This Amadeus Waterways cruise was new in 2008. We were on the first sailing. The full tour(cruise plus land) started with three days in Paris, then we took the TGV high speed train to Lyon to board the Swiss Pearl for a seven day cruise on the Saone and Rhone Rivers to Arles where we went by bus to Barcelona for three nights via Carcassone(two hour stop for sightseeing and lunch). Ports and included tours were Lyon with a bus tour of the city; Trevoux and a bus trip through the Beaujolais region with a wine tasting; Vienne and a walking tour through the city; the stop at Tournon was supposed to include a trip on an old steam train, but the train went bankrupt and shut down. Instead, the ship continued to Vievers for a bus trip to Grignon; next we docked pretty much in the countryside for a bus trip to the town of Chateauneuf du Pape and a wine tasting at a nearby vineyard. Arriving next morning in Avignon, we sailed past the famous partly collapsed bridge, docked, and took a walking tour of the town including a visit to the Palace of the Popes; early the next morning we sailed to Arles for a morning walking tour of the city and and afternoon bus trip to Les Baux, the nut house where van Gough was hospitalized, and the nearby town of St Remey. Early the next morning, we departed by bus for Barcelona with a two hour lunch stop in Carcassone. On the morning of our first full day in Barcelona, we had a bus tour of the city, then a free afternoon. Next morning, we took an optional bus tour of the works of Antonio Gaudi, one of the highlights of the trip. Other optional trips included a Flamenco show in Barcelona and, in Paris, a boat trip on the Seine and a Paris by night bus trip.
2008 Prices: Amadeus conveniently offers three ways to take the trip: cruise only, Lyon to Arles for $2199-$2299 per person; cruise plus land extensions to Paris and Barcelona for $3399-3499; or cruise plus land plus air and transfers for $4299-4549. Cabin upgrades extra. Cruise prices included three meals a day, snacks, unlimited wine with meals, white or red at lunch ad dinner, champaign at breakfast; coffee; tea; and 1-2 bus or guided walking tours a day. The land addition included hotels, (transfers to/from the ship to hotel extra but included with the air inclusive package), one half day bus tour in Paris and Barcelona, but no meals in Carcassone, Paris, or Barcelona.
Hints
We opted to make our own air arraignments as we have found that we have always been able to find better fares on the internet than those offered by cruise packages. If you make your own air, you must also arrange transportation from the airport to where the tour starts. Amadeus offered transfers for $80 per person at both ends of the trip. We arraigned our own Paris transfer on Expedia for $49 for two and took a taxi in Barcelona for $43.
Lunch and breakfast were served buffet style on the Swiss Pearl. Dinners were sit down with waiters, and very slow. On our other cruses, we found dinners typically took 1½ -2 hours, but dinner on the Swiss Pearl ran 2-3 hours. This got irritating.
The best view of the passing scenery is from the sun deck. Bring Sunblock. Although there were shade tents on the sundeck, they were down more often than up so the boat would fit under the bridges(this is common on European river cruises). Att one particularly low bridge, everyone on the sun deck had to lie down on the deck to squeeze under the bridge. It is often breezy on the sun deck, but shorts are also often in order. We never sailed after dark, so there were opportunies to sightsee from the sun deck. The Soanne trip was especially scenic, as were some spots on the Rhone.
Always expect rain in Europe. Celebrate when it is sunny, which is why the natives sit in all those outdoor cafes.
There is much hand wringing about the decline in the value of the dollar Bush's economic blunders caused, but compared to major US cites, it may not be so bad. A carnet, 10 rides on metro, cost about $17, and get you all over the city. We spent $40-80 for dinner for two with wine. We did blow $39 on lunch at the restaurant in the Musee d'Orsay-- two pastries and two ice teas-- for the delightful Baroque setting. Bush's “Cowboy Diplomacy” has also made it increasing difficult to exchange currency, even travelers checks in Europe. Everybody used to want dollars, but no more. Use credit cards as much as possible.
Geting Around
Metro is the way to travel in Paris. There are single ride tickets for 1.5 Euros, a 10 ticket package for 11 Euros, and 1-3 day unlimited travel tourist passes which also includes discounts at many attractions, restaurants, and shops. It takes some planning to figure out what is best for your plans. We got through three days in Paris on two carnets (20 tickets). Remember that a ticket, once validated is good for 1½ hours. Google “Metro Paris” for full details.
Metro tickets are also good fro buses and the RER, the suburban railroad. Avoid the RER if you can reach you destination Metro. RER trains trains are infrequent compared to Metro. On Metro, we never had to wait more than four minutes for a train. We had a 20 minute wait for RER, and the station operations are incomprehensible.
When you exit the Metro, look around the street for a brown sign pointing to your destination. How to get to sights is well marked by these signs. Look around at every intersection you come to. If there is no sign directing a turn, keep going straight. Once we figured that out, we stopped using our map.
On the cruise, travel was by boat, bus, and foot. The bigger towns had taxis, which were generally banned form the touristic center. Some tours and sights required considerable climbing up cobblestone streets.
The included hotel in Barcelona was inconveniently located if you wanted to visit the Mediaeval City or Las Rambles, the main street. The closest Metro stop was at least a 20 minute walk, not the 10 minutes the tour staff claimed. Taxis were abundant and supposedly relatively inexpensive for European cities, but we never got to traveling downtown so we had no personal experience with either Metro or taxis. Instead, we spent our free time after two half day bus tours, walking around the Modernista Quarter which started only 3-4 blocks from the hotel. We had a look at the Mediaeval City when the bust tour stopped there for an hour and at Las Rambles when the bus drove past. The Art Nouveau buildings of the Modernista Quarter were much more interesting.
