Bleu de France by Croisière de France

[sorcel]

A few weeks ago we took a one week cruise on “Bleu de France” a ship operated by the French cruise line, CDF Croisières de France. CDF, owned by Royal Caribbean International, is a fairly new (2008) cruise line aimed at the French market.

Marketing:
If you are wondering how we stumbled over this cruise – it was not because of the terrific marketing they do. It actually took a lot of research. When the plans for CDF were announced in 2007 – I saw a small article in a French newspaper. I looked to see if the online agents I previously had used, offered trips on this ship – which they didn’t . In the end, this summer, I walked in to the nearest traditional agency (in France) and picked up all the cruise catalogues they had. There were several itineraries we liked, but the more well known cruises (MSC & Costa) had very few rooms left (because cruising this summer was a last minute decision). I tried emailing the agency where I had picked up the catalogue – but never heard from them again. I did some searching on the internet and came across QCNS Cruises in Monaco which offered cruises on “Bleu de France”.

Booking:
What I really like about online sites is that you can see deck plans and vacant rooms and then make your choice. This isn’t quite the way it worked here. I got to choose a category – and then I could give in my preferences and a cabin would be assigned. In the end we decided to go for it. The agent – who I never met in person – was very nice. The booking went smoothly. We made our payments, were assigned our room and received our e-tickets. The only thing that didn’t quite work out was the dinner seating. We had 2 rooms on the same booking – but were seated at different tables. This was however easily sorted out later once onboard.

Embarking:
For the cruise we were on – the ship was doing a round trip starting and ending to Marseille. The information we received – and also the CDF website – said that we could park at the cruise terminal. We took the car to Marseille and found a parking space without any problem. The price information we had been given (also those on the web for CDF) wasn’t correct – prices had gone up 20%. There was a short walk to the check-in area. We were handed forms to fill in – and proceeded to the correct queue. Everything went very smoothly – I think the wait was only 2-3 minutes. The actual check-in process was quick and we received our ID cards which also worked as door keys. Once onboard – we were shown to our cabin by one of the onboard staff. We went for a buffet lunch and once we were back the suitcases had arrived. All in all, one of the smoothest embarkation processes I have experienced.

Room:
We had room 8060. The room was spacious – with lots of cupboard space for hanging clothes in – but very little space in the chest of drawers. Luckily I had brought along an extra dozen hangars (the wire kind) so I could hang all my T-shirts etc. Our suitcases (Samsonite – big but not unusually big) were too high to put under the bed – but there was enough room elsewhere to store them out of the way. The room comes with a flat screen TV and a small empty refrigerator. The bed was a little on the hard side. We were not able to hear any announcements on the load speakers – and the ventilation/air conditioning didn’t work too well. The bathroom actually had a bath – and was fairly standard. All in all it was about what we were expecting.

The Ship:
The ship was built in 1981 and refurbished in 2008. It’s not the MSC Splendida, nor the RCI Navigator of the Seas. But we weren’t expecting that either. The ship takes 750 passengers and was full the week we were on it. We never felt crowded. It is however an old ship – even with all the newer refurbishment. The seas were in no way rough – but outside Corsica we did feel quite a bit of movement. The newer ships we have been on have, in my opinion, had better stabilizers. We have been on ships with beautiful decorations onboard – this is not one of them. There is artwork on the walls – but far from impressive. The ship had several smoking areas. As a non-smoker this did not cause us any problems. The few times we did some sunbathing we had no problems in finding deck chairs.

Restaurants:
There were 3 main eating areas:

• The buffet which served breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. We never tried the dinner. For breakfast one could amongst other things have fruits, cereals, warm food and a variety of eggs. There were usually queues for juice and coffee. Finding a table was fairly easy. The buffet offers indoor and outdoor seating (the latter also with a shaded area). Lunch varied – but we only choose this option when the main restaurant was closed. I did notice that there was a good spaghetti choice in the buffet – but no pizza and no burgers. Getting drinks proved a little less challenging than at breakfast. The soft drinks were not diluted enough – and as my daughter said – the coke was not real coke but some sort of Joly Cola. Red, rosé and white wine as well as beer were available. The wines were nothing special – but drinkable and adequate for lunch. Still and sparkling water were also available. I tried tea-time a couple of times. They served sweet and savoury canapés along with tea and coffee.
• The main restaurant served breakfast, lunch and dinner. It had 2 dinner seatings at 19:15 and 21:15. There was a variety of table sizes. We ended up on a table for 4. The selection on the menu was good. The waiters were very attentive. We usually had a starter, a main course, cheese and a dessert. The food was typically French and I would say above average. The portions were as usual in France (but a lot smaller than American portions). We were always asked if we wanted more food. I was a little surprised about the wine menu. The selection was not very big. I suppose that is because most passengers go for the all inclusive wine. They did have wine from most regions in France. We usually had a bottle from the menu for our evening meal. The wines were very reasonably priced. We also used the main restaurant for lunch when available. For lunch they tried to fill up the larger tables as people came along. We asked for a private table for 4 – which was no problem. The lunch menus were good – we usually only had the starter and the main course. We never got to try the restaurant for breakfast. One thing that I will highly recommend is buying a flambed coffee. They serve it at an additional cost. Not only do you get a good coffee (with flavour of your choice in it) – but you get a personal show while the waiter is preparing the coffe and burning off the alcohol.
• There was a terrace bistrot which served à la carte food between 11:00 and 21:00. We never tried it – but saw that you could get snacks and light meals.
• Most evenings there were midnight snacks available from 23:30 – 00:30. These were usually canapés. One night was reserved for a midnight buffet. The food looked gorgeous – but since we had a late dinner seating we just took photos.

Bars:
The ship had various bars – each in a different style:
Le Café Creme: An intimate little indoor bar – with really friendly bartenders.
Zan-Zi-bar: Outdoors on the deck by the pool. This was a very lively bar with lots going on the whole time. This was our favourite spot for after dinner coffee (which came along on the all inclusive menu)
Acajou: Indoors on deck 11 had beautiful view - (windows all around.) Often there was live music – a pianist or similar. This was our favourite place to take a drink before dinner. Often we saw people on the dance floor (waltz, cha-cha-cha, tango etc)
The night club: which we never tried (we didn’t stay up that late since we wanted an early start)
In all the bars there was a good selection of all inclusive drinks – wine, cocktails, long drinks etc. During the week we tasted our way through the menu. We were impressed by what was offered as all inclusive.
Millésimes bar: this is a bar that offers cigars and exclusive drinks – which of course all came at an extra fee.

Housekeeping:
We hardly ever saw our cabin attendant. Our room was kept nice and tidy – and done up while we were out. My nightgown was laid out nicely every evening – but we didn’t have any towel animals like we have had on other ships. You get 1 beach towel per person. These are changed regularly – but it wasn’t always easy to find the replacements. In general they were left on empty shelves – but since this varied in our room, I quickly learned that I had to search around.

Entertainment:
As on all ships, there is a show every evening. Theses varied – song, dance, magician, acrobatics, comedian. Some we enjoyed. In the bars there was also live music from late afternoon until about midnight. There were also other activities such as quizzes, bingo, arts & crafts sessions, dance lessons etc.

The SPA:
I never got to try the SPA. They had quite a few different treatments and the prices were reasonable. We just had too much to do – so there wasn’t time.

Dress code:
Dress was quite varied – but in general casual. Around the pool and on deck people walked about in swimsuits or shorts. In the main restaurant dress was smart casual except for the Gala evening when most men wore dress suits with ties (only very few in tuxedos) and the ladies wore dresses. There were a couple of theme evenings – one was white and the other oriental.

Religion:
There was a Catholic priest onboard who held mass on the Sunday.

Itinerary:
We loved the itinerary – which was the main reason for the choice of this ship. We stopped at Olbia (Sardinia – Italy), Tunis, Malta, Taormina (Sicily), Sorrento (Italy), Ajaccio (Corsica – France). My only comment to the itinerary is that I would have liked to have gotten in the morning and stayed all day. Some places we only had 5 hours.

Excursions:
The selection of excursions was good and the pricing was not too bad. We did 3 excursions.

