boblerm

Day 5 and 6 Cruising and Detroit Our first day on the ship was cruising the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. There was an lecturer onboard to provide commentary from time to time as we cruised. We went through 8 locks. Detroit is a happenin’ city! Who knew? We had a bus tour of the city, here are some of the highlights. The Guardian Building, an Art- deco building with a beautiful lobby of marble designs and a vaulted ceiling The “Belt”, an alleyway with murals painted by local artists “The Girl with the D Earring”, an 8000 foot mural inspired by the famous painting by Vermeer The Motown Museum, Motown's first headquarters and recording studio Comerica Park, home of the incomparable Detroit Tigers Our Lady of Rosary Church “In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed In the maritime sailors' cathedral The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald” This is the church referenced in the iconic song by Gordon Lightfoot

There were 140 0f us on this tour. Ship capacity is listed as 184 On the day prior to boarding, we had to all be antigen tested. It is unclear to me whether this was a requirement of Canada for those that are boarding cruise ships, or a Ponant requirement. Everyone tested negative. It seems to me that this is a bit of a statistical improbability, albeit a happy one. Tauck provided 5 tour directors who accompanied us on the land and cruise portions of the trip. The directors was available in the hotels and on the ship at various times for answering questions, and one of them accompanied us on each tour bus. They were there to give us some background on the busses, and to make sure that everything was going smoothly, but the actual tours were conducted by local tour guides. This is the same as is done on Tauck River Cruises. In addition, onboard the ship there was liaison between Tauck and the Ponant crew. The actual Cruise Director was from Ponant. This is different from Tauck River Cruises, in which the CD function is done by Tauck.

Tauck does not own any ships, so any of their cruises have to take place on ships owned by other lines. On our cruise, the entire ship was taken by our tour group, there were no people onboard that had booked through Ponant. My understanding is that on other Tauck cruises, there may be a mix of passengers, some of who are on a Tauck tour, and others that have simply booked a Ponant cruise. I do not really know to what extent the Tauck group's presence on these cruises would impact the cruise experience of the "Ponant" passengers, and vice versa, nor do I know how often this is likely to happen.

Toronto Day 3 We had a choice of spending the morning at the Royal Ontario Museum or the Ontario Art Gallery, we chose the former. We started with a guide who showed us some of her favorite displays followed by some free time. Next, we had a bus tour around Toronto We were then taken to the ship around 4PM, nice sailaway from Toronto

For those that might be interested in the Tauck experience of this trip, I have started a thread on the "Other Cruise Line" forum, which I think is a more appropriate place to discuss that

I recently returned from a Tauck Small Ship Cruise aboard the Ponant Dumont d’Urville. As there is no Tauck forum on Cruise Critic, I wasn’t sure whether a report on this trip should be in the Ponant Forum, or this one. What is logical to me is to report on the onboard Ponant experience in the Ponant forum, and to report on the Tauck side of the experience here. For those that may be interested in the Ponant side, my report is here The Cliffs Notes version is that I was disappointed in the cuisine, delighted with the entertainment; everything else was rather good with a few glitches. The itinerary was 2 nights in Toronto, 7 days of cruising with stops in Detroit, Mackinac Island, Traverse City, Holland (no worries, we didn’t get lost, there is a Holland, MI), with 2 sailing days in the mix, finishing with 2 nights in Chicago. Toronto- Days 1 and 2 Tauck includes private transportation from airport to hotel, which nice. We came in the day before the tour started. We had a choice to stay at the Four Seasons or the Fairmont. We chose the Four Seasons, which is a beautiful hotel, however in retrospect, the Fairmont would have been a far better choice in terms of touring Toronto during free time. We spent our time on our own by visiting the CN Tower, walking around the harbor, and taking a nice harbor cruise The tour began with a Welcome Dinner on the first evening. It was supposed to take place in a castle called Casa Loma, but due to a film festival taking place in Toronto at the time, was switched to a venue called the Liberty Grand. Having done a few Tauck tours in the past, I did not think that this event rose to the standard of a “Tauck Special Evening”. The place was nice, nothing special really. No entertainment. The lobby was lovely, with good hors d'oeuvres served. We should have filled up on hors d'oeuvres, as the dinner was not great. The chicken was dry and tasteless. My portion of the beef was pretty good; my wife’s was overcooked, and tough. The crème brulee was a winner. This may be the very last complaint that I will post about this trip; it was all sunshine and roses from here! The next day we had an excursion to Niagra Falls, with a private boat ride on the Maid of the Mist We then were taken to a vineyard, where had a lovely buffet lunch.

I cannot say that I do. I can say that as best as I can tell from the comments, there are some fundamental differences between a purely Ponant cruise, and the one that I cruised on. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that those who love cruising on Ponant may be disappointed in a Tauck small ship tour on Ponant, due to these differences.

