Ponant Expedition Cruises

My Parter & my self did the Kimberly in July With Ponant !!!! And I can’t understand people making the slightest compliant “ It was incredible … the staff are second to none The captain was great & totally approachable always …. And he’d always stop and talk with delight ….. His crew were faultless …. Food was to perfect …. Put on a touch of… Read more

weight The exploration was divine … I will be booking again with them … Ponant “ My advise is to investigate ur enquires always But we got to the letter !!! Of all they said they would deliver … Fantastic Ponant & thank you Suzzane Mullen & Chris Foord ( Sydney )

First & last Ponant cruise – My wife & I chose Ponant on the recommendation of our travel agent as the preferred cruise line to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary with a transit of the North West Passage. Unfortunately, Ponant failed dismally to deliver & in our opinion, were misleading & deceptive in their decision to proceed with the cruise in view of the forecast… Read more

sea ice conditions. We believe that Ponant should have known that the NWP was or was likely to be impassable prior to embarcation on le Soleal (& le Boreal) as reported by the Canadian Ice Service & Canadian Coast Guard.

I recommend that you read the reviews of other Cruise Critic members (under le Soleal / North West Passage: https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/getreviews.cfm?action=ship&ShipID=732) on the saga of the connecting air charters, the second class treatment of non-French passengers, the shortage of restaurant staff, food & drinks or the amount of time spent needlessly sailing around Greenland so as to use up the number of cruise days. These comments are consistent with our experience & that of other passengers, including a number of French passengers who were equally unimpressed - "luxury" it was not! While these issues have been formally raised with Ponant by a number of passengers, no adequate response has yet been provided.

The cabin, a “deluxe stateroom” was clean & comfortable but included only one chair in the room & we had to bring a chair from the verandah to sit in the room as a couple.

Dining was a disaster as the ship was full to capacity & there was insufficient capacity in the 2 dining rooms – one of which required bookings & was usually full. Further, both restaurants were understaffed, the food selection was limited & definitely not “haute cusine”.

Embarcation of the Australians & some other nationalities was after midnight from a tender after a long, economy charter flight from Paris via Copenhagen that was so full that some of the baggage had to be stored in a bathroom (against aircraft regulations?). At the end of the “cruise” we suffered another economy charter from Kangerlussaq to Seattle (over 10 hours) with an unexpected stop in Buffallo NY where we were not permitted to leave the aircraft. We understand that many of the French passengers were flown business class from & to Paris by Ponant at no extra cost.

Apart from a daily bulletin (which contained mis-information about le Boreal supposedly transiting the Bellot Strait) that was informative & a couple of very helpful & friendly room service, bar & excursion staff, the rest of the le Soleal crew had arrogant & dismissive attitudes & would have difficulty obtaining work on a quality cruise line. Communications with passengers was poor & we were misled about the sea ice conditions preventing the transit of the North West Passage.

As mentioned above, the on-board experience was very disappointing & many passengers were looking forward to leaving the ship rather than floating around Greenland killing time for a large proportion of the cruise.

This was a very expensive cruise at more than AUD53000 for a couple but I would feel even more aggrieved if I had paid significantly more to travel as part of the Captain’s Choice group on le Soleal or on the Abercrombie & Kent charter of le Boreal.

To compound the situation, Ponant declined to refund any of the cruise costs (unlike another cruise line similarly impacted by the sea ice) & their "offer" of modest discounts on future Ponant cruises is useless as all of the passengers we have contacted will NEVER sail with Ponant again.

Awesome cruise in the Kimberleys in July 2018 on Ponant Line ship L'Austral from Broome to Darwin – I recently watched 'The Kimberley Cruise: Australia's Last Great Wilderness' on SBS, which documented a cruise trip on the Coral Discoverer from Broome to Darwin, and that prompted me to write this review. Compared to the cruise I did in July 2018 also from Broome to Darwin, I'm very glad that we went on the French ship L'Austral, and not the… Read more

Coral Discoverer as shown in the documentary. I don't know what the difference in price is between the two, but going by the documentary the cruise in the Coral Discoverer seemed boring in comparison.

