wines, house Champagne, alcohol except premium brands—list available on request, premium option available at extra cost. Evening entertainment. Port charges. 24-hour room service. Park entry fees. Return flights from London (exclusive to CCUK). Not included: Insurance, meals and beverages other than specified above, person- al expenses (telephone, inter- net, laundry, spa menu etc). YOUR CLUB RATES For the full ‘Best of Spitsber- gen’ cruise of seven nights (eight days), June 27 to July 4, 2020, the current rate starts at £7,191 per person plus flights from UK. The exclusive Club rate is £5,567 for a Superior Stateroom. You save £1,600 per person (saving £3,200 for two). The Prestige Stateroom on Deck Four has a rack rate of £8,433, but for you it is £6,399. For the Prestige State- room on Deck Six, the rack rate is £9,171, the Club price is £6,897. The Deluxe Suite, with a rack rate of £12,339, is for Members £9,133. The Prestige Suite on Deck Six has a rack rate of £17,091, but our Club rate is £12,439, sav- ing up to £4,600 per person. This is perhaps the most enjoyable and sought-after Arctic itinerary, and though there may be deals on the web we believe ours to be the best by far. Our aim is for Members always to benefit from the best rates anywhere. All are per person based on two sharing. Single rates available. Bookings subject to Club rules, terms and condi- tions and those of Ponant. All details are correct at time of going to press, but subject to change without prior notice. June 27, 2020: Fly from Lon- don. Board Le Boréal in Longyearbyen and set sail. June 28: Discover Lilliehöök Glacier and the 14th July Glacier, Spitsbergen. June 29: Magdalena Bay and Virgohamna, or Virgo Bay, north-west of Spitsbergen. June 30: Sail to the ice limit, the very edge of the ice floe. July 1: Texas Bar, Liefdefjor- den (‘Fjord of Love’), and the Monaco Glacier. July 2: Ny-Ålesund, a former mining town, and Kongsfjor- den (‘Fjord of the King’). July 3: The Alkhornet Cliff, Pyramiden Russian ghost town, Nordenskiöld Glacier. July 4: Arrive at Longyear- byen, disembark Le Boréal, transfer to airport to fly home. ALL-INCLUSIVE FARES This cruise is all-inclusive: Bilingual English/French speaking expedition team. All meals aboard ship, from dinner on embarkation to breakfast on disembarkation. Captain’s welcome cocktail and gala dinner. Complimen- tary Open Bar aboard ship: unlimited complimentary drinks, including pouring 238 died here, while taking part in a rescue operation for two more ex- plorers with the seaplane Latham, but crashed somewhere into the Atlantic Ocean on his way to Svalbard. Amundsen and the plane were never found. Now there is a poignant museum filled with memorabilia, and a famous post office, the world’s most northerly. At the northern entrance of Isfjorden lies a paradise for bird lovers: the Alkhornet Cliff. It is home to thousands of birds, a joy- ous tumult of gulls, guillemots, pink-footed geese, terns, gulls, puffins, Arctic skuas and more … and this is the scene of the fa- mous ‘bird jumping’ by the Brunnich Guillemot chicks, which jump from nests along the cliff’s edge into the sea below. The Alkhornet Cliff, easily recognisable by its rhinoceros-horn shape, is 428 me- tres in height and has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because its cliffs support about 10,000 breeding pairs of seabirds. The moss tundra below the cliffs receives nutrients from the seabird colonies and is lush in places, providing grazing for reindeer, nesting places for geese and den- ning sites for Arctic foxes. With a little luck, you will see these reg- ular visitors—and watch the chicks fall from the cliffs. Pyramiden will make a different impression. Founded by Swe- den early in the 20th century as a mining town, built in the form of a pyramid at the foot of a mountain, it was sold to the Soviet Union, which abandoned it in 1998, leaving it a ghost town. It remains a fossil town, all the buildings from its glory days conserved as if it was still in use. You can walk past a swimming pool, swings, a foot- ball pitch and cinema. Reindeer like to wander the deserted streets of this dead town, the only companions for the few men who still live there in summer. Soviet culture, architecture and politics per- meate the town, from block-style housing to a bust of Lenin—the world’s northernmost statue of the Communist leader—gazing down on Pyramiden’s main square. It was meant to be an ideal So- viet society. To truly appreciate the town, one needs to see it, and to read the strange history of its rise and mystery-shrouded fall. Sailing on, deep inside Isfjorden you will visit the Nordenskiöld Glacier—one of the most beautiful and stunning discoveries of your cruise. Clearly visible from Space, its front of ice, nearly 5 kilometres wide, is one of the most spectacular in the Svalbard Archipelago. Soaring 30 metres into the sky, the glacier, like a gi- gantic frozen statue whose sections of ice sometimes come spectac- ularly loose, is wildly impressive. Its reduction in size is also a warn- ing: climate change, whatever the causes which lie behind it, is shrinking the Polar ice-cap. Between 2011 and 2014, Greenland lost around 1,000 billion tonnes of ice. There is good reason to see the Arctic now, and to fully understand its precious eco-system. One of the most threatened of Arctic species because of the shrink- ing Polar ice-cap, the Polar bear, may well make another appearance as we sail on to our home port of Longyearbyen, where our extraordi- nary cruise will end. Here, on the shores of idyllic Adventfjord, amid breathtaking landscapes of glaciers and mountains stretching as far as the eye can see, we shall disembark, ready for our transfers and flights back to London. During this unforgettable expedition, our ship will have sailed to latitudes of 80° north and you will have discovered that unique feeling of having truly reached the top of the world. ¶ To check availability, for more details and to request a brochure of all Ponant cruises worldwide, call Member Services on 020 7399 2960. THE GREAT ARCTIC CRUISE ITINERARY, CLUB RATES AND WHAT’S INCLUDED Take advantage of Club rates on all Ponant cruises worldwide