• In Tunis we went to see the Bardo museum and the Medina. We had a wonderful guide who was extremely knowledgeable. We really enjoyed the trip. Like all tourists we got ripped off while making purchases in the Medina. I saw a necklace I liked – and the seller insisted that it was real malachite and he wanted 250 Euro for it. In the end I managed to haggle it down to 50 Euro and was quite happy. Then, in Malta I saw a real malachite necklace – which only cost 30 Euro. I am not quite sure what mine was made off – not plastic – but something man-made. It was probably not worth more than 10 Euro. The last time I went shopping in Tunisia I said never again. This time I really mean it.
• In Sicily we took a trip up Mt. Etna – and had a really lazy guide. He did all the talking aboard the bus, repeating himself all the time, telling about other trips we could make once on Etna – but didn’t make any effort to do the walk to the craters (which all the other guides did - and there was no time to take any of the trips he used so much time telling us about). I think we were just unfortunate with the guide we were assigned.
• IN Sorrento we went to Pompeii. Everything started out OK – but on the way there we heard that there was some ongoing industrial actions so that the (one and only) road was blocked. The tour operator made some quick changes so that we took the local train instead of the bus. Not quite as comfortable – but we got there and back. The ship extended its stay so that we didn’t have to shorten the tour. Once again we had a really good guide and will definitely follow his recommendations to visit the archaeological museum in Naples next time we are there.

Disembarking:
This went really smoothly. Disembarkation was by deck. You could off course get off when you wanted – but the luggage was carried off deck by deck.

Tipping:
All tips are included. We were very happy with our waiters so we gave them a little extra – but we got the impression that this was not usual. What motivates staff is the possibility to be appointed employee of the month (which we learnt includes a bonus). They were all very eager for us to return our evaluation forms and several of the staff told us that they would appreciate us mentioning their names and/or departments if we were happy with the service.

General:
To go on this cruise – someone in your party needs to speak French. Many of the waiters and room attendants speak English – but all announcements are in French only. The typical passenger has French as their native language. I would guess that about 70% of the passengers were in there 60’s – 20% younger and 10% older. I don’t know if this is typical – but I must add that we were on a cruise after the school term had started. The cruise director was Spanish (but spoke French). We experienced some chaotic moments – like the photo session with the Captain before the Gala evening, the organisation of the midnight buffet, the welcome cocktail, just to name some. Things are certainly more streamlined on other ships. Another quircky thing was the empty fridge in our room. We wondered why they never filled it up. We like to have cold water just before we go to bed - so I went down to the reception to ask where I could get a bottle since there was none to be bought in the shop. That's when they told me that water could be fetched free of charge in any bar (but this was not written anywhere and there was no information from the attendant who showed us our room or in the information meeting). We just decided that it was one of those French things.

Overall impression:
We liked the itinerary, we liked the food, we enjoyed the service. The ship was old. All in all we had a good time and felt that we got our money’s worth. Would I recommend the cruise to friends ? – Yes to those who speak French or have someone in their party who does. I would at the same time strongly recommend those not having good sea legs to request a room mid-ship.

[alexandra cruiser]

I was looking into that cruise, but since we don t speak French, passed on it. Sounds pretty good, ex. for that.Really appreciate the time it took to write such a comprehensice review. Hope others will take advantage of it.

[keltic]

In fact things have changed now. Managed by Pullmantur (both under RCI), it´s now Spanish-French clientele. So if you speak Spanish you could survive

[Downdie]

Originally Posted by keltic

In fact things have changed now. Managed by Pullmantur (both under RCI), it´s now Spanish-French clientele. So if you speak Spanish you could survive

keltic: there may be even more changes. Your combined French/Spanish cruise may be on a completely different ship if you are booking through CDF, the Pacific Dream.
There are very strong rumours that RCI/Pullmantur are in the process of selling the Bleu de France, not confirmed yet.The betting is on this great older ship going to Saga.

[keltic]

I am talking about the cruises from november 2009, and the whole 2010 season.

Formely the cruises were only sold in the French market. It seems that the results haven´t been really good, so they are trying to sell it in Spain too, since the Holiday Dream was a really popular cruise ship in Spain, and many cruisers over here were eager to get onboard again.

The ship, with other routes specifically for the French market, will be offering more exotic routes to both markets. Red Sea from Sharm el Sheik (calling at Aqaba, Safaga, Suez...), and sailings from Athens to Holy Land, Cyprus, Greek Islands and Egypt.

I have also been hearing that rumours, but I have to say, that sales in Spain for the new routes are being quite positive, with many sailings fully booked. The main problem with Pullmantur is improvisation. This means that plans change hour by hour.