L'Austral is a small cruise ship but large in comparison to the Coral Discoverer. It has a crew of 139 and passenger capacity of 230, so a very good ratio of crew to passengers.

Service was excellent, the crew was friendly and helpful, all food (and room service if you want something in the middle of the night) is included, the food especially in the buffet generally superb (French cuisine) constantly changing and with an amazing choice, standard drinks free at all the bars, and free mini bar in every cabin, restocked regularly. Every cabin has a private balcony, and the cabins were large enough, comfortable and serviced daily.

One of the best things about cruising in L'Austral was the daily expeditions in the Zodiacs, sometimes a morning and an afternoon expedition, with helpful and knowledgeable guides. A lot of the expeditions included landing on a beach and walks through gorges etc. We saw lots of wildlife and aboriginal rock art, not to mention the spectacular scenery. Also included was an exhilarating trip on a fast boat through the Horizontal Falls!

The ship had 16 Zodiacs! The onboard entertainment was good, and also the daily informative talks and films about the expeditions and the Kimberleys.

My only criticism is that the internet connection was expensive and slow, but you can’t have everything!

I highly recommend this cruise and am writing this review as we were blown away by the experience and how enjoyable the cruise was.

Fantastic crew and fantastic destination – 11 days aboard Le Boreal departed on 18 December. In all our years of international travel including ships, we could not have been looked after more professionally. I worked with Orient - Express Hotels for many years so do have an understanding of quality and service standards. From embankment with French champagne, to culinary delights, French… Read more

wines, zodiac trips and a highlight of being on the Captains table for the farewell dinner, all added to a great 11 day cruise.

The weather, especially across the Drake Channel was kind as were abundant sightings of seals, whales, penguins - all varieties.

We were on deck 3 so experienced very little rocking. All 220 guests on board ( with about 60 of us being Australian) seemed to really enjoy themsleves.

We have booked our next cruise with Ponant, from Athens to Aqaba, late 2019.

Having travelled Silversea in the past, we do prefer Ponant.

Ponant: “A Second Class Expedition Experience” – Ponant “A Second Class Expedition Experience”. My wife and I (both from Australia) have just completed a 5 week expedition cruise on-board Le Soleal. The cruise started in Greenland and sailed through the North West Passage to Nome, in Alaska, and then continued on to Petropavlovsk in Russia. This ship is very well built, comfortable and ideal… Read more

for this type of expedition cruising. The standard of the hotel section of the ship was excellent, in fact as good as you could expect on any ship. Staff were friendly and eager to please at all times, that is except for the Chef, but more on that later. To Ponant's credit everything on the ship was kept spotlessly clean by the crew.

Although we both really enjoyed the cruise and had a great experience, I unfortunately have to rate our overall cruise experience, as “A Second Class Experience”. Only French passengers were given “A First Class experience”.

There were a number of reasons but the two that stand out were firstly, the poor quality of spoken and written English on-board and secondly, the preferential treatment given to all French passengers.

I understand that it is “Company Policy”, on their ships, to make all announcements in French before any other language, regardless of the mix of French to non French passengers.

Interestingly, the French version of any announcement was almost always twice as long as the English version. Over the years I've watched many French films with subtitles and have never noticed much difference in length between French and English, so we obviously did not always receive the full context of the message. No doubt many adjectives were missing.

For expedition cruising it is important that all passengers fully understand all messages and announcements that are being conveyed. These are essential not only for safety, but also for the information about the flora and fauna in the region. Passengers should not have to be asking each other “what was meant by that announcement”? or waiting for the English translation, by which time all the French passengers had rushed out the door. We eventually find out the reason for the rush, it was because there was either something important to see outside or you were required to queue-up to put your name down for a tour or something else. We quickly learnt that when the French left the room, you should follow and ask questions later.

It was interesting that all the French staff from the Captain down, who could speak English, struggled at times to find the correct words when trying to convey a message. Quite often they had to ask someone else for the correct English words.

