Ponant South Pacific Cruise Reviews

I travelled with Ponant to Antarctica in January 2020 with my Son, aboard Le Soleal on the 11 day “Emblematic Antarctica”, this being my first cruise with Ponant. From first contact with Ponant’s Australian office, which is located in Sydney, it was apparent that the standard of customer service was going to be impeccable. This was demonstrated by being able to speak with the same staff ...

Background: We were on Le Soleal for a 20 day cruise that turned out to be 24 days due to a precautionary 14 day CV19 quarantine. Originally scheduled to go from Argentina to Tahiti with stops throughout the South Pacific, we were able to make only one stop due to the CV issue. Fortunately no one on the ship had showed signs of the virus at the time we left on March 24. Many things can be ...

Day 7 of our Ponant “Luxury” cruise. Today they told us that, because of maintenance, there will be no water on board from 2pm until 5pm. Typical of this remodel cruise. But first things first….DO NOT, EVER TAKE A PONANT RELOCATION (ie remodel) CRUISE. There are only 88 passengers on this cruise from Ushuaia Argentina to Easter Island instead of the 249 capacity so I guess they thought they ...

The South Pacific is a bucket-list destination and the back-to-back cruises on Le Soleal hit all the high spots. I generally like expedition-style cruises, but the itinerary captivated me: Cruise #1: Easter Island, Pitcairn, Gambier Islands, Moorea, Bora Bora and Papeete; Cruise#2: Papeete, Moorea, Tuamotu islands, Marquesa Islands, Hilo, Honolulu This review will cover both ...

I have always wanted to visit Pitcairn and Easter Island, so this cruise became an excellent opportunity to visit these two isolated destinations. I arrived in Papeete five days before the cruise was due to begin. This gave me plenty of time to explore Papeete, do a round island and inner island tour and laze by the pool. The embarkation in Papeete was the best of my three Ponant cruises. My ...

We enjoyed four days in Honolulu prior to the arrival of Le Boreal. The ship was actually a day late as she had been stuck in ice attempting a Northwest Passage transit in August. After disembarking her passengers in Greenland she sailed full speed for Hawaii via the Panama Canal, encountering Hurricane Rosa on the way across the Pacific. We felt it too on our flight from Sydney to ...

We had travelled on Ponant (L'Austral) previously and found that the size of ship, crew numbers, facilities suited the style of cruising which we look for. The destinations are different to other cruise lines with experts on board to give detailed information about the destination and customs of the local people. Disembarkation at the ''ports'' is via zodiacs which makes for a fun experience. ...

This cruise visited Wallis and Futuna which I could not get with another cruise line. Since this was also a 30 anniversary cruise lots of specials were in store, such as reception in Wallis; native entertainment on board and on shore and the fireworks on the last night. The hula performances were a highlight. those dancers could surely move. The shore excursions were well organized allowing me to ...

This cruise was from Lautoka in Fiji to Papeete in Tahiti, in September/October 2018. It was promoted as the 30th Anniversary cruise for Ponant, and made a special visit to Mata Utu, the registration home for Ponant ships. The Ponant CEO was onboard for the cruise, along with a very large proportion of French passengers.We had cruised on Ponant a few times before, and on this particular ...

This was our 3 cruise with Ponant, The staff were very friendly and helpful, especially when we had to get on and off the zodiac boats as my husband not long ago has a knee replacement but was still able to go and enjoy the expedition. Level 3 was easier for him to get around to reception and get on the zodiacs. The expedition staff were amazing and were very passionate and knowledgeable about ...