rove312

Referring to the Masterpiece Collection tours for an additional price? On the two Uniworld cruises we've taken, there was no problem booking them onboard. I see that the site says "Please note that requests to pre-book must be made by calling our Reservations Team no later than 6 days prior to departure and are subject to availability." so if you're really worried you can call before departure as the time gets closer, but it's way too early to think about it now.

NY Times article on the Rhone cruise on Uniworld's S.S. Catherine: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/travel/france-rhone-river-cruise.html . I'm not a subscriber, but got to it in a private browser and a Google search like nytimes.com rhone river cruise. The title is "'You Couldn’t Plan It All if You Tried’: Cruising the Rhone River in High Style." It appears to be in the print paper today, Oct. 14.

Thanks. I contacted them through the site chat, and asked about either money back or an upgrade, and they gave us the complimentary upgrade to the French Balcony. It would have been nice to have the money back in hand, but I was ready to see the upgrade as the best possibility, and that should be nice.

This booking wasn't done through a travel agent. I don't think I could involve the TA who booked our first cruise over a year ago; this is our third Uniworld cruise.

Hello, We booked the Uniworld Budapest-Amsterdam cruise for April 2024 in a Classic stateroom at a base fare of $7499 per person, before discounts for early booking and Heritage Club membership, and adding port charges. Now we see the Classic quoted for that cruise at $5499, and a French Balcony at $7499. Do people have experience taking advantage of this? Assuming a cash refund can't be hoped for, perhaps being rebooked to the French Balcony at no charge? On our first Uniworld cruise, we were given a credit for extra purchases onboard, and weren't sure if that went with booking through a travel agent, or it was because a lower fare could have been booked later. Anyway, any advice on this and how to approach them?

We were on this cruise the last week of April, and I was going to report a few things about it, but I've had distractions since then. We enjoyed it a lot, and after previously taking Uniworld's Nuremberg-Amsterdam cruise, these are the main things that come to mind: On the Germany cruise, my wife found that sailing during the night helped her sleep; on this cruise of short distances with no locks, we were usually docked at night and that wasn't so good for her. I remember that, on this board, someone asked where the overnight stops were on this cruise. On the Germany cruise, the ship usually departed around dinnertime and sailed overnight. On the Bordeaux cruise, it was more likely docked overnight so there would be the option to dine at a local restaurant rather than onboard. It isn't clear from the published schedule where the stops are so, for example, after going to Cadillac on Day 2, it spent the night at Bordeaux again (not published on the site) I think the main purpose being so that Can Can dancers could board for an onboard performance. Cadillac was not a town we toured; it was just a place to board bus tours. Bourg was only a stop of a few hours for a walking tour before the ship proceeded to Libourne to spend the night. The Germany cruise only had one optional tour at a higher price; this had more but at least two of them were undersubscribed and didn't happen. I took my wife's place for a cooking class: a nice enough memory, although I don't much cook, and they emailed the recipes afterwards. This was on the St-Emilion day, when the cruise doesn't provide lunch, but my wife stayed onboard and they offered to deliver a meal. I have a practical emphasis and those are my main recollections, but feel free to ask more.

Yes, I'm very well-versed on airline bookings and routings. It's tempting to take Iberia to go transatlantic Business on an affordable number of points, and need to balance it against other drawbacks. We generally do points bookings as one-ways, so the outbound and return could be on different airlines. JetBlue is also starting to do AMS-BOS non-stops.

Thanks. Iberia has Business Class rewards at some of the fewest points when available, which can be converted from either Chase or Amex. However, I'll also consider other programs, such as Flying Blue (Air France/KLM), which would have more flights to Budapest, and our return from Amsterdam would likely be on KLM.

After two Uniworld cruises, we're hooked enough to consider a Budapest-Amsterdam cruise in April 2024. Maybe it's crazy at the price of $15K for two. They have an offer expiring at the end of May of 10% off, so a decent amount, in addition to the River Heritage Club discount. Do these percentages off show up often, and can we otherwise expect a sale in the future? And how locked in are the posted dates of the cruise? It's a fresh enough memory how things changed starting in spring 2020; other than something like that, are we safe enough planning around the currently posted dates? We'd certainly get insurance. We would usually wait until much later to book a flight from the U.S., but I'm tempted right now by availability on Iberia's Boston-Madrid flight on a Business Class award, which typically doesn't stay available long. I need to wait some time for opening bonus points on an Amex card, which can convert to Iberia, so these seats may not be available when we can book them, but what do you think about how safe it is to use a booking this early to make the cruise? I have previous experience with Iberia removing the Boston flight on certain days, and changing the schedule of connecting flights so we needed to spend the night in Madrid, which was o.k. for our return last fall. If they make a change that makes it a problem to arrive in time for the cruise, do you think we can get an appropriate change, even getting put on their partner British Airways without their extra charges on awards? We'd be looking at connecting to the one Madrid-Budapest flight per day (nearly six hours to connect under their current schedules), and it would be a matter of our tolerance for risk that it could be cancelled on the day. On a more direct itinerary, we could consider arriving on the cruise's day 1, getting their airport transfer to the ship, since they're still in Budapest for tours on day 2, but I guess here at a minimum we'd book to arrive the day before 1 and have a hotel stay.