And then of course it's the French accent when they do speak in English. This is quite pleasant to listen to for short periods of time but it becomes very tiring during long and important messages and lectures. Trying to concentrate on the content and at the same time continually having to mentally insert the missing words and correct the ones that were wrong. This difficulty in interpreting lead to many discussions among non French passengers.

This misunderstanding also occurred when the French were required to communicate with English people. As we were in mainly English speaking areas (Greenland, Canada and the US) there were a number of times when the French staff badly misinterpreted what was said and meant.

As for spelling and grammar, that was also very poor. In this day and age with software that has word correction there is just no excuse for that to occur. Maybe it is a French way of saying we just do not care about English!!!

Based on the “English Only” brochures produced by Ponant up until now, it is certainly targeting the English speaking world. It is interest to note that none of these earlier brochures mention the fact that French is the dominant on-board language.

Zodiac trips, which generally occurred daily or twice daily, were another interesting issue. We were all colour grouped into supposedly language groups. This would mean that the zodiac driver and or expedition team member would only have to speak one language. This should have worked but rarely did, simply because it was not controlled properly. As you are probably aware many French can understand English and when it was more favourable for them to join an English speaking group they did. That may have been just OK, but when on the Zodiac, the driver would ask if there were any non English on-board, and you guessed it!!! we had to listen to both languages again. Great system for the French!!!

Boarding Zodiac's at times was unpleasant, because smoking was permitted on the deck area where sometimes up to 50 or 60 people were queued, waiting to board. When the tour director was approached about this, the reply was “nothing could be done.”

As the cruise progressed there was an effort by some staff to better cater for non French passengers, but it still remained way below what I believe should be acceptable for non French passengers. Generally everything from Zodiac trips to lecture times, appeared to be planned to favour French passengers. Even the daily programme which was shown on cabin TV, was on screen for twice as long for the French version. The English version had so many grammar and spelling mistakes it became an on-board joke.

Many non-French passengers shared these views, and a number of those will not travel with Ponant again. In fact I did a quick calculation and more than 5% of these passengers said to me that they would not be taking another trip with Ponant. That is without counting the French and I know many of them would not be happy for various other reasons. That is not good in anyone's language.

I did mention how good the hotel staff were. However there was one exception to this, the Chef, who disliked having to cook meat, poultry or fish to the liking of non French people. You see, the French like to eat their meat almost raw and they think everyone else should too. After about two or three weeks we almost got this sorted out. Generally the food was good without being excellent. The bread was something special. If only we could make bread like it.

From all this you would expect that I have a dislike for the French, not at all!!

In fact we have travelled in France a number of times and been fortunate to see a lot of that great country. During these travels we've never experienced this negative attitude towards foreigners. We've always had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed the people and scenery.

However I am aware that the British and French do not see eye to eye, and that can cause friction from time to time but that has not been a problem for us in the past.

It's strange but I have this feeling that some of the key staff on Le Soleal have the same dislike for English.

Do all Ponant's other ships have the same issues? I can not say, but the chances are pretty high that they do, after all it is probably “Company Policy”.

Will we travel on Ponant again?

We expect to be treated equal to every other passenger, so without changes, probably not. This is a shame because I think the company has a huge potential right across the globe and they are in fact doing many thing just right.

The latest “English Only” brochure has just released by Ponant, and it contains the following changes/additions.

Why Choose Ponant

The third heading is as follows:

For our French style: as our ships fly the French Flag, it is only natural that a certain French art of living permeates on board through the main language spoken, the accessible crew, the French design, gastronomy, wines, and the discreet service. Our passengers truly enjoy the relaxed elegance of the atmosphere.

From this, I would have to say, the company has no intention of changing anything for the English market.

At least it now explains what English speaking passengers can expect, the main language spoken will be French, followed by a poor condensed translation in English.

However still no mention of the dual language, or that all passengers will be treated with respect and equally.

From this English speaking passengers can truly expect a “Second Class Experience” (relative to French passengers).

What a pity!!