Ponant has opened sales for Le Commandant-Charcot’s summer 2021 Arctic itineraries.
The hybrid electric ship will be powered by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and the first luxury passenger vessel to travel to the Geographic North Pole at 90 ° north latitude.
Winter 2021-2022 cruises in Antarctica will open for bookings on December 5, 2019 and are currently available for pre-bookings, the company said, in a statement.
New itineraries include the geographic North Pole, the eastern coast of Greenland, the Northwest Passage, the Ross Sea, and the Charcot and Peter I Islands.
Usually inaccessible to a classically-designed ship at this time of the year because of the ice floe, the vessel’s innovative routing software and PC2 Polar Class hull makes it possible to slip through the naturally-formed channels in the ice and the ship’s powerful engines are able it to free itself when necessary from denser sea ice, according to a press release.
The inaugural cruise of Le Commandant-Charcot sails between Iceland and Greenland. Highlights include a stop where the Pourquoi Pas ? IV sunk off the coast of the Alftanes Peninsula for a small ceremony in memoriam, an excursion on Jan Mayen Island to explore the volcanic rock and wild tundra, and a journey through the Scoresby Sund, the world’s largest fjord network.
The cruise sails 15 days from Le Havre to Reykjavik with pricing starting at $18,150 per person.
Another sailing, At the Genesis of the French Polar Expeditions, offers an 11-day cruise that will sail along the east coast of Greenland offering a unique opportunity to explore shores that long remained isolated due to a thick layer of ice that protected the coastline. Le Commandant-Charcot will sail north from the region of Ammassalik to the coast of Blosseville – this wild region of jagged peaks was identified in 1833 by Commander Blosseville during a voyage that caused his disappearance and that of his crew.
In August 2021 the ship heads to the North Pole, setting sail from Spitsbergen for 16 days with pricing starting at $29,100 per person.