I have another topic where my sister-in-law reports on the Rhone cruise being mostly a bus tour with hotels because of locks being closed by strikes. On this topic, even though Uniworld's Cruise Companion still recommends €1-2 tips, she says now they say €3 for guides, €2 for drivers.

Thanks, and now I see that all along our itinerary is showing the day 3 stop as Cussac Fort Médoc; it's CruiseMapper that still shows the Pauillac stop on the schedule.

With the stories about protests in France, I generally understand that there could be minor disruptions for travelers, and that not much would be completely shut down. My wife has reports from her sister-in-law on Uniworld's Burgundy & Provence, Arles to Lyon cruise ending this weekend that a lock wasn't operating--I think due to a strike, but I'm not sure-- and the SS Catherine generally didn't cruise: most of the time passengers were bused and booked in hotels. CruiseMapper shows the ship near the starting point in Avignon rather than the end point of Lyon as scheduled. We have an upcoming cruise on Uniworld's Brilliant Bordeaux: am I correct in seeing that its route doesn't have locks? As I've followed their first cruise of the season this past week on CruiseMapper, it appeared that it skipped the Pauillac stop. If indeed I read it correctly, I don't know if it had anything to do with protests, or perhaps something to do with getting under the Pont de Pierre in Bordeaux, which needs to be done at low tide times, and maybe it needed to happen at a time that didn't allow them to spend adequate time at Pauillac.

The update is: bid accepted 18 days before departure.

We're preparing for our second Uniworld cruise, and we've followed the invitation to bid for an upgrade; we're waiting for a reply on this cruise. On our last cruise, we were with an in-law with more Uniworld experience, and she regularly bid for an upgrade. So I don't know about complimentary upgrades; presumably they would come after all bid upgrades are accommodated.

On Uniworld's Nuremberg-Amsterdam cruise last October, we bid $255 per person for an upgrade from the few Classic rooms to the Deluxe (most staterooms; minimum upgrade bid $200) and it was accepted about 50 days before the cruise. We've done the same for the Brilliant Bordeaux cruise in April; we're about at that point and haven't heard back; we'll see if we hear soon or it will be 3-14 days.

From what I've researched, we're just planning to take a regular taxi from the airport. Is there much benefit to using another service?

To complete this topic, I found the recent Travels with Darley episodes at https://journy.tv/watch/travels-with-darley/ and the first Bordeaux episode at https://journy.tv/watch/travels-with-darley/bordeaux-france-wine-history/ . Again next to nothing about the cruise--for that, better to see the Travel With Us shows from the YouTube link above. I'm not a great fan of Darley as a host, but there are some nice views of Bordeaux and tips on local pastries.

I saw the second Darley Bordeaux episode, which doesn't have that much about the cruise itself. On YouTube I found a set of videos saying more about it: part 1 of the cruise: followed by part 2, with another that's a tour of the ship. I understand it's from 2021 and has differences from what to expect this year; it shows more of a COVID effect and has the stops in a different order.

I'm interested in this, since we're planning to take that cruise. From what I see it's on the PBS Create channel, secondary to the main PBS channel in most areas, and generally not carried by the satellite services, which is what we have, or the PBS Passport app for streaming. Aha, searching a little more and I find that the Bordeaux Markets & Villages episode is showing on the main New Hampshire PBS channel, which we get, on the morning of Feb. 18. Google pbs create streaming and it appears that some PBS stations have a live stream of the Create channel, so find out if these episodes will show and they'll be available to watch as they're broadcast. YouTube appears to have 1-minute promos, and Amazon Prime has earlier seasons for a price; this is Season 10. With some searching, you may be able to find it on a channel you get.

The Cruise Companion document we received in the last few days has UW22 in the filename, and the mention of tipping is on printed page 45, "Onshore Experience."

About Uniworld's recommendation of €1-2 tips to ground personnel, would the ship's limited currency exchange include changing bills to these coins?

I don't know if this relates to water levels, but I've been following on Vessel Finder Uniworld's River Princess going from Amsterdam to Nuremberg; we'll be taking the reverse route in October. From this it would seem that the stop in Cologne, the biggest city stop on the route, is rather short and late in the day, and isn't local time two hours ahead of UTC? If I'm remembering correctly, when I looked on that day in what would have been an early afternoon time, it showed closer to Düsseldorf than Cologne; would they have let people off there for the Cologne tour, then picked them up at Cologne later, or some variation where this Cologne stop would have been for another reason?

From what I've observed, on that cruise recently the ship stopped at Regensburg and passengers were bused to where they could join a sister ship, not sure if it was Straubing or elsewhere.

Following updates on the River Princess, although our cruise on it is Main-Rhine in two months, the Uniworld site reports: Embarkation of the August 19, 2022 sailing of the River Princess will take place on the River Duchess. The port location has not changed: Handelskai, Schiffsstation Handelskai 265 A-1020 Vienna, Austria.

I've joined this board in preparation for our first cruise, in late October on Uniworld. I've figured out that they post these notices of changes on their Port Locations page, which I'm bookmarking at https://www.uniworld.com/us/port-locations , and indeed notices that were there yesterday are gone today.