Le Dumont d'Urville
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Le Dumont d'Urville
Le Dumont d’Urville is a Ponant ship offering a luxury expedition cruise aboard an intimate yacht designed to explore coastal, tropical, and polar destinations. It operates itineraries to regions accessible to small ships, focusing on discovering natural landscapes, wildlife observation, and cultural immersion in diverse environments. The vessel offers high-end comfort with elegant suites, refined gastronomy, personalized service, and modern spaces suited to immersive sea travel. This cruise promotes a responsible approach to exploration, combining understated luxury, adventure, and access to exclusive ports of call. It is particularly suited to travelers seeking an elegant, high-end expedition cruise in an intimate and contemporary setting.
Itineraries of the Le Dumont d'Urville
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.
We do not know, and we are not inventing a reason. When we measured, no dates appeared here while other distributors are selling them for 2026 and 2027. No announcement of a withdrawal, a sale or a charter was found. The gap most likely comes from our own feed.
Nothing suggests otherwise. Do not conclude from the absence of dates on this page that she has left the fleet: your advisor can look for her departures directly with the supplier.
On 14 June 2019, by the VARD yard: hull built at Tulcea in Romania, fitting out at Soviknes in Norway. She is the fourth of the six hulls in the Ponant Explorers series.
The ship was to be called Le Kerguelen. She was renamed before delivery after Jules Dumont d'Urville, naval officer and explorer. The whole series carries explorers' names, which fits its purpose.
