01Cruise line
PONANT
- Brand
- PONANT EXPLORATIONS
- The collection
- 1 ship
French expedition spirit, from small harbours to the ice edge.
02The programme
The doors it opens.
A PONANT booking through Dip Needle carries onboard credit and the selected offers open to our cruise partnerships, named beside the fare in the first proposal. Ship and route are chosen together, never separately. A coastal sailing in the Mediterranean asks different questions from an ice voyage aboard Le Commandant Charcot: the season, the daylight, the number of landings a week allows, the level of activity that will feel like pleasure rather than duty. Around the sailing sit the parts that decide whether a remote journey works at all, from the flights to the gateway to the nights at either end. All of it arrives in one written proposal, so the expedition can be judged whole.
Onboard credit and selected offers apply to eligible sailings and fares; inclusions are confirmed for your voyage.
03Privileges
What a preferred booking brings.
- 01
Onboard credit
Onboard credit for the spa, the cellar or an outing ashore.
- 02
Selected cruise offers
PONANT offers for the exact ship and departure you choose.
- 03
Your place on board
A cabin matched to the vessel, from coastal sailing to ice.
- 04
Your fare, explained
What the fare covers, from landings to equipment, named before you reserve.
- 05
The voyage, end to end
Flights, gateway nights and the days that frame a remote sailing.
04Behind the programme
PONANT EXPLORATIONS
PONANT is French in the particulars: the language of the crew, the bread at breakfast, a table properly laid at the end of a day spent looking at ice. The fleet is small by design, which is the point of it. A ship of this size can enter harbours that larger vessels admire from the horizon, and put its guests ashore by Zodiac where there is no quay at all.
Le Commandant Charcot carries the idea furthest. Built for the high latitudes, it holds dedicated research spaces alongside its cabins, so the world outside the window is something to understand as well as to watch. That is a particular kind of exploring: slower, more attentive, closer to the ice than most travellers ever get, and better for the company of people who can name what you are looking at.
- Locations
- Small-ship exploration from the Mediterranean to the Arctic and Antarctic
05Booking
From enquiry to arrival
- 01
The encounter you want
Tell us what you hope to meet: a coastline taken slowly, a wildlife season, the ice itself. Your appetite for activity matters here as much as the map does.
- 02
Ship, route and season
We match the vessel to the voyage and the month to the light, then set the fare, the onboard credit and the offers for your dates in one written proposal.
- 03
The gateway, arranged
On your approval the cabin is reserved and the approach built around it: the flights, the nights at either end and the equipment the sailing expects you to bring.
- 04
Sail with the conditions
Final documents reach you before departure. Ice, weather and permissions decide the landings, and an expedition that keeps its plans loose is the one that sees the most.
06The collection
From the collection
07Enquire
The introduction begins here.
French expedition spirit, from small harbours to the ice edge.