06 APR 2018: Ponant’s brand chairman and corporate special advisor, Edie Rodriguez said recently, “As the world is getting wealthier, (this wealthy segment) tried mass market cruising, river cruising and they want a different genre,” she says referring to the latest Forbes list of the world’s richest – a record 2,208 billionaires worldwide.

On more bucket lists than ever, cruising through the once unthinkable Northwest Passage to view the true geographic North Pole in high-style is getting closer.

In 2021, Ponant is scheduled to launch the world’s first luxury icebreaker to the North Pole. The clean LNG (liquid nitrogen gas) 135 stateroom ship is the first electric hybrid cruise icebreaker of its kind. The ship will take passengers to never explored polar destinations, such as the Weddell Sea, The Ross Sea and Peter 1 Island.

Previously the only way to explore the Arctic was via the industrial, bare bones Russian ice breaker. “Now you can do this in true Ponant luxury style sipping a glass of Veuve Clicquot,” says Rodriguez.