Bordeaux - Tomorrow!

Packing in earnest today to get ready for our departure tomorrow. This is our first ever 10 night river cruise as well as our first cruise with Scenic. Hoping our travel is smooth as we are not spending time in France prior to our cruise due to time constraints.

We are flying Iberia for the first time and splurged on business class (this is a trip to celebrate a big birthday) as it is was not much more then Premium for this routing. Looking forward to the Centurion Lounge in Miami and also will have airport lounge access in Madrid and Heathrow (on the return) as that makes those long layovers more palatable.

I will post a few times along the way and be happy to answer any questions on the itinerary and Scenic when we return.

Au revoir :)

Good morning, hope you have a wonderful cruise:):D:)

I am anxious to hear your impressions and wish you safe travels. We are taking our first River cruise in June, the Rhine on Scenic. Although we certainly have no basis for comparison we await yours eagerly!

Have a wonderful trip!!!! If you have time in Bordeaux, visit the wine museum. It was started by the woman who was our Guide while we were in the area. There is also some very nice (lol) chocolate in a mall. The promenade along the docking area has some really good restaurants. Looking forward to remembering our trip through. Pat

Have a wonderful trip!!!! If you have time in Bordeaux, visit the wine museum. It was started by the woman who was our Guide while we were in the area. There is also some very nice (lol) chocolate in a mall. The promenade along the docking area has some really good restaurants. Looking forward to remembering our trip through. Pat

Thank you for the recommendations! We have a good amount of time to explore Bordeaux and will check these out.:)

We LOVED Bordeaux and know you will, too. We often toy with the idea of taking the same cruise again --we liked it that much. Have a wonderful time. Looking forward to reading about your experiences....

Looking forward to your review of Scenic. I just just booked my first Scenic trip to Douro for next year, using a special business class deal they were having. Long, long flights from NZ.

Have two APT/AMA French cruises July/August this year, and have done 2 other cruise with Amawaterways (APT).

I booked Scenic because I liked the new Scenic Azure, and also the itinerary was 10 days and not 7 as with the others. I am also doing the Lisbon extension. I just hope I have made the right decision. AmaWaterways have been excellent.

I just hope I have made the right decision. AmaWaterways have been excellent.

Same here. AMA is our favorite. We will know very soon.:)

We LOVED Bordeaux and know you will, too. We often toy with the idea of taking the same cruise again --we liked it that much. Have a wonderful time. Looking forward to reading about your experiences....

We loved the Rhone and did that itinerary twice. Would do it again one of these days as we did different things on each cruise.

We have no problem with repeating things we enjoy. We are headed back to a resort in Jamaica that has been my favorite since 1989.:)

Have a great trip, and can't wait to hear all about it!

Don't collect too much wine! Wonderful.

JC

We returned from our trip late Friday night. Great trip overall and weather was nearly perfect! Flights went as planned, which is always a good thing.

We loved traveling with so many Aussies and Brits and met some wonderful people. Scenic does many things very well. Everything was impressively well organized, coaches were the best we have had so far and the special inclusions were well done. Most notable was the "Scenic Sundowner" event, held at a lovely Chateau late one afternoon after a day of touring. Just perfect!

I am working on my review but happy to answer any questions in the meantime. This itinerary had a bit too much sailing time for us, and water levels were a challenge as well.

Stellar staff and crew aboard the Diamond and we fell in love with Bordeaux itself. We drank lots of good wine and quality and variety included was very good. As far as wine regions go, we learned that we prefer the Rhone's red wines to Bordeaux style blends, many of which are Merlot based.

Bordeaux and Lyon are now two of our favorite cities in France and we hope to get back to both and spend more time.

Welcome home and glad you had a good time:)...so is AMA still your

favorite line?

Welcome home and glad you had a good time:)...so is AMA still your

favorite line?

Several of our AMA cruises were a perfect "10" for us. It is really specific to the boat and itinerary as to how much we enjoyed them overall. Our #1 cruise overall was aboard the AmaSerena last fall and that is followed by AmaCerto in 2012. We enjoyed the Diamond overall as much or more than some of our AMA cruises.

Entertainment on our AMA cruises was consistently better than on this particular cruise. AMA also offered more in terms of options for excursions on our cruises with them (especially active tours), though that may not be true on this particular itinerary due to the challenges presented by the tides. Recent reviews seem to confirm this.

Staff and crew on the Diamond were as good as we have ever had on any line and we did enjoy the all inclusive aspect of Scenic as well as the special events. It was more inclusive than Uniworld and we preferred the "personality" of the Scenic staff and crew as they were less formal but still provided outstanding service.

The coaches were excellent and guides (we stuck with one most of the time as we really enjoyed her personality) very good.

Quality of food, included wines and liquors, staterooms - overall these were excellent.

We would not hesitate to cruise with Scenic again and I would put this cruise in our top 3 overall.

 

We would not hesitate to cruise with Scenic again and I would put this cruise in our top 3 overall.

Too late to correct but this should have read: We would not hesitate to cruise with Scenic again and I would put this cruise in our top 5 overall

Can't wait to read your reviews..and see your pics! Going to Bordeaux in early July with Uniworld...very excited...

Rick