AussieBoyTX

It’s been several years, but for me, Air Tahiti was serious about the bag size on the ATR 42/72, but did not check the weight. In any event, most of the time, you’ll see the bags loaded and offloaded, with the only exception being Tahiti it self.

There have been a lot of ship upgrades since then! We were on Christmas 2022 for Society & Cook Islands. I wrote a summary here and a long version in the Ponant forum. I look forward to hearing about your cruise!

This isn't going to be much help, but there were lots of kids on our cruise and it looked like they were having a good time with lots of indoor and outdoor activities. There were two activity leaders on board and they were both quite genial with the adults. Les Gauguins/Gaugines also did some activities with them, which I think would be memorable. I'd bring long-sleeve rash guards, wide brimmed floppy hats and whatever else you deem necessary so you have less concern about sunburn. It is so easy to burn in the FP sun.

We really enjoyed having Captain Garcia on Charcot. There were only five non-French on board our cruise and he joined us for a private dinner away from the masses. We also enjoyed his "history of navigation & ship's systems" presentation, which was a couple of hours long and could have been much longer. Charcot represents the best Ponant has to offer, so glad to hear that things are going well so far. 🤞

That's good. Not too far at all.

Yeah, it would have to be at Hafnarfjörður. That's where we disembarked last year -- Charcot's draft is apparently too deep for Reykjavik.

I’m really looking forward to hearing about your voyage on Le Commandant Charcot!

Thank you for the very detailed notes and pictures. I enjoyed following along!

I look forward to hearing about your trip!

Starlink has a maximum throughput of about 200mbps, so they're probably trying to avoid saturating their bandwidth and don't have an easy way to do that dynamically.

I have done Zoom meetings successfully from the ship, but it's by no means guaranteed. It will depend on a bunch of things, including what part of the world you're in and how many other people are on the ship with you. Audio Zoom has a better probability than Video Zoom. It's possible that Ponant will have Starlink on their ships at some point in the future, but that's not the case today. As an individual, Starlink Maritime has a $2500 equipment cost and a $250 / month service fee. If in a Starlink service area, that provides extremely fast internet: https://www.starlink.com/maritime I am not aware of any other service that would work on a ship. The other thought I had is if the ship has ports of call, perhaps your student could take advantage of time zone difference and schedule the calls while on land. 5G or LTE cell service are both fast enough to stream video on a Zoom conference.

Ponant can supposedly do bespoke excursion experiences. You could try tasking them with planning excursions that meet your requirements and see what they come up with. Or, the direction I guess you're going -- schedule excursions with 3rd parties. This is what I'd likely do.

Most of the outlets are European 240 Volt Type F just like you'd find in Germany, France, etc. and there's at least one US 110 Volt outlet. If your gear is two pin, a cheap Australia to European adapter is al you need. More details in this thread: There's a real hair dryer in the cabin, so you don't need to worry about that. Look forward to hearing about your trip! That itinerary is on the list for 2024.

You're on the right track. The Credit is proof of your ship board credit -- that will be helpful in case there's some misunderstanding on your entitlement. The Coupon is for the cruise itself and anything you've already booked. I have only needed this in Seychelles, where the immigration authorities accepted it as proof of where we were staying. I'd just ask your reservations office or travel agent to email them to you. Look forward to hearing about your trip!

We took our own equipment and the staff looked after it for us. It was even cleaned and dried for packing when we went home.

Yes. All the scuba equipment is stored in the Marina (water level, aft of the ship) and the scuba trips launch from there.

The gastronomic restaurants are similar. On the Sisterships, it's on Deck 2, right above the waterline. The grille restaurants on the Sisterships are indoors on Deck 6. Everything is served buffet-style and though the menu is similar to the gastronomic restaurant, it has some unique items, like a carving station. In any event, its ambiance is very casual. Dockers & polo seem very appropriate for this grille. For others' benefit, the grille on the Explorers is outdoors on Deck 3 between the bar and the pool. In the summer, it can be blazing hot, so regardless of the dress code, I'd definitely dress for comfort. For me, that's definitely no jacket at this grille.

