Exploring the Arctic Aboard Le Commandant Charcot — An Icebreaking Luxury Ship From PONANT

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Le Commandant Charcot offers sailings ranging from eight to as many as 30 nights, exploring the Arctic each summer and Antarctica during winter.

Le Commandant Charcot has unprecedented capabilities for a luxury passenger ship to crack through thick sea ice in the polar regions to reach untouched parts of nature. (Photo by Georgie Miller)

Le Commandant Charcot can pull directly onto the sea ice, allow guests to explore miles long sheets of ice for snowshoeing, hiking and surreal access to nature. (Photo by Georgie Miller)

Spotting Polar Bears mere yards from the ship is no doubt the pièce de résistance sailing in the Arctic.

There are 123 suites and staterooms aboard, and every one of them is spacious by passenger ship standards, with its own private balcony facing the polar outdoors. (Photo courtesy of PONANT Explorations)

Nuna is the fine dining restaurant aboard Le Commandant Charcot led by award winning chef Alain Ducasse. (Photo courtesy of PONANT Explorations).

The Sky Deck Lounge aboard Le Commandant Charcot is an oasis with doting service and 360 degree nature views. (Photo courtesy of Le Commandant Charcot).

The ships Spa and indoor pool area is a destination of its own. (Photo courtesy of Le Commandant Charcot).

Zodiac cruises bring guests up close to a part of the planet few people ever get to see. (Photo by Georgie Miller)

With a visit to a local Greenlandic coastal village, PONANT ensures guests get a true window into not only nature, but into a way of life the rest of the world rarely sees.

The team of naturalist guides curate breathtaking nature activities for guests each day aboard Le Commandant Charcot (Photo courtesy of PONANT Explorations).

French hospitality compliments the rugged nature with fine dining, curated wines and spirits and doting service. (Photo courtesy of Le Commandant Charcot).

From the standard issue polar parkas, Le Commandant Charcot takes care of all of the creatures of comfort to ensure enjoying the rugged Arctic Ocean nature is comfortable and five-star. (Photo courtesy of PONANT Explorations)

Each day aboard Le Commandant Charcot brings a new surreal nature scene. (Photo by Georgie Miller)

The French word la banquise – pack ice – is one you hear constantly aboard Le Commandant Charcot, PONANT Explorations’ renowned luxury polar icebreaker ship. Since its creation, after joining the French line’s fleet in 2021, the ship has charted some of the most untouched pack ice-filled waters on Earth, with an ice-breaking capacity unprecedented for a passenger vessel.

As the Arctic grows in popularity for those seeking cool-cations, remote adventure, and untouched, serene nature, Le Commandant Charcot reaches parts of the region most ships can’t touch at all.

For ice-breaking standards, Le Commandant Charcot is at the top. The ship is rated PC2, one notch below the highest ice classification that exists; the only other vessels built to that standard are research or military ships. It cuts through ice up to eight feet thick and was one of the first passenger ships in history to reach the geographic North Pole, with plans to circumnavigate the entirety of Antarctica next year.

Sailing from Norway’s northernmost island of Svalbard to East Greenland, my journey aboard revealed a rare combination of ultra-luxury small ship hospitality, raw nature adventure, and scientific education that would wow even the most discerning traveler. The rare juxtaposition of rugged nature and five-star luxury starts with sipping a crisp glass of fine French champagne upon embarkation while hearing the surreal rumble of the ship cracking through miles-long sheets of ice across miles of stunning scenery.

French, Five Star Hospitality In The Arctic Ocean

What makes Le Commandant Charcot even more unprecedented is that all of the remote nature it explores comes wrapped in luxury French hospitality. The French elegance seeps into the doting service (don’t worry, everyone speaks English, as well as French), the gourmet fine dining, and stunning surroundings. With roughly 200 guests and a crew of 250, the service is polished and doting.

There are 123 suites and staterooms aboard, and every one of them is spacious by passenger ship standards, each with its own private balcony facing the polar outdoors. It feels less like a cabin and more like a private yacht: king or twin beds, a minibar restocked daily, Diptyque bath products, a Bose Bluetooth speaker, butler service, and floor-to-ceiling views of ice and open water.

Meals are elegant occasions aboard. Nuna, the ship’s gastronomic restaurant, serves Alain Ducasse-designed breakfasts, lunches, and dinners à la carte, with an elegant tasting menu offered in the evenings as well. Dishes like caviar-topped foie gras, paired with fine French wine chosen by the ship’s sommelier team, make for a truly refined dining experience. Sila, the more casual restaurant, serves buffet-style meals inside or out on the grill deck, where fresh ingredients elevate even the simplest dishes.

