This is a journal of our February 27-March 12, 2024, “Exploring the Chilean Fjords” land/expedition package on the Ponant L’Austral. The package includes one night at a 5-star hotel in Buenos Aires, flights and transfers to/from Ushuaia, and 13 nights aboard the L’Austral.
We had cruised from Valparaiso to Rio de Janeiro around Cape Horn in 2011 aboard the Star Princess ...
We've talked about an Antarctic cruise for years...we like Ponant, and we are Smithsonian fans, so when the combination came up this seemed a good omen.
We were extremely pleased to find superb support, assistance and communications from the Ponant-Smithsonian Journeys representative. She was in touch early and often. We had a couple of glitches and in each case were helped through the ...
We booked in The commandant Charcot in 2019 , for summer of 2020 to North Pole , as soon as we had heard about its Polar Class 2 Ice breaking capabilities. However the voyage to 90’N , North Pole got cancelled twice due to COVID pandemic.
Finally after experiencing an exceptional Arctic trip on L’Boreal last year in 2022, we booked with Ponant on Le Commandant Charcot for November 2023 for ...
This cruise was a few years coming because of Covid, cancellations and non-refundable payments. However, it was well worth waiting for. Food, crew, comfort, organisation, helpfulness, friendliness, arrival and departure processes were all excellent. This was an Expedition cruise which meant we had twice-daily expeditions on zodiacs to either explore or land on Antarctica. These expeditions were ...
Superb Antarctic navigation aboard La Commandant Charcot leaving from Ushuaia through Drakes Passage, tracking west along Antarctica from Marguerite Bay to Cape Adare and then up to Lyttelton, NZ
Captain Devorsine & Expedition Leader Kuyper went out of their way to provide an exceptional Antarctic experience including navigation along the Ross Ice Shelf, navigation through ice floes, ...
This is my second Ponant cruise and I found both cruises to be of a very high calibre in relation to food and experiences. Ponant is an 'all inclusive' line, with the sub-Antarctic cruise including all meals, drinks (non-alcoholic and alcoholic) at all times, including a mini bar which is re-stocked daily to your specifications.
The food is toward the Epicurean, but more standard fare was also ...
We are destination driven cruises, so If a ship is going where we like to travel, we will book & travel on it.
This last cruise, also happened to be over Xmas & I wanted a break from cooking for up to 16 people for lunch.
We boarded the ship on 14 December in Dunedin New Zealand, as our tour was the Sub-Antarctic Cruise.
The service from our Cabin attendants was fantastic, everything was ...
TRIP REPORT
LE BOREAL 11/21-12/7 2022
As a preface, this is exceedingly long because it aims to answer the questions that I had when I was researching this once in a lifetime trip (for most of us) in addition to providing an actual trip report.
I found answers to some, but not all, of my questions leading up to this trip, but it required months of me reading literally the internet. So, ...
This report includes information on our February 15—March 12, 2022, “Ross Sea” expedition cruise on the Le Commandant Charcot with Ponant. Although we had taken a “drive by” cruise of the Antarctic Peninsula in 2007 on the Golden Princess and explored “Beyond the Polar Circle” in 2020 on the Le Soléal with Ponant, this expedition offered the opportunity to experience much more of the Antarctic ...
Ponant was our second choice because our first line rerouted the ship we originally wanted because of the pandemic. Ponant was highly recommended and it proved itself to us. Covid took our first choice with Ponant, the Le Lyrial out of the running because of covid, but they had several ships running the Antarctic route and fit us on the Austral for the next day. L'Austral was captained by an ...