If you enjoy the Ponant experience, and are interested in booking a nice cruise, I think that you would be correct. I can't comment on Smithsonian, but the reason to book a Tauck Small Ship Cruise would be for the outstanding experience that one gets when traveling with Tauck. I would certainly consider doing another Tauck tour on a Ponant ship, even given my less than stellar experience with the cuisine on this one.

Can't say. But on the first evening I asked the bartender what bourbons he had, and he rattled off a list of whiskeys, none of which, to the best of my knowledge are bourbons.

Enrichment There were 2 sailing days. On the first, we were sailing through the Welland Canal, there was a lecturer onboard that did commentary as we sailed. He also did a lecture on “Shipspotting 101”. The sea day was a sail day on Lake Huron, not much to see, and not a whole lot to do. Here is the daily program Other Things The cruise director, Cedric, was pleasant, engaging, and kept things well organized. My wife had a massage in the spa, and said that it was outstanding. The wi-fi was the worst that I can remember having at sea. Full Stop. I would be happy to answer any question, given that the cruise was over a week ago, the chances that I will remember enough to answer is questionable. 🙄 But the chances that my wife will remember is very good, so I can ask her.

Entertainment I was not expecting much in terms of production style entertainment on a small ship, in a theater with a small stage. I was expecting, at most, some cabaret type shows with some pleasant singing. I couldn’t have been more wrong, I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the shows presented! The production cast consisted of 4 very talented ladies, 3 dancers and a singer named Olena. They put on 3 production shows in the course of this 7 night cruise, each of them wonderful. Olena has a fabulous voice, and can performs songs of many genres. The choreography in the shows was great, and performed with precision and amazing coordination. The lighting was first rate, and at the back of the stage there was a back-lit screen with beautiful changing scenery. I lost track of all of the costume changes, and the costumes were beautiful. The music was canned, obviously, as there is no live orchestra onboard, but the sound system was very good. My favorite of the shows was called “Frida”, with each number relating to something in the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. In terms of pure talent, inventiveness, creativity, special effects and sophistication, , it rivals anything that I can remember seeing on a cruise ship. Here are the 4 ladies with Cruise Director Cedrik In the theater, there was another show, a piano recital of classical music from a young lady from Ukraine named Oliana. I must confess that I am not all that much into classical music, however this performer's proficiency and passion for her craft had me mesmerized throughout. Knowing what her fellow countrymen are enduring at this time made her playing all the more poignant. Sadly, for any given performance, I estimated the theater to be approximately 10-20 % full. Those of us that attended were enthusiastic in our appreciation, but I felt kind of bad that these talented individuals were performing their hearts out in front of such a small percentage of the passengers onboard. The 4 cast members performed an additional show in the lounge, called “Girl’s Evolution”, again with top notch choreography, singing and lots of costume changes. Just great. This one was better attended. There were also 2 singers that sang in the lounge at various times with lovely voices. Service Overall, I was pleased with the service on board, with a few glitches. In the restaurant, I thought that the waiters seemed somewhat overworked in terms of the number of tables that each needed to service. I think that they did as well as they could. It was a rare occasion that my water glass was filled without my having to ask. Happily, that was not a problem with my wine glass.🙂 In the lounge, once in a while there was someone circulating to take drink orders; more often than not, you had to go up to the bar and order your drink. No real biggie, unless you wanted a drink at a time like this For me, this does not exactly scream, “luxury”. But wait, it gets worse. On day 2 they ran out of Grey Goose. On day 3, they ran out of Bombay Sapphire gin. They were never replenished. As @Gimlet Eyes Loganpointed out, perhaps we need to cut them a little slack due to supply chain issues. Here is the bar list (it says “Premium List”, but these are the included liquors. I did not see any additional cost liquors available) We had a suite with a butler, he and our cabin attendant delivered perfect service to our rooms.

On my cruise, I would have appreciated it more if it were more so. I am surprised that the buffet is closed at dinner, on my cruise, it was open every evening, although I never tried it. The Captain's Dinner menu that you show, looks identical to the one that we had, as mentioned, I thought that this dinner was excellent. But I do think that it is unfortunate that there are no options, surely there are many that, like you, do not fancy these particular offerings. The other menu that you show seems to have several French style items that I would have loved to have been able to try, sadly, we did not have those options to any great extent.

Thank you, Gimlet Eyes Logan. I have no way of knowing to what extent, if any, supply chain issues may have played. Based on other comments, it seems that these issues existed on Ponant pre-Covid. FWIW, I have been on 2 other cruise lines since cruising resumed, and the cuisine was superb on both.

