Ponant · The French Art of Expedition
Small French yachts that go where the ships you have heard of cannot. Ninety-two staterooms on the Explorers, an underwater lounge below the waterline, and a hybrid icebreaker that reaches the geographic North Pole. French in register throughout, and a genuine alternative to the American ultra-luxury trio.
92 to 132 Staterooms · The Blue Eye Lounge · $100 pp Onboard Credit
The Advisor’s Edge
Ponant is really three fleets under one name. The Sisterships — L’Austral, Le Boréal, Le Lyrial and Le Soléal — carry 122 to 132 staterooms and sail the classic routes. The Ponant Explorers — Le Bellot, Le Bougainville, Le Champlain, Le Dumont-d’Urville, Le Jacques-Cartier and Le Lapérouse — carry 92 and are built for the small harbours. Le Commandant Charcot is a polar vessel of a different order entirely.
Choosing between them is the whole job. A route that is wonderful on an Explorer can be ordinary on a Sistership, and the reverse is just as true.
The Ponant Explorers
The six Explorer yachts carry 92 staterooms, which is what lets them tie up where a larger ship has to tender or skip the call altogether. Each has a marina platform at the stern and Zodiacs aboard.
They also carry the Blue Eye: a lounge below the waterline with windows onto the sea and hydrophones that carry what is happening outside into the room. There is nothing else like it in the fleet of any line.
French Throughout
Ponant is French-owned and French in feel — the cooking, the wine list, the pace of the day. For some travellers that is precisely the appeal and for others it is a change worth knowing about in advance. We will tell you plainly which you are likely to be.
The line sits alongside Paul Gauguin Cruises under the same ownership, which is why a South Pacific conversation often ends up covering both.
Read Before You Choose
Our own edition of the brand book, hosted here so you can read it without handing your details to anyone. The ships, the suites and the deck plans, with the dated voyages and fares taken out.
The Elevida Layer
Every Ponant departure we book carries a $100 per person onboard credit, and on hosted sailings that doubles to $200 per person. It is applied to your booking, not to a voucher you have to remember to use.
Onboard credit applies to every Ponant departure booked through Elevida Luxury Journeys. Hosted sailings are a limited set of departures each season; your advisor will confirm whether yours qualifies at the time of booking.
Begin Your Voyage
Tell us the part of the world you have in mind and we will come back with the yachts and departures that reach it, with the onboard credit already applied.
Where Ponant sails with us