We met an interesting couple, both astronomers, though in different fields; one radio and one solar.  Since Gerrit knew other radio astronomers working at the research station, they were able to visit them.   We saw the radio dish turning and focusing on different points of the sky and asked Gerrit later if that was him playing with the telescope.   The answer was "No!".   The research is continual, and they were studying different radio sources and comparing results with other radio observatories, a sort of inter-stellar triangulation, and using this to get precise measurements on continental drift.   I never fail to be impressed and excited by the progress being made in science.

Since this was a Tender Required port, we had thought that we might not get off the ship, but once we arrived at this magical place we changed our minds.   As you can see from the satellite image there is not much here.   However it is possible to explore Ny Alesund remotely with their own street view.

Despite there being nothing more than a gift shop, a post office and a few other buildings that the researchers live in, and being limited to the main roads only (with guards from the ship to enforce this), we still thought this the best port stop of the cruise.   I heard the same from many others.   Despite the guards some people thought these rules didn't apply to them.   I had to stop one passenger from crossing open ground, "You have to stay on the roads", "But there is another road over there", "Yes, but you have to walk round to it on the road!". Fortunately 99% of us were well behaved and repected the privilege we had been granted.   A big thank you to the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Captain Albert's Blog: Ny-Alesund, Spitzbergen.