Cuisine We had all of our meals in Le Nautilus, so I cannot comment on The Grill (although I think that the menu was comparable at both venues) At breakfast, there was a nice buffet, as well as items to be ordered from the menu, served to the table. Lunch was a small salad bar and very few other buffet items, so it was pretty much ordering from the menu. At dinner, the menu varied each evening, with a choice of 2 soups, 3 starters, 3 mains, and a few desserts. There is also an “always available” section The Steak offering, “Beef entrecote” was not listed as “always available”, but was on the menu every evening. We found breakfasts to be quite good. We only had 2 lunches onboard as on other days we had them during our excursions. Dinners were a major disappointment for us, both in terms of the variety of items offered, and the quality of the cuisine. On several nights, we struggled to find things that we actually wished to order. On the second night of the cruise was the best meal of the cruise, the Captain’s Welcome Dinner. This was a fixed menu, no choices, so those with dietary needs would need to have made that known ahead. This was the only dinner of the cruise that we thought was really good. Here is a sample menu from another evening The Accra had no flavor I had the Fried Chicken, it was good but it was nothing better than I can get at any fried chicken chain My wife had the Arctic Char, it was dry and overcooked. I spoke to someone that had the Fetuccini with Meatballs, who told me that the meatballs were pretty much akin to hockey pucks. Other nights were better, some of the better dishes were Scallops Vegetable and Mushroom Tartar Veal Sirloin The soup offerings were uniformly delicious. Each meal was preceded by an Amuse Bouch, also consistently excellent. I mentioned earlier that I was told that the menu would likely be similar on a typical Ponant cruise. I am skeptical about this, my hunch is that knowing that nearly all of the passengers were from the US, they tried to tailor the menu to what they thought that particular population would want. If that is the case, I think that it was a mistake. I think that most people that travel with Tauck are sophisticated enough in their tastes that they would appreciate a more international cuisine. Also, assuming that the Chef is French trained, he should probably emphasize what he specializes in. To be continued....

I recently returned from a Tauck Small Ship cruise of the Great Lakes aboard Le Dumont-d'Urville. This report will focus not so much on the Tauck land aspects of the trip, but rather on our onboard experiences. First, I have to mention that I am not sure that this cruise would be a “typical” Ponant cruise, as our Tauck tour group were the only passengers on the ship, and were nearly all from the US. Accordingly, the language used on board was all in English, and I am guessing that the menus were geared for the group that was sailing. FWIW, I had asked the Hotel Manager how this cruise may differ from a purely Ponant cruise, and he told me that the only difference would be that all of the information would be given in both French and English. You can take that with as many grains or salt as you’d like; that said, here are my impressions. Ship I found Le Dumont-d'Urville to be a lovely ship, a very pleasant environment. The décor was elegant, without being over the top. On deck 3 is the Main Lounge, leading to a deck with a small swimming pool Dancing on the ceiling? Nah, the Lounge's ceiling is mirrored🙂 On the other side of deck 3 is the Theater. In between is the reception area and a small Boutique. There were no shop offering sundries, or pharmacy items, so if you need, say, toothpaste or the like, you would have to find that on land. The main restaurant is Le Nautilus, on deck 4. You can also dine outdoors at Le Grill, located outside of the main lounge. There is a nice Panoramic Lounge on deck 6, with a well stocked library. Also on deck 6 is a small area with tables for card or board games. On deck 7 is a spa, and a small fitness center. There is also a Blue Eye underwater lounge located on Deck 0 There are only 2 public restrooms, one on deck 3, with a common sink area and 2 private stalls, for some reason they are marked men and women. So if you are dining in the main dining room, you need to exit and go down to deck 3. There is also 1 stall on the stairwell of deck 5, strange location, as it’s a deck with only passenger rooms. Even more strange is that the bartender in the Observation Lounge on deck 6 sends you to deck 3 if you ask him where the nearest restroom is. To be continued.....

I knew him well Sure, have at it, I'd be honored.

Yes, this does make things easier when browsing the website and comparing various cruises. Thanks Mike!

Thanks Daren, loved it! Bob

I surely hope that you have the opportunity to visit Oslo again, there is so much to see there. Most notably, for me, the Vigeland Sculpture Park, a photographer's paradise.

I mean positive thoughts for a negative test result of course!!

asnaleah, all of us in the Regent CC community will be sending positive thoughts your way on Sunday and Monday!🤞🙏

Here is a link to the C C mobile site. I think it is much more functional than tapatalk was https://boards.cruisecritic.com/

HI Fredrik, On my cruise on the Splendor a few months ago, I posted the schedule of activities in the daily Passages here Clearly, this is NOT the same schedule that you will have on your cruise, but it might give you some idea as to what to expect. If the link does not bring you to the correct spot, it is post #160. Have a great time, Regent is fabulous.

For transportation in Buenos Aires from airport to hotel in city center, are taxis readily available, or are Uber/Lyft? If not, can anyone recommend a car service? Same question for Rio, if I want to go from the cruise ship to a beach. Thanks.