PONANT Reviews 543

Cette croisière était comme un moment de grâce éveillé dans un monde en grande transformation. Le service était unique et bienveillant, le rêve rencontrait la réalité à chaque instant. Une émotion à revivre au plus vite !

Superbe croisière, paysages magnifiques.
Organisation au top.
Excellente ambiance.

très belle découverte des fjords norvégiens et du Spitzberg avec Ponant. l'équipe d'exploration nous a fait partager sa passion pour ses territoires encore préservés. a découvrir impérativement

Super croisiere

Je pense pouvoir refaire au moins un autre voyage avec Ponant. Satifait de ce voyage avec une tres bonne prise en charge. Le seul petit regret est de ne pas avoir rencontre plus d animaux locaux ( ex ours) mais vous n en etes pas gorcement totalement responsables.
Le rapport qualite prix est bon.
Pour votre info j.ai eu quelques avis negatifs de certains croisieristes historiques qui mentionnaient une degration de cecrapport

Le Lapérouse wasn't a big floating hotel. Instead it was like a beautiful boutique hotel! Excellent cuisine with a wide menu and buffets. Equally excellent service and attention to detail. Great experience. We only wished the excursions were as excellent as the cruise itself, but I imagine it's hard to control the local guides/excursions. We wanted more photo opps, and less time in gift shops and re-creation-type museums.

Le Bellot cruise from Glasgow to Bergen was not really a luxury experience. The ship was beautiful and very clean. The staff was superb also. The advertised gastronomy was subpar as well as the very disappointing wine and liquor brands. Only the two gala dinners did not disappoint and the pastry chef was outstanding too. Compared to other lines, Crystal, Seabourn, Uniworld, this was definitely the most budget food and beverage we ever encountered. Ponant served very inexpensive wines, barely warm soups and fishy seafood. This was our first time cruising with them and sadly our last.

Nous sommes pris en main. De vrais vacances, sans soucis. Le personnel s’efforce toujours de trouver une solution à tout problème ou inconfort.

Quelle belle expérience et quelle destination magnifique!

Voyage d’exception sur un bateau de croisière hors normes et soucieux de ne pas impacté l’environnement. Grand professionnalisme des personnels dans tous les domaines. Qualité des services et organisation parfaite pour une croisière active et sécuritaire.
Quant à la restauration, ce fut divin !

The ship, crew, service and food were all excellent. The disappointing aspect was the poor quality of the local and on board guides and the excursions in general.

Outre la qualité des prestations hôtelières , nous avons particulièrement apprécié le haut niveau intellectuel des intervenants guides d'exploration et leur enthousiasme communicatif.

Tout est parfait avec en plus un respect de l’environnement

Croisière Artique Groenland à bord du commandant Charcot… Rapport qualité/prix catastrophique :
Pré-acheminement et post acheminement lamentable, digne d’un Low cost… Attente de plusieurs heures devant un guichet fermé… Avion low cost..Attente de plusieurs heures à Nuuk pour pouvoir embarquer en faisant plusieurs fois le tour de la petite ville en bus.
En ce qui concerne la croisière d’expédition: un changement d’itinéraire nous a privé de moments exceptionnels… Le capitaine a préféré tirer tout droit sur la destination finale pour poser son navire sur la banquise pendant 5 nuits soit 7 jours complet, soit la moitié du voyage…Il a transformé son bateau en hôtel, ce qui n’était pas ce que nous recherchions.Les excursions n’étaient absolument pas préparées… Aucune coordination entre l’équipe d’expédition et l’équipe du Ponant. Un gain financier certain de 2 jours supplémentaires pour les expéditions payantes.
Grande déception également au niveau de la restauration qui bien que se qualifiant de Boccuse a été d’une qualité très moyenne.
Conférences de bas niveau et des étudiants pour scientifiques… Orchestres bruyants dans les deux bars et impossibilité de trouver un endroit calme pour prendre un verre…
Bref nous sommes très loin du Standing annoncé au départ par le Ponant, seul le tarif est exorbitant..
Et pour couronner le tout, on nous a changer de cabine sans même nous demander notre avis
Conclusion: À FUIRE ABSOLUMENT

The most incredible experience. Far surpassed all of our expectations. We were worried about maybe being bored or having dull moments. None of us managed to read a page of the books we brought. We were busy, entertained, took incredible excursions where we always felt safe. We had wonderful lectures, met locals and learnt about their way of life, had a photography expert teach us. We ate delicious food. We swam, indoors and outdoors. We walked the promenade, used the gym. We saw fantastic landscapes, followed a polar bear who put his/her front paws on the front of the ship, fished, went dog sledging, kayaking,and walked in the snow.

Le voyage d’une vie

Superbe circuit avec un équipage excellent, avec des conditions de navigation exceptionnelles dans le secteur

Nous avons eu la chance de faire cette croisière des Iles FEROE avec 8 jours de soleil; ce qui est particulièrement rare.
Le navire BELLOT est d'une bonne dimension et le personnel de l'hôtellerie et de la restauration est parfait. Le chef des cuisines est d'une grande qualité et le commandant très accessible crée une bonne ambiance à bord.

Luxe, calme et volupté ! C’est parfait !

STAFF
The staff were all lovely, friendly and helpful and couldn’t have tried harder.

CABIN
The ship was beautifully appointed and the cabins were as per our expectations. They were comfortable but very tight particularly in the bathroom where you couldn’t dry yourself without the risk of physical damage. Also we couldn’t understand why the mattresses didn’t fit the base of the beds causing another obstacle to avoid in an already tight space.

DINING
This was one of the most disappointing parts of the trip, there was plenty of food of course but in general it was repetitive and seemed of average quality.
The Japanese dishes were very poorly executed and the selection of vegetables and cheese were sadly lacking. The only saving grace were the wines which were always thoughtfully selected.

ENTERTAINMENT
This was as expected and the duo in particular were very talented. It would have been nice to have had a better selection of programs to choose from on the Entertainment System.

ITINERARY
As per the description on your website we were expecting to discover the rich natural heritage, traditional villages and crafts of the area we were visiting accompanied by our Naturalists.
We visited 2 x Mangroves one by canoe which we couldn’t explore because the water level was too low, the other one was very good.
We had 3 shows of varying levels all basically drumming and dancing
We visited 2 x weaving factories,
We had 5 island tours often by bus and cut short due to timing issues.
1 x glass bottom boat trip for 45 minutes with no Naturalists commentary.
We had 7 x beach excursions to areas for snorkelling , little to no shelter from the sun and no other options offered to people who did not want to snorkel.
There were a large group of Naturalists on board but they seem to be running the tenders and giving 5 minute talks at the Briefing Meetings.
Where were the zodiac expeditions and the opportunities to learn about the cultural differences and specialities of this region!
After we disembarked we toured the island of Ishigaki which was so lovely and interesting. We couldn’t understand why we hadn’t stopped there and finished the cruise in Taiwan an International Hub making people’s travel plans so much easier especially as the ship was ending the Japanese season then.

SAFETY
We were kept very well informed during the cruise and our safety seemed to be a top priority. We couldn’t speak too highly of the sailors who got us into and out of the zodiacs they were fantastic.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE
Having cruised happily with Ponant twice previously we were really looking forward to exploring this part of Japan which we had not visited before.
As you can gather, we were extremely disappointed, we didn’t leave Australia to go on a trip where 50% of the time would be spent on a beach we could do that at home.
We think the outline of the cruise on your website was quite misleading and you might want to adjust this in the future. We got the impression that a lot of things which we would have found interesting the Japanese would not access to tourists.
So maybe this area is not suitable for cultural exploration by cruise!