Aboard the Swiss Pearl
A typical day on the Swiss Pearl:
6:00-7:00 am Coffee and pastries in the lounge for early risers
7:00-9:00 am Buffet breakfast in the dinning room.
9:00-11:00 Guided tour of Vienne
11:00-12:00 free time in Vienne
12:15pm Return to ship
12:30 sail for Viviers
1:00-2:30 lunch buffet in the main dining room
Free time on board. It was nice weather, so many passengers were sightseeing, sleeping, reading, or drinking and conversing on the Sun Deck
4:00 tea (coffee or tea, pastries and cakes) in the lounge
5:00 arrive
5:45 wine tasting in the lounge (Cote de Rhone)
6:45 briefing on next day's events in the lounge
7:00-9:00 diner
9:00-10:00 French accordion player in the lounge
9:00 Movie: Much Ado About Nothing shown on cabin TVs.
Half the days on the cruise followed this schedule: half day sight seeing, half day cruising. The other days were more like all day sightseeing and cruising only in the early morning or early evening or not at all, such as in Arles, where we arrived about 8:00 am with a walking tour from 9:00-12:00 (including about an hour free time at the end), lunch from 12:00-1:00, and then an afternoon bus tour. There were no optional tours during the cruise, as all tours were included in the price (except tips for the tour guide and bus driver).
When we returned from shore tours, the crew had a cold drink-- it changed daily, including ice tea, lemonade, punch, or a bottle of water. Some cookies, coffee, and tea were usually available in the lounge. The afternoon tea added cakes/pastries to the choices.
There was a not overly hot jacuzzi on the sun deck and a jacuzzi/exercise room on the lower deck.
Breakfast and lunch were buffets. Dinners were sit down, multiple course meals that took a long time, 2-3 hours. Unlimited wine with meals was included in the tour price:
Several entertainments were presented after dinner in the lounge. I recall a chanteuse, a local accordion player, a string combo, a viola and double bass duo (not nearly as bad as you think), and the on board keyboardist.
Of the six cruise ships we've been on, the Swiss Pearl had by far the most comfortable chairs in the lounge but the sun deck chairs, while spiffy new, had room for improvement.
Some river cruises travel mostly at night, being little more than a floating hotel. If you want to watch the scenery go by, you don't see much. This cruise sailed only in the daylight, often in the early morning or evening hours.
The staff was excellent, but some spoke very limited English.
The cabin safe was a challenge. After several tries, we got it to work. The instructions were minimal, and there are some things the instructions do not tell you--- if you make a mistake, the safe freezes for a while. Wait and try it again. If you leave the door open too long, it freezes. I can't recall for sure, but this may mean having to start the programing sequence all over.
The Restaurant
Breakfast and lunch were buffets. Dinners were sit down, multiple course meals that took a long time, 2-3 hours. Unlimited wine was included in the tour price-- champagne at breakfast, and a choice of red(or rose when we were in the rose region of southern France) or white at lunch and dinner. The wines changed daily, sometimes also changing between lunch and dinner. We particularly liked the rose served when we in that region. Rose was the one of the lunch and dinner offerings one day. The next day, it was not listed, but we asked the waiter if they still had any. He came up with a couple bottles.
The breakfast buffet offered scrambled eggs, bacon, a rotating meat, a rotating hot vegetable, a selection of cold cuts, cheeses, and fruits, and something for syrup, either waffles, pancakes, French toast, or polenta. Eggs fixed to order could be ordered from the waiter.
Lunch started with a choice of soups, then off to the buffet where there were the hot entrees included a meat dish, such as coq au vin and a vegetarian dish, often pasta. There was also a daily special ordered from the waiter. Soup of the day also was ordered from the waiter.
A typical dinner menu:
AMUSE: Ham mousse with red cabbage and apple salad
SOUP: potato with parsley or tomato consume with vegetables
SALAD: Nicsoise or salad melange(mixed greens)
MAIN COURSE: braised duck or grilled salmon with lemon dill butter and potato and broccoli or fennel filled rice croquette with lemon sauce
DESERT or CHEESE AND FRUIT: coffee Amaretto parfait or your choice of a selection of cheeses or of three kinds of ice cream at the buffet.
We thought the food, while good, was not quite up to the quality of what we encountered on other cruises. There are two possible explanations for this. First, it was not as good. Second, we spent three days in Paris before starting the cruise and eating in Paris raises your level of expectation for food.
Dinner was indeterminable. Dinner took 1½- 2 hours on other cruises, but the Swiss Pearl took 2-3 hours. For 20 minutes of eating you get a couple hours of chitchat with strangers, unless you take friends along. I would rather be on deck watching the scenery and se would rather be reading, so we did not like this dinner schedule.
The major cruise companies generally organize European river cruises by language, so all the passengers spoke English, including the lady from Venezuela. We generally find that it the most fun to sit and chat with Canadians in the dinning room, mostly I think because Canadians can talk politics at an intellectual level and don't get as emotional about it as do Americans. At one meal, we joined four Canadians, and after introductions, one of them asked, “So what do Americans think of Canadians?” I answered, “They don't,” and we were off on a fun two hours of chatting about politics and hockey.
The dinning room seats everyone at one time, and it is crowded. Dinning rooms are typically either in the front or back of the ship, with three walls of windows so passengers can look at the view as they travel. This is nice. The best designed ships, like the Swiss Pearl, have few tables that are not window tables. Diner tends toward formal, jackets , evening dresses, and even ties are not out of place, but casual dressy is always in order..
Rivers are very smooth, hardly any waves. The boat will not bounce your wine into your lap.
Included Features
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Amadeus Paris, Provence & Barcelona
