So far in this blog, we've gone over just what constitutes luxury cruising, and done a cursory review of the 'big four'.
That hardly exhausts the field of choice. While many companies claim a luxury moniker, applying the litmus tests outlined in my first luxury blog posting, it does narrow a bit.
First, let's distinguish luxury from expensive. An 11 day trip to the North Pole aboard the nuclear icebreaker 50 Years of Victory is hardly inexpensive, starting at $24,00 plus your air to Murmansk Russia! Helicopter flights are extra.... I'd love to book you on this, but it is NOT luxurious, it's adventurous.
But there ARE luxurious adventure cruises out there- Orion Cruises, Silver Explorer and now the Explorer II, Hapag-Lloyd Hanseatic, Travel Dynamics International's Corinthian, and Le Ponant's trio of ships- LeBoreal, L'Austral, LeSoleal (2013), and an as yet unnamed fourth for 2014. What ALL of these ships have in common are ice-hardened hulls and high class onboard services and amenities.
Looking at them, there are more similarities than differences, yet each has its own flavour and personality....
ORION EXPEDITION CRUISES
Orion is an Australian company, operating two ships, the Orion and Orion II, simply enough. The latter will be moving out of fleet in 2013, to be replaced over time. A digression- Orion II, Explorer II, Corinthian are all sister ships, built around 1990 for now defunct Renaissance Cruise Lines. They feature all-suite accommodations, and carry around 100 passengers each.
Orion was built 2003, and epitomizes luxury adventure cruising. With an E3 ice hardened hull, a high crew ration- 73 for 106 passengers, this is 5 star all the way, with award winning cuisine on down.
Anyway, Orion has as its stock-in-trade the waters around Australia- the Great Barrier Reef, the remoteKimberly region of north Australia. But they do venture to Borneo, Papua New Guinea, Japan and other East Asia destinations including Kamchatka. Plus Antarctica- with a twist. Rather than doing the regular route from the tip of South America to the Antarctic Peninsula, they go from the south tip of New Zealand or Tasmania, and head toward the Ross Sea. Utterly unique!
COMPAGNIE DU PONANT
They bill themselves as 'yacht cruises', and have actually been around for quite a while. But they have divested themselves of some older ships- Le Diamont (ex Radission Song of Flower and now chartered by Quark expeditions), and soon Le Le Levant, which is going to Paul Gauguin Cruises.
While not the pinnacle of luxury, their French flair and cuisine, white glove service, sleek contemporary styling (akin to W hotels in my view) easily put them on a par with the others. Le Ponant is the newly updated sailing ship. Plus the 4 sisterships all have a new hull rating for ice- 1C, which puts them just below the icebreakers.
Once all four ships are operating, they will be the biggest show in Antarctica, with 2 ships running from Ushuaia, another from South Africa (2014), and the last from the South Pacific.
When not in Antarcica, expect to see Ponant ships in the Arctic (this year they featured an Iceland intensive departure), the coast of Africa, India, and even returning to the Great Lakes, where Le Levant used to visit.
SILVERSEA
Because I have already covered that brand, these are just supplementals. The Prince Albert II was acquired a few years ago, refurbished- more like stripped to the bones and redone, and is now caled the Silver Explorer. It is almost like the other mainstream luxury Silversea ships, but more informal, AND, of course, it carries a fleet of zodiacs and goes to where no other Silversea vessel would ever venture. She is almost always sold out a year in advance.
Very recently, Canodros, an Ecuadorian company operating a single ship in the Galapagos, was purchased by Silversea, so their ship will come under a new wing, and undoubtedly, get upgraded to 5 star standards.
HAPAG-LLOYD
When you have this (the above), and add this (the below), you definitely have something.
Hardly a well known cruises brand in North America, this German company is of course synonymous with containers. But Douglas Ward, the author of the bible on cruising, rates the Europa as the top ship afloat- anywhere. HL also has other ships, including the Hanseatic, which became the first to transit the Northwest passage, albeit not without going aground briefly. That ship is in a class of its own, with a high ice rating, an amazing array of itineraries, and a long history of performance. As I write, she is once again readying for a top of the world transit.
A lot of the imagery in this blog has been of polar regions, but obviously, these ships need to go from one pole to the other, and so there are always voyages which traverse the tropics and temperate zones.
No matter which one strikes your fancy, rest assured that they represent the best of the best in expedition travel.
