Becky2010

They may be included, but we still had a speech from Ponant about what tips people generally leave. I guess that’s over and above what is “included”? Not sure. But it clearly seemed to us to be an expectation based on what they said, and envelopes left, etc.

We've only sailed once with Ponant, and once with Silversea (both expeditions) and so we are not big cruisers! We loved both, but if I sailed with Ponant again, as an English speaker, I think I would seek out trips organized by Tauck or Smithsonian that had more English speakers on board. One of the things we loved about our trip on Silversea (Galapagos, 100 passengers), was getting to know who we were sailing with, and that was much harder with such few English speakers onboard our Ponant trip. BTW there was no snobbiness or rudeness, just many less opportunities as probably only 30% of the passengers spoke English. Everyone onboard was kind and gracious. Personally I loved the decor and the casualness much more on Ponant. I thought the ship (Dumont D'urville) was gorgeous and comfortable and lovely. We also have visited Japan and the fall, and have been looking at cruises there as well! In specific — the Smithsonian one! Good luck researching. This isn't a very active forum, and I found it pretty hard to find out a lot of information before our trip!

Glad you're home safely and hope you're feeling better!

You’re going to love it! Enjoy!

No - not at all. I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures!! There was quite a lot of room. It was huge. There’s a table and chairs and two really nice loungers that we could pull in and out of the shade/rain. The hot tub was a pretty weird and shallow one. Very unusual design. We absolutely used it and enjoyed it, but there’s no possible way that we got thousands of dollars of enjoyment from it (the price difference between the owners and the grand deluxe) I’ve seen on other cruises we’ve looked at). We definitely were spoiled by it. It will be very hard to be in a small cabin after that. The room also had two toilets and the bathroom was amazing. Waking up in that room was spectacular.

The jacuzzi on our trip actually sloshed all over the place. It was somewhat comical. Everything was wet all of the time!

We have only been on one trip, and were fortunate to be in the Owner's Suite has it wasn't outrageous. We definitely are of the mind, though, that the Grand Deluxe Suite would be much preferable for us, since it's the same (minus the hot tub), but considerably less on the trips we've looked at. If that wasn't an option we would definitely choose the Privilege Suite and have two bathrooms! We were also very pleased about the status match. Good luck!

Hi! I think we are also done with cruising for a while. I'm not a fan of all of the group activities. We also had a great time on the Belize trip, though we had worse weather than you! We really only were able to snorkel once, and some of that was the weather, but some was just confusion with what was being offered, and that was really disappointing. But we enjoyed the learning more about that part of the world, and we thought the ship was lovely. We were especially impressed with all the expedition leaders on our trip. They were really an interesting group, and they added so much to the experience. I'm in my mid 50's and my husband is in his mid 60's, and I think we will also stick to trips where we move about independently. I also think we were extremely spoiled by having our first cruise be in the Galapagos. There really is nothing else like it. We would cruise again as long as it was to a place that really couldn't be/wouldn't be accessed easily on our own. But not in a rush!

Hope you had a great trip!

It may be on paper, but the reality seemed like most people tipped, and that was the expectation of the crew. I’m sure it would be fine if you didn’t.

I was just on a US booked Ponant cruise and at the disembarkation talk they told us that the average tip was blah blah and that you could use the envelope in the room, or they were happy to take a credit card! We had a great time, and were happy to tip, but it definitely didn't feel included.

Thanks so much, that’s so helpful! Very excited - leaving today!

Ok! Well if it is, they still have that guidance on their US website so we will probably follow it!

I don’t see that on mine! Maybe different cruises have different policies? Silversea had tips included too, but we gave to the crew fund. But we were able to do that with a credit card.

I finally got on the website and it doesn’t seem to say it’s included? I was just hoping to put it on the credit card but maybe that’s not possible. No problem either way!