On Board Le Dumont-d'Urville — Cruising the Norwegian Fjords – with Smithsonian Journeys — July 30-August 6, 2022

[tnm6217]

On 8/3/2022 at 12:07 AM, AussieBoyTX said:

Internet at the best of times is slow on all Ponant ships I’ve been on. A crossing shouldn’t be worse. I’ve been posting using cellular service for the most part. 
 

The library is small with with perhaps twenty novels and perhaps another twenty coffee table books in English. Here’s a picture. 
 

The four games are on the bottom shelf. On this ship, Trivial Pursuit is in English. There’s an additional game with a pyramid of wooden balls called Pylos that looked fun. 

 

Thank you so much for this! I can't wait to check it out. And thank you for the correction on the current Captain.

[tnm6217]

On 8/3/2022 at 11:18 AM, PBfromDC said:

Will let you know. We've done three ocean voyages on Ponant - two trans-Atlantics and one Boston to Cozumel and found the internet connection to be ok - to be honest, I really only went on once a day to check emails and get the doggie reports from our dog sitter. Did not try to stream anything or visit websites. Will try on our upcoming crossing and report back. 

 

Thank you @PBfromDC! I don't need a ton of bandwidth, but would need to be able to log into a Citrix web-based VPN to access files occasionally. The ability to telework at sea would be a game changer.

[AussieBoyTX]

The overnight transit to Arendal was slightly rough as we left the fjords and sailed into the open sea. It was certainly not enough to make sailing unpleasant, though. When I woke, it was overcast & raining hard. 

 

Our morning was fairly leisurely -- first Robin Wright gave her second lecture entitled, "A Changing World Order: Europe, Russia & NATO," which was followed by a short break to visit the Boutique for the final time and then Terje Leiren's lecture, "The Vikings Were People, Too."

 

Dr. Leiren's lecture ended right after we docked at Arendal's small pier. Arendal is only visited by small ships and it seems that one visits every three or four days. We were greeted by local "children" singing a medley of songs from "Frozen." It was cute and we had a perfect view from our starboard cabin. 

 

The excursions didn't leave until after 1:30 and wouldn't be back until well after five, meaning everyone on excursion was going to miss the Tea Time Crêpes. One member of our party was devastated -- it is her favorite tea time. Enough that she considered skipping the excursion. She asked if a crêpe could be saved for her -- she was assured some would be saved for our tour's return -- but they weren't. She was disappointed and received apologies from all the people involved. We did get the caviar tasting, though, which I appreciated.

 

We took the tour of the quaint town of Tvedestrand and the Naes Ironworks Museum. The town was lovely, but we only had a few minutes there. The Ironworks museum was interesting and the museum's guide not only spoke English fluently, but he knew everything there was to know about ironworking. This excursion was a huge hit with everyone in our party -- except for me. It was educational and interesting for sure, but I think I would have rather explored Arendal, which was only a few feet from the ship. 

 

One thing that had happened during the day was that the weather cleared up, leaving us glorious weather for our departure, which we enjoyed from our friends' deck. The departure through the narrow channel was spectacular and we made quite a scene -- sail and motor boats followed us, people waved from their houses and sidewalks and lots of ships, including ours, sounded their horns. 

 

By the time we cleared the channel, it was almost eight and time for dinner, which we ate outside downstairs, for the first time this cruise. Even so, we absolutely did not miss the Bordier cheese buffet upstairs. The restaurant manager and sommelier knew I had been looking forward to this and both had suggestions on what I had to try. Ultimately, I just asked the restaurant manager if he would choose his favorites for me and he was happy to do so. Wonderful!

 

And what's this? We had a brand new show in the theatre: "Frida," inspired by Frida Kahlo. It was very good and the dance pieces were also very athletic. Extremely impressive and I look forward to seeing it again. 😉

Tomorrow, Gothenburg, Sweden
 

Edited August 5, 2022 by AussieBoyTX

[AussieBoyTX]

13 hours ago, tnm6217 said:

Thank you @PBfromDC! I don't need a ton of bandwidth, but would need to be able to log into a Citrix web-based VPN to access files occasionally. The ability to telework at sea would be a game changer.

