Luxury expeditions are a hot item for 2025, and PONANT has met the challenge by adding 18 new itineraries plus nine exclusive polar experiences in its new catalog, and promising at least one excursion in every port of call.
Ponant sailings next year will include Northern Europe and the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Asia, Oceania & Polynesia, and nine polar itineraries aboard Le Commandant Charcot, the world’s only luxury icebreaker. Several of the new itineraries include shoulder-season sailings to popular destinations including the Mediterranean and the Aegean.
The newest itineraries include a 12-day Mediterranean Heritage and Archaeological Sites that visits Greece, Italy, Malta, Tunisia, Algeria, and Spain, April 23-May 4; an 8-day Europe Autumn in the Aegean Sea to Greece in September and October; The Fascinating Nature of Melanesia, including the Kei Islands, the Raja Ampat Islands, and the remote Banda archipelago, from September 10–21; and the 8-day Secular Treasures in the Land of the Rising Sun from Osaka to Kobe, April 5-12.
The polar itineraries will take guests as well as naturalists, historians and photo ambassadors to the ice floes of Baffin Bay and Disko Bay; to Ammassalik and the Blosseville Coast, whose ice cap extends to the North Pole; ashore to meet with two Greenlandic communities; and to an all-new port of call, Corner Brook on Newfoundland.
A unique journey, the 12-night Encounter with the Last Guardians of the North Pole, sailing April 5-17, will allow travelers to interact with local communities and explore Greenland’s ice sheet with hunters from the Inuit community. José Sarica, expedition experience director, and Mathieu Tsingrilaras, staff captain on the Ponant fleet, will join French polar expert Nicolas Dubreuil for this scouting expedition, with the goal of developing new polar activities in collaboration with “the last guardians of the pole.”
This trip includes a four-day visit to Kullorsuaq, where guests will stay overnight with locals or in expedition tents on the ice, and participate in village life through dog-sled rides, traditional Inuit kayak outings, snowshoe hikes, snorkeling in a wetsuit, and a night in an Inuit tent to explore Nunanutaat, remote areas reachable by dog sled.
