Has anyone sailed with Ponant?
 

We prefervsmaller ships, 350 max number of passengers Interested in Ponant cruises but need more info from fellow cruisers..

Ttt

I'm also curious about this line!

Ttt

Happy Traveler, have you checked Cruise Critic? Good luck.

We were looking for an Antarctica cruise and our TA recommended them over NG.

I have not sailed with them, and according to our TA, they are higher end with much smaller ships, even smaller ships than the Silverseas and Oceania.

Here is an interspersing review that I came across at cc for a recent 2017 sailing.
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberre...EntryID=574050

We like the smaller size ships but that review did not instill confidence in this company. Maybe Seabourne?

The repeated "theme" on the reviews are "language" being a French cruise line, and the "all inclusive" included items are not up to snuff according to the reviewers. Maybe the expectation level was too high?

Seabourne ships are much larger than what you are looking for.

When I book a cruise, the itinerary is the most important part. Is there a compelling reason for Ponant?

If you are looking at small ships, SilverSea would be the one I look first.

Their Asian itinerary were interesring to me. I will look at SilverSea. Thanks.

Please let us know what you find aout about SS!!

If a river cruise is of interest, Pandaw uses very small ships; we had about 2 dozen people on the one Ii took a few yearfs ago in Burma.

We were on Le Lyrial in February, 2016 for a 10 day cruise to Antarctica. The ship is sleek and modern and the decor is in shades of blue and white. Our cabin was a good size but we have been spoiled by Regent and their very spacious suites. Some of the design choices were odd but endurable for 10 days. The bed was very comfortable which it has to be as many passengers are there the bulk of the time while crossing the Drake Passage.

Th food was excellent with lots of fresh salads, an extensive cheese board, great desserts and more chi chi selections at dinner. The wait staff (predominantly from the Philippines) is lovely and many were just learning French so my husband became a French Professor again as they scribbled in their notebooks during lunch service. He was quite popular!

On our passage, half the guests were Japanese so they had a dedicated bilingual naturalist on board for them (Japanese and English). All the other naturalists spoke French and English as did the captain. The English speakers numbered at about 50, and the rest were French. Since we are bilingual, the language issue was not a problem but it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone.

The lectures were fantastic and the landings were even more fantastic. Antarctica is like visiting another planet. Our second day, the captain pulled close to the ice shelf off of the continent and our zodiacs drove right from the water onto the shelf. We had a little hike to the end of the shelf where they had set up a beautiful buffet table topped glasses of pink champagne nestled in snow.

We read about the other choices and decided we didn't want to be on a retrofitted icebreaker and relive a college dorm experience, although that has its merits.

When reading reviews, there are always curmudgeons and, on occasion, there is just a bad cruise where everything goes wrong, despite the best efforts of th cruise company.

Bottom line: go for it!

Thanks for detailed comments, FouGras.

Eckscrunchy..Pandaw spunds interesting and Myanmar is high on our list.

I wrote a report about that trip and. will gladly answer any questions. Ek