In the room, you do have a couple of selections in English -- BBC News for sure. And there are several movies and documentaries in English. Some of the ones that are only in French have English subtitles. As for dress, we're talking about Summer in the Adriatic, so expect to dress appropriately for the climate. If your husband wanted, he certainly could even wear shorts and a T-shirt at breakfast & lunch and at the bar and around the ship. It may be less dressy than some, but he will not be alone. Jeans are fine. At jacket really isn't *required* at dinner in either restaurant. I believe this itinerary is on l'Austral? If so, I wouldn't hesitate at all to wear a collared shirt & dockers at the Grille. Even a polo would be fine. At the Gastronomic Restaurant, people do dress up more. I usually wear a jacket out of habit, but if it's hot, I'll skip the jacket and just wear a collared shirt and dress pants. The only time I personally feel obligated to wear a jacket is for the Gala dinners. But even then, it's more my personal choice than any requirement Ponant has. (And if he wears a jacket with open collar, he'll be pretty much in the middle of what the other men are wearing.)

On Ocean Voyages, Ponant doesn’t promise much of anything. See this trip report: You should expect odd hours in the restaurants and maintenance work going on on-board. But you might also get to experience things like performances by the crew band, experimental menu items or lectures on sailing history. I’d have low expectations and be pleased if they are exceeded.

I've never had a problem mixing between the two set menus, skipping courses, or even substituting things from the anytime menu to my order.

Here are the rums that were offered as part of the premium drinks package last year. There doesn’t appear to be a dark rum in the included list.

Since COVID, I have always used/purchased some kind of travel insurance. We had a few small claims -- all were a pain to deal with the insurer, but all were ultimately paid. The Ponant insurance certificates are very official looking and in places that required COVID evacuation coverage at the time (Seychelles and Mexico), they were readily accepted at the border. Otherwise, our American Express card has trip cancellation / delay coverage and we use it for most travel expenses aside from rental cars -- Capital One Visa serves as primary rental car insurance, which is helpful. We also have coverage through Diver Alert Network -- the coverage is designed for scuba divers, but is actually reasonably priced and apparently has good customer service. My understanding is that a number of non-divers use it for that reason. You certainly don't need all of these. IMO, the biggest risk is missing the start of the cruise due to a flight disruption (though I guess being diagnosed with COVID is still a possibility). We usually deal with that by arriving at the embarkation port at least two days in advance, but a cancellation and full flights over the summer meant that we still almost missed a cruise over the summer. We wrote about that here on CC.

Yes, we sailed with him in Norway last year. Although I've never come across a Ponant captain I didn't like, Captain Daumesnil was very good. I especially liked the virtual bridge tour (which was actually much, much more) he offered instead of a physical bridge tour. I wrote about it here

We didn't visit any of the ruins in Belize on this trip. It just didn't make sense to go to all that effort and spend quite a lot of money for only a couple of hours on site. However, not tied to a cruise, I have been to Caracol, which I found very interesting. Our stop in Honduras was at Puerto Cortez, which is a good-sized commercial port, with no real tourist amenities. With help from dock workers, we got a taxi into town and had a nice time walking around the town square area. I noticed two policemen keeping an eye on us, but otherwise, didn't feel in any danger. One of the things we've come to enjoy on Ponant is going to ports that aren't on other lines' itineraries and exploring on our own. The port area of Belize City, on the other hand, was not to my liking. Very busy with other cruise ships, and their tenders and tours. Lots of touts trying to work deals. We got a few blocks away and things got a little quieter, but it also wasn't all that interesting. If "felt" like an ideal situation for pickpockets, but didn't actually see any sign of that.

The pricing does seem very good and I like the itinerary. We all look forward to hearing your trip report!