Small ship tours question
We are considering a Tauck small ship tour in the Adriatic on Ponant ship LAustral. Would appreciate guidance from anyone who has done a tour on a Ponant ship. My wife loves to exercise walk early in the morning. She is quite satisfied with top deck of river boats (when they are open) but wondered whether Ponant small ocean ships have any comparable deck space at all where it this is possible to exercise walk in early mornings and evenings before dinner.
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We did this very nice trip last June, and were on a sister ship previously. I don't believe there is a deck with s space to do laps of walking or running. You can check the ship diagram on the trip webpage to be sure, however.
Due to inclement weather on the tour we took, I never made it to the top deck. Some guests reported taking the stairs up and down to get their exercise in. As sevenseas indicated, you can view deck plans on Tauck's website by selecting your specific tour.
Another option is to walk in circles within the large lounge area since the chairs are always pushed back leaving a large void in the middle. Perhaps not very appealing, however. I do not know if the area is open for guests to use in the early morning.
There really isn’t anywhere to walk, the lounge is not what I call large at all, if you are a walker like me, you would find it useless.
I have used the small pool on the ships. There is a ‘jet’ you can swim against. There is a gym, it will be small, I haven’t used it. We tend to forego extra exercises apart from swimming on Tauck tours, because there isn’t time when you have to leave so early in the morning for touring, although the ship tours don’t leave so early.
I have to admit that all their tours, we get less exercise than we do at home. It’s nice to just relax a bit more on tours and get right back into exercise when we get home.
We took this cruise itinerary in September of this year and concur with the limited outdoor space for walking or running. There is a fitness center onboard with exercise bikes and treadmills -- it is a nice size center and much larger than those found on the river cruises. As for other outdoor options, early morning port access is not available as many stops are tender ports. There are several excursions that are activity focused, such as hikes, that may appeal to you or you could do a bit more exploring in the ports during your free time.
A reminder to me to post our trip report that is still in a draft folder.....
Done this one in 2023.
Strenuous enough that only two people signed up for the bike ride and five signed up for the advance hike. Sea kayak was cancelled due to lack of interest. Very few people did the national park and the city wall. The fit and athletic ones hang out together and kept themselves very busy. There was enough free time to do very strenuous hikes in Hvar, Dubronik and Miljet National Park both by yourself and as planned.
The TDs have recommended more advanced and optional routes for the truly fit and athletic to take.
She can walk up and down the stairs every morning and before dinner. There were multiple flights of stairs.
We did the Tauck land tour of the Adriatic and thought it was very good. The one problem with cruising is that they can't take you very far from the port because of time. If you want to see what we did on the land tour, go to https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2019-2Adriatic-01.htm
That was in 2019 but I expect it's pretty much the same.