 

That level of connectivity won't be a problem. Ponant doesn't block my home or work VPN and even at the very slowest can maintain a VPN connection and sometimes a voice-only Zoom call.

[tnm6217]

9 hours ago, AussieBoyTX said:

 

That level of connectivity won't be a problem. Ponant doesn't block my home or work VPN and even at the very slowest can maintain a VPN connection and sometimes a voice-only Zoom call.

 

This is fabulous...but potentially dangerous...news for me!

[AussieBoyTX]

Ah and here we are on our final full day -- in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was a warm and party cloudy day and the excursions left at a reasonably civilized time, right before nine. 

 

Most of us went on the city tour plus Volvo Museum. For me, the drive through the city was meh, and was used to burn time while we waited for the museum to open at 10. The museum itself was awesome and had more than a hundred Volvo cars, trucks & exhibits. We immediately separated ourselves from the group and went to see the cars we didn't want to miss (including the Volvo 145 station wagon that took me to elementary school for several years) while the guided tour proceeded at their own pace. Nonetheless, we got to the end at the same time -- I could have easily spent another hour, but I would have been alone, even with my own entourage, who had had enough.

 

Our next stop was at the city center, where we were offered coffee and a traditional Swedish cinnamon roll before having a few minutes to explore the town. With the beautiful weather, we decided to walk back to the ship, which was at the same time, lovely and somewhat gritty. It was only 30 minutes and we arrived in time for our final lunch. 

 

After lunch, we adjourned for a very short rest before joining our friends on their deck to watch the sailing out of Gothenburg. It was fun to watch all the activity in this busy port. My favorite was the massive Stena Line ferries, with their passengers waving to us as they left us in their wake.

 

It took more than an hour to get into open water and then we returned to our cabin to begin the "arduous" packing process and to rest up for the night ahead...

 

To be honest, I think there's too much going on the final night -- I get that it makes sense, but my preference is to have the crew introductions and final gala dinner the second to last night -- like we did on Le Lyrial the night before Corinth Canal. 

 

Anyway, the final night began with Terje Leiren giving a final presentation on Norway and World War 2. I missed it, due to other obligations (sleep). Normally, that's a lecture I would have looked forward to.

 

We had a final Champagne and our captain thanked us for coming on Le Dumont-d'Urville. We learned that there were 139 passengers and 115 crew. And then we had the crew introductions -- and I was reminded that Americans are really good at recognizing good work with loud applause, cheers and whoops for certain favorite crew members. Really quite a bit beyond what I've heard before.

 

Then straight to the gala dinner, where we were joined by Robin Wright. We spoke about Pandas, Antarctica, Africa, Ponant and maybe a little bit about war. As usual, the gala took two hours and if the entire ship hadn't been in the dining room, we would have missed the final show starting at 9:15. Indeed at 9:30, the dancers invited us to join them as soon as we were done for their show.

 

We arrived in the lounge at 9:45 and the show started right after. It was short and fun. the dancers and some senior officers and the doctor stayed for dancing, bu the needed to finish packing and go to bed -- after all, it was quite close to eleven!

 

And the final morning -- went pretty much as usual. Plenty of "au revoir" and "à bientôt" with our favorite crew members as we lallygagged through breakfast and enjoyed a final coffee in the lounge as we got closer to nine. we knew it was time to go when the "Smithsonian Journeys" sign on the screens went away and was replaced by the group who had chartered the ship for the next week. 

 

Our butler lugged the last of our bags down the gangway and Captain Daumesnil was at the foot to thank us for cruising on "your ship" Le Dumont-d'Urville and looking forward to hosting us on our next cruise on Le Dumont-d'Urville. We are also looking forward to that cruise, hosted by Captain Daumesnil in the not distant future.

