Le Bellot
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Le Bellot
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Cruises availables
Le Bellot is a Ponant ship offering a luxury expedition cruise aboard an intimate vessel designed to explore coastal, polar, and tropical destinations. It sails to remote regions and exceptional natural sites, emphasizing discovery, wildlife observation, spectacular scenery, and cultural immersion. The ship combines upscale comfort, refined gastronomy, personalized service, and modern technology within an elegant setting that enhances the travel experience. This cruise promotes a responsible approach to exploration, with visits to exclusive destinations accessible to small ships. It is particularly suited to travelers seeking a premium expedition cruise that combines luxury, nature, culture, and the discovery of remarkable destinations.
Itineraries of the Le Bellot
Price and Availability Notice
Prices displayed are provided for informational purposes only. They reflect the rates in effect at the time of their most recent update and are shown in Canadian dollars, per person, based on double occupancy, unless otherwise specified.
Supplier rates, exchange rates, taxes and fees, room or cabin categories, and promotions are subject to change at any time. The applicable price is the one confirmed by a travel advisor at the time of booking, subject to availability. Only the confirmed price shall be considered valid.
It is the traveler's responsibility to confirm the price, inclusions, and applicable terms and conditions before making a reservation. While every effort is made to keep our content up to date, transmission, display, or pricing errors may occur. In such cases, the correct price will be communicated to the traveler before any booking is confirmed. Certain terms, restrictions, and exclusions may apply.
Technical specifications
- Tonnage: 9
- Passengers: 184
- Decks: 5
- Length: 18 m
- Width: 131 m
Frequently Asked Questions
They are not, and it is the only real surprise in this formula. Excursions, drinks, Wi-Fi and the minibar are in the fare; gratuities stay on your account. A guest used to the American lines, where the opposite is the norm, is caught almost every time.
The list is long and it starts with what costs most elsewhere: shore excursions. Add most drinks, Wi-Fi, the minibar, the talks. Subtract gratuities and the spa. On an expedition with daily landings, the arithmetic leans well to the good side.
Included, and it is what genuinely sets this line apart. Most competitors sell shore outings one at a time; here they are part of the voyage. On a polar itinerary where every landing needs zodiacs and guides, the gap becomes considerable.
It is French, and that changes everything against the American contracts we usually read. Compagnie du Ponant, head office in Marseille, French law, French courts. A tourism mediator can also be called on if discussion with the line goes nowhere.
There is none, and this is the only contract in the sector we have read in that position, alongside one British line's. No imposed arbitration, no class-action waiver. In practice: your rights are not cut down in advance by the signature.
The longest window in the project by a distance: two years. The difference against an American contract is brutal, since some require written notice within fifteen days of the cruise ending. You therefore have time to notice a problem, gather your evidence and act.
It is the heart of the model. Below two hundred and fifty guests, a ship reaches anchorages closed to large vessels and works up narrow channels. Polar rules also limit how many people may be ashore at once: on a big hull that means waiting your turn; here it does not.
It runs from a twelve-person catamaran to an icebreaker able to reach the North Pole, an unusual spread for thirteen ships. In between: four hulls of the Sisterships series, six exploration ships and a three-masted sailing yacht.
Naturally. The house is French, from Marseille, and French is a language of the ship on equal footing with English. On an expedition cruise, where you listen to naturalists and historians for hours a day, language stops being a detail.
It exists, framed by the Athens Convention, but it stops the moment a bag is left unattended. Jewellery, devices, medication and documents therefore stay in your hand luggage, aboard the ship as in the transfers.
We do not know, and that is the honest answer. No technical sheet from this line publishes it. We check ship by ship and date by date. On an expedition the real question is often less about the stateroom than about being able to step into a zodiac.
In 2020. She belongs to the Ponant Explorers series, and that is the detail that matters most when choosing: ships in the same series resemble one another closely, and the difference is made by the itinerary and the season rather than the hull.
One hundred and eighty-four guests in the usual configuration, up to two hundred and sixty-four. They are the smallest hulls in the fleet after the sailing yacht and the catamaran, and that is deliberate: below two hundred people, anchorages and polar regulations open up.
77 dates: 13 in 2026, 40 in 2027 and 24 in 2028. Inventory for distant years opens gradually, so a low figure for 2028 does not mean the ship stops.
Very little, which is the point of a series. Delivered in 2020, she is the fifth of six. The choice between them is made on itinerary and season, not on the ship, because they are built to be interchangeable.
