SeaDream vs Ponant

I've just finished a cruise on L'Austral (Ponant) from Cairns to Sydney, over NYE. Capacity 260 passengers, mainly French.

I've posted a full review on the Ponant page on CC. It will probably go up tomorrow when they vet it.

I have to say it wasn't bad... but it wasn't SeaDream either. The ship was immaculate and also styles itself as a 'mega yacht', but the little things were telling. For example, I hardly saw any officer for the whole voyage. No-one called us by name for the whole week except for our cabin attendant. No ordering 'off menu' at all...I would certainly treat it as a 'fall back' for SeaDream (which is what this cruise was for us as we couldn't travel to the Caribbean this year), but it would never be my first choice.

If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to answer them about points of comparison.

Bring on SeaDream in September 2015!!

Shaskelly

Shaskelly, thanks for the heads up re: your review. Will be interested to read it....

We also sailed on L'Austral (Venice - Dubrovnik) right after our SD1 Norway cruise in 2011 - so it was interesting reading your post here comparing the two and I pretty much agree with you.

Our cabin was modern and the room was brand new...so it was clean, & well appointed. One of the things that I thought was kind of odd were the balconies: they're solid and quite high and their chairs were low, so just about anyone under 5'6" had to stand up in order to look out at the view!

The more "formal" of the two restaurants had (somewhat) better food but still paled by comparison to SD's. The buffet area upstairs was like a cattle call so we avoided it for lunch - standing in front of the salad bar was like being in the middle of a stampede! :eek:

We did like their spa and their excursions were well organized and not overcrowded. We also liked their roomy (and more stable) tenders. Our Capt did make an appearance and interacted somewhat at cocktail hour a few times on our trip, but like you said the crew was friendly but - with the exception of our same waiter at dinner - didn't make much of an effort to get to know passengers.

All in all, a nice ship but definitely not SD!

CDreamer,

As I recall, your description was that the ship was nice, but had no "soul"!

Vandrefalk

That is how we felt about the Seaborne Odyssey.

We were looking to do the 10 day Ponant cruise in Tahiti, but decided to go with the 11 day PG cruise, mainly do to the "soul factor". Plus Ponant counts embark and debark days in the length count but PG didn't. The PG gives you 11 full days to the Ponant's 9 full days.

Where is the Ponant board, I could not find it a month ago?

Le Ponant is in the last listing, "Other Cruise Lines", in the section "Cruise Lines A-O".

Because Cruise Critic is mostly American cruisers, and the passengers of Le Ponant are not, it is hard to find too much information here, alas.