 

[gogo65]

Great trip report as usual.

In hindsight do you think the Smithsonian journeys charter is worth the additional dollars?

In comparison on our upcoming Northwest passage, A&K have charted Le Austral, to do a similar trip (although only 21 days to our 29 days), leaving the week before, the cost difference is close to $20k per person.That's a lot of money to have a full English speaking cruise plus their experts, personally not worth it to us, but obviously worth it to those that booked.

[AussieBoyTX]

31 minutes ago, gogo65 said:

Great trip report as usual.

In hindsight do you think the Smithsonian journeys charter is worth the additional dollars?

In comparison on our upcoming Northwest passage, A&K have charted Le Austral, to do a similar trip (although only 21 days to our 29 days), leaving the week before, the cost difference is close to $20k per person.That's a lot of money to have a full English speaking cruise plus their experts, personally not worth it to us, but obviously worth it to those that booked.

That’s a whole lot more, isn’t it?

 

I need to consult with @AussieGirlTX for a full debrief, but my initial thought is this is a low-risk way for an English-speaker to experience Ponant. The all-English communication plus the added native English-Speaking “Tour Director” removes a lot of risk. And you get excellent speakers. This sounds ideal for a week in Europe. Especially if you like the speakers, as on a normal European cruse, they are great in French and “also speak English.”
 

But on an expedition… we have only done the one in Seychelles, the naturalists / expedition guides all spoke English and were accomplished in their fields. I don’t know that celebrity speakers would have improved it significantly. 
 

While I enjoyed the energy Americans brought to every event, I also missed the French (and non-French) from the other cruises. 

Edited August 6, 2022 by AussieBoyTX

[gogo65]

I may see some value in a like for like cruise with a cost difference of $1000-$2000 to have a full English speaking cruise, but that would be my limit.

While having bilingual talks does become a bit of a pain, it certainly doesn’t really impact our enjoyment.

 

Will be interesting to hear what @AussieGirlTX thinks.

[bike utah]

Thanks for the great trip reports!  It was nice meeting you and the Aussieboy family!

[AussieBoyTX]

I think an important distinction is the Smithsonian Journeys cruises are a partnership between Ponant and Smithsonian Institution -- they're not a charter like A&K, Tauck and others who offer sailings on Ponant and don't appear to command the premium pricing those charters have. Looking at one itinerary I'm familiar with (Emblematic Antarctica), the pricing isn't that far apart:

Both are on Le Lyrial with 12 days & 10 nights including transfers from Buenos Aires:

 

Regular cruise w/ 15% Ponant Discount starts at $11,910 (un-discounted is $13,610)

Smithsonian cruise w/ 10% Ponant Discount starts at $13,270

 

That's not a much of a price difference at all and you get Michelle Thaller who is an excellent science communicator -- it's likely most of us have seen her on various shows on the Discovery Channel. And there's another Smithsonian speaker plus the tour director.

 

That feels like good value, setting aside not being able to share the experience with French and non-French passengers.

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by AussieBoyTX

[jpalbny]

On 8/6/2022 at 6:03 AM, gogo65 said:

Will be interesting to hear what @AussieGirlTX thinks.

 

Agree! But it looks like her post count is still at zero.

[AussieBoyTX]

On 8/3/2022 at 10:15 AM, PBfromDC said:

Thanks AussieBoyTX. I was hoping it was Regis. We had him on our first Ponant cruise a crossing from Fort de France to Lisbon and found him quite engaging. I keep checking the Ponant app and it says the crew is not yet known. Your post are great and we are looking forward to joining the ship on the 14th. 

 

@PBfromDC which cruise terminal did you leave from at FdF?

[tnm6217]

On 8/1/2022 at 2:46 PM, PBfromDC said:

Great reports! We're joining the ship in 13 days for the Bergen to Toronto crossing - who is the Captain? 

@PBfromDC I'm dying to know how your trip went. Do you have time to let us know how the crossing was?