The surprises don’t stop at wildlife sightings, either: the culinary team would often come over the loudspeaker to announce a treat like French onion soup with black truffle on the top deck, or a caviar tasting in the lounge ahead of dinner.

The spa and wellness deck is a destination of its own, complete with a Biologique Recherche treatment and beauty center, a Davines hair salon, an OPI nail bar, a proper sauna with floor-to-ceiling window views, and a Snow Room. There’s a heated indoor pool beneath a glass roof, a gym and yoga area, and the Blue Lagoon, a heated outdoor infinity pool at the stern that steams directly over the pack ice.

In between excursions and meals, most of my time went to simply taking in the views, best appreciated from the lounge on the ship’s top deck. The panoramic room is wrapped almost entirely in glass, with a library and reading nooks tucked into its curve, looking out over whatever ice field or fjord we’d anchored in that day.

All of that luxury runs alongside genuine scientific research. Two onboard labs, a rotating team of visiting scientists, and satellite-fed ice charts support ongoing research projects through partnerships with French and German polar institutes, the Explorers Club in New York, and the World Ocean Council. Real scientific research is happening just below the luxury hospitality spaces. Guests are welcomed into the science of it all, with lab tours frequently happening on the ship as well as daily lectures by the ship’s naturalists about the nature and wildlife encountered.

A Luxury Expedition Aboard Le Commandant Charcot

Le Commandant Charcot doesn’t call itself a cruise, and after two weeks aboard, I understand why expedition is a much better word for it. Each day’s itinerary is dictated by three things: the weather, the sea ice, and what the wildlife allows. That’s the literal daily motto: the ship goes where conditions let it, not where a brochure says it will. And with an intimate number of passengers per sailing, that flexibility translates into immersive, often spontaneous nature experiences led by trained naturalist guides.

No two days aboard Le Commandant Charcot looked alike, but they shared a rhythm. Mornings began with Captain Etienne Garcia’s voice over the loudspeaker, “Good morning, dear guests,” delivered in his charming French accent, laying out the day ahead based on the weather, sea ice, and wildlife. After the ship’s own helicopter set out to scout the area, most days unfolded around Zodiac excursions, often to nearby land, for hiking and wildlife viewing. When the ship could pull up directly onto the ice, afternoons were spent stepping directly off the ship onto a mile-long slab of sea ice and simply walking or snowshoeing around it.

Access to Unparalleled Nature Experiences In The Arctic

Guests of Le Commandant Charcot touch land more than might be expected. In true expedition fashion, a team of naturalists guides guests ashore constantly, hiking up rocky hillsides and across tundra plains to spot reindeer and Arctic foxes, and, on one memorable day, a family of walruses sleeping soundly.

The wildlife sightings are unparalleled given the access Le Commandant Charcot provides. Another French word I learned almost immediately: ours polaire, polar bear — no doubt the pièce de résistance of the trip. One night in the high Arctic, I woke to the captain’s voice coming over the loudspeaker in French first, then in English.

By the time the English caught up, I was already half out of bed, my signature orange Le Commandant Charcot-issued parka thrown over pajamas. A mother polar bear and her twin cubs were frolicking on the ice thirty yards from the ship, unbothered, and because it never fully gets dark in the Arctic summer, I could see them crystal clear. That sighting turned out to be one of around 15 polar bear encounters during our two-week journey.

One of the trip’s most memorable stops had nothing to do with wildlife at all. In East Greenland’s Ittoqqortoormiit region, home to one of the most isolated inhabited villages on Earth, we were welcomed ashore for a peek into authentic Greenlandic culture. Small, brightly painted houses in red, yellow, and blue punctuate an otherwise stark, rocky landscape, home to some of the last hunters still living by the traditions of their ancestors. PONANT ensures guests get a true window into not only nature, but into a way of life the rest of the world rarely sees.

The polar plunge, an activity reserved for the bravest aboard, takes place toward the end of the journey, giving guests a literal immersion into the frigid temperatures we’d been exploring for two weeks. I miraculously lasted the full 60 seconds and was rewarded immediately with a warm cup of spiked hot cocoa from one of the ship’s kind crew members – another welcome reminder of the choreographed combination of nature and luxury that Le Commandant Charcot has mastered.

Call it Arctic naiveté, a kind even well-traveled people are prone to, but every encounter with this landscape aboard Le Commandant Charcot produced one of those moments that are hard to explain afterward and impossible to forget. Each piece of ice the ship broke through, every polar bear sighting, each untouched stretch of coastline we passed, gave way to something even more surreal than the last.

Le Commandant Charcot offers sailings ranging from eight to as many as 30 nights, exploring the Arctic each summer and Antarctica during winter, with a few sailings in Scandinavia and North America in between. Fares begin around $12,000 per person.