Although the senior Rambler was not too excited about taking another river cruise, with some pressure on my part, we booked two cruises for August, 2018. The first intrigued me but not the non-drinking senior Rambler. it was a cruise in the wine country of Bordeaux on the Garonne river. We had enjoyed our cruise in Normandy two years ago, and I thought, wrongly as it turned out, we would enjoy this one as well. Then we would fly from Bordeaux to Budapest and board a cruise to Eastern Europe on the SS Beatrice. We had taken the Beatrice on our first cruise, and loved the ship. This time we would have a chance to see how Uniworld had remodeled and transformed . We had never been East of Budapest so this cruise was the one we both wanted to take. Even the senior Rambler was on board for this one.
However, we first had to get to France, and the senior Rambler hoped we could book business class seats for the long flight overseas. Fortunately Michelle Shirley at AAA was able to get us a great deal through Delta Vacations. This trip all our flights would be business class, even the connectors. It was a first for the Ramblers; we had never traveled business class on any airline. One of the perks of Delta One is early boarding tho we already had priority boarding as we needed wheelchairs to get through the spread out and very busy Hartsfield Airport. Our Delta One seats were roomy but had a somewhat odd configuration as they were not in a row but staggered; this made it somewhat difficult for me to hold the senior Ramblers hand in my usual death grip during take-off and landing, but I managed. LOL
The food was measurably better than premium ; Delta sends you an email menu a few days before your flight and you chose your meal. Fortunately the flight was uneventful and we arrived at Schiphol right on time. The mobility cart was waiting for us as we had a connector flight to Bordeaux and Schiphol is a huge airport. However since there was quite a bit of time between our flights, we were transported to the KLM Centurion lounge. This was also a first. It was much more pleasant waiting in the lounge with coffee and snacks available rather than sitting in the boarding area for several ours. Our wonderful wheelchair driver, Vijay, refused a tip. He was glad we appreciated his help but explained that it was his job to deliver passengers to their airport destination, and tipping was not part of the service.
Our connector flight was a KLM Sky-hopper, on the smallest plane I had ever been on, and the whole flight was very informal. From our up-front business class seats, we could see the pilots at the controls some of the time. This was a short flight and we soon landed in Bordeaux. We had to get off on the tarmac at the small airport. Fortunately they ferried us to the arrivals area and left us by the luggage carousel so we could get our checked bag. Not so fortunately, our checked bag wasn’t on that carousel. They had dropped us off at the wrong place. After asking around, I finally found the right carousel some distance away where our bag was still going round and round. This was fortunate as it was the only bag left and the carousel was very close to an exit.
Luckily no one had grabbed it and I rolled it back to our exit. This was not a particularly good start to this cruise and it really didn’t improve much. Some things were good, but Bordeaux turned out to be our least favorite cruise.
It was a warm day but our Uniworld Bus was waiting with the air conditioning running and after our luggage was stowed aboard, our driver headed for the quay. A handful of cruise passengers had been on our flight, as it turned out.
We knew that the cabins on the River Royale were small, but we never seem to spend much time in the cabin, so that wasn’t an issue, and the beds were very comfortable as usual. Since it was a warm afternoon in August, we stowed our bags and headed for the sun deck to scope out the area. There was quite a bit of activity on shore, as many Bordelaise walked, cycled or jogged along the wide concrete promenade along the river. Not much happened on our first day on board, as passengers continued to board. We were OK with this, as it gave us a chance to relax and overcome our jet lag. After watching our fellow passengers arrive during the afternoon and early evening, we enjoyed a plesant dinner on board before turning in fairly early.
The River Royale was scheduled to motor to the town of Cadillac early the next morning and return to Bordeaux late in the afternoon. This schedule was a little different than we had experienced before. The senior Rambler had already decided that he would not go on the morning excursion to a wine estate and a lunch with wine pairings at an historic chateau. Luckily I had already met up with some friendly South African travel agents who very kindly included me in their party. By the end of the cruise, the Ramblers would become good friends with these pleasant and outgoing young women. We would learn much about South Africa in the process.
In case you are wondering who you might meet on a Uniworld Cruise, the majority of the passengers are English speaking; usually quite a few Americans, a handful of Canadians and British, along with Australians and New Zealanders, and a few South Africans. On this particular cruise, there was a group of Brazilians who generally stayed together and sometimes had their own guide. All of the crew and staff speak excellent English and come from a variety of European countries.