Cruising from Bali to Irian Jaya and down to Cairns

[RooFlyer]

That evening, we had the traditional crew presentation - all the crew, except the bridge officers and engine room and other on-duty essentials. Good to see the below-decks guys getting applause.

Kitchens



Servers



Entertainers (incl control room)



Engine room and maintenance



Expedition crew. Exped leader Sandrine (French born, grew up in Australia, perfectly bilingual with an Aussie accent ) at left. Members from Australia, France, Taiwan, Seychelles.



This was followed by the Gala dinner in the Main restaurant (attendance not compulsory)

 

[RooFlyer]

Lastly for the day, the evening show. As I've said, I've never been on on-board show goer, but have at least put my head in for most on this trip. As I did with this one - a variety in the main theatre, with good choreography and lots of energy.











Then I went downstairs for a hot chocolate before retiring, and the lead male and female singers were performing 'favourites'.

 

[VPS]

Just checking if normal wine is included in Ponant prices or do you need a drinks package. If it is included is it OK?

 

[Chalkie]

Just checking if normal wine is included in Ponant prices or do you need a drinks package. If it is included is it OK?

Although I am not quite at @RooFlyer's Grand Admiral status yet (I am only a mere Admiral with Ponant), I can confirm that Ponant is fully inclusive of all drinks (wine, champagne, beer, spirits, standard coughtails). You can buy "premium" wines, spirits and coughtails if you like. Our experience of 5 Ponant expeditions has been there's been no need to buy the premium wines as we've been more than happy with what's been on the rotation (nearly all French wines). I did virtually the same expedition (sailed into Darwin rather than Cairns) in June this year and the house champagne on that expedition was Abele 1757, about which I was pretty happy.

The one expedition on which we did buy from the premium list was our last Antarctica expedition in 2024. The hotel director (a very urbane and polished Swiss hotelier, but with a great and wicked sense of humour) put together a very jolly and at times a bit raucous table (our laughter did not go down well with a table of haughty French sitting next to us) of him, me and +1, and a South African family of a dad and his two adult daughters on the second night, and we quickly became firm friends. The sommelières on that expedition were two really terrific young French women and they put together three wine tastings at our instigation (which became a sought after activity after word of the first one got around) and did an amazing job of guiding the tastings, with maps, stories of their wine training and explorations, canapes from the galley and constant laughs and bonhomie. For the final gala dinner, the sommelières selected the wine for us from the onboard cellar and again did an amazing job of choosing excellent wines at good prices, and we were very happy to pay for the premium (having our onboard Admiral's credit was a handy contribution to the cost) wines on that occasion.

 

[Chalkie]

@RooFlyer thanks so much for this TR. Great to re-live my memories of the almost same expedition from June this year.

Giuseppe was our cruise director on that expedition and we had a ripper of a time - there was a group of Aussies (which included me) and Belgians who became his nightcap companions. We're still in touch and conspiring for how we can do another expedition together (our next one is a diving expedition Fiji to Guam in Feb 2027 on Le Soleal). Great to see Elena (the pianist) on board too - she accompanied me when I sang at a passengers and crew talent night Giuseppe organised. And Sandrine Erwin-Rose is a pal of mine from our Kimberley expedition a few years ago. That expedition also turned out to be great fun (although to be fair, each of our Ponant expeditions have been terrific fun and a barrel of laughs - we've really struck it lucky with the expedition crews and fellow pax on each of our expeditions) as we had our expedition leader from our first Antarctica expedition on board too and there were constant laughs about so many things. We've stayed in touch with Sandrine and had some memorable meetings - most recently at Darwin Airport when we were leaving the ship and she was coming on board - but we've also met on the dock at Ushuaia between sailings too!

We can't wait for our next Ponant expedition!

 

[VPS]

Although I am not quite at @RooFlyer's Grand Admiral status yet (I am only a mere Admiral with Ponant), I can confirm that Ponant is fully inclusive of all drinks (wine, champagne, beer, spirits, standard coughtails). You can buy "premium" wines, spirits and coughtails if you like. Our experience of 5 Ponant expeditions has been there's been no need to buy the premium wines as we've been more than happy with what's been on the rotation (nearly all French wines). I did virtually the same expedition (sailed into Darwin rather than Cairns) in June this year and the house champagne on that expedition was Pol Roger, about which I was pretty happy.

The one expedition on which we did buy from the premium list was our last Antarctica expedition in 2024. The hotel director (a very urbane and polished Swiss hotelier, but with a great and wicked sense of humour) put together a very jolly and at times a bit raucous table (our laughter did not go down well with a table of haughty French sitting next to us) of him, me and +1, and a South African family of a dad and his two adult daughters on the second night, and we quickly became firm friends. The sommelières on that expedition were two really terrific young French women and they put together three wine tastings at our instigation (which became a sought after activity after word of the first one got around) and did an amazing job of guiding the tastings, with maps, stories of their wine training and explorations, canapes from the galley and constant laughs and bonhomie. For the final gala dinner, the sommelières selected the wine for us from the onboard cellar and again did an amazing job of choosing excellent wines at good prices, and we were very happy to pay for the premium (having our onboard Admiral's credit was a handy contribution to the cost) wines on that occasion.

thanks

 

[Chalkie]

thanks

I just edited the champagne - I checked and it wasn't Pol Roger. It was Abelé 1757, which I enjoy equally as much as Pol Roger!

 

[VPS]

I just edited the champagne - I checked and it wasn't Pol Roger. It was Abelé 1757, which I enjoy equally as much as Pol Roger!

That's not a problem because I'm one of those weird people that think champagne is revolting

 

[RooFlyer]

Just checking if normal wine is included in Ponant prices or do you need a drinks package. If it is included is it OK?

Yes, quite okay. Mixture of French, Chilean, NZ and South African wines from memory - obviously more French than the others and I was on the whites so the reds may have been a different mixture.

I didn’t see many other guests ordering wine from the wine list although there may have been more in the restaurant where I didn’t go much.

My 25% status discount made a pretty substantial difference to the appeal of ordering the wines off the wine list

Neither of the sommeliers were very engaging. Always try to ‘upsell’ me from the particular choice I made off the list.

 

[RooFlyer]

That expedition also turned out to be great fun (although to be fair, each of our Ponant expeditions have been terrific fun and a barrel of laughs - we've really struck it lucky with the expedition crews and fellow pax on each of our expeditions)

My experience with this cruise pretty much reflects yours. It was a really good one. My Kimberley Cruise was also very good except for the captain, which I’ve recounted previously.

Also, as recounted previously, was my very poor cruise to the Arctic earlier this year which began with flights direct from Paris. I escalated a complaint to one of the head honchos of Ponant Asia-Pacific and I cancelled another Ponant cruise based on that experience. On that one, I would call the expedition crew poor and the minority Anglo passengers were definitely treated in an inferior manner to the majority French.

My conclusion is the closer you get to Paris probably the less enjoyable it will be for non-French passengers. But I’ll just have to suck it up as I have a number of other Ponant cruises booked in the northern hemisphere, including across the Mediterranean. The saving grace perhaps being that not many of them are expedition, mainly port-of-call type.