Le Commandant Charcot

1 · POSITION

Le Commandant Charcot is a passenger ship built to break ice. Baird Maritime gives a length of 150 metres, Polar Class 2 notation and a hybrid LNG and battery system driving two pod-mounted electric motors, with 123 staterooms for 245 passengers and a crew of 235. She was built by Vard, a Fincantieri subsidiary, at Tulcea in Romania, and laboratories are installed aboard. Travel Gossip dates her launch to 2021. The register’s subject is the hotel inside that hull. [1, 2]

2 · THE SUITES OPEN ONTO THE ICE

Travel Gossip counts seven cabin categories, among them one Owner’s Suite, four Duplex Suites and fifty Deluxe Suites, and gives the Owner’s Suite at 1,237 square feet, the duplexes at 1,011 and a Deluxe Suite at 301. Cruise Passenger places the Suite de l’Armateur on deck eight at 115 square metres with a terrace of 186, and the four duplexes at the rear of decks six and seven, each with a private terrace and a jacuzzi. [2, 3]

3 · MENUS SIGNED ASHORE, SERVED AT SEA

Forbes Travel Guide names two restaurants, Nuna for French cooking and Sila for more casual meals, and attributes the cuisine to Alain Ducasse and his team. Cruise Passenger reports the same authorship and a champagne and caviar reception on arrival. Travel Gossip records two restaurants and an outdoor grill used when the weather permits, a cigar lounge, and bars hung with explorer portraits and expedition books. Crew will take foie gras out of a dish on request. [2, 3, 4]

4 · WATER, HEAT AND SNOW

The indoor pool is open at all hours and heated to between 27 and 35 degrees Celsius, with a resistance current. Forbes Travel Guide puts a second heated pool, the Blue Lagoon, on the top deck. The spa holds three treatment rooms and a single-chair hair salon beside a sauna, a fitness centre and a snow room; Travel Gossip treats the snow room as the standout indoor feature and advises alternating it with the sauna three times. [2, 4]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The register calls her the only luxury passenger ship that is a polar icebreaker. Two sources repeat that in the operator’s own words rather than testing it, one attributing the phrase to Ponant directly. Capacity is 245 passengers in two accounts and around 240 in a third. Ice is given as 2.5 metres in one and 2.4 metres at two knots in another. The Owner’s Suite sleeps two in one account and up to six in another. No Ponant page could be fetched for this entry. [1–4]