Carhut

Now I have to retract my previous post. I just got an email from HAL and told me to check my account. There it was. My room! Got upgraded from a VE to a VA. I'm a happy camper. :) Room is 8106. We are under the Lido so don't know how noisy that might be. Guess we'll find out.

It's 12 days out for me and still no room assignment. :(

I have been to the Panama Canal, 5 times. Three times all the way through on the ship. I think that if one takes the Panama Canal cruise, you should see the Panama Canal. The last two of my cruises were partial Panama Canal Cruises. The first time I found it so disappointing since I knew what I was missing. So the last time I decided to take the tour that included a ferry ride through the entire canal to the Pacific. Then they bussed us back to Colon so we could board the ship. It's only 50 miles so the bus ride wasn't too long. Also you got to see some of the land scenery in Panama. It wasn't too warm, and they served a lunch and had drinks onboard for us. I highly recommend the ferry if you aren't going through the whole canal.

Hurry up, please. I'm taking the cruise out of Venice on the NA in a couple of months. Your review is making me so excited and love your pics. They are great. :)

Thanks for your review. It brought back memories. Did this same cruise in 2007. I must say of my 7 river cruises it was my least favorite though. The small group was nice. Got to know most of the passengers quite well. Yes, I thought the dining room was crowded but it amazed me the wonderful dishes that the small kitchen crew put out. Interesting the captain was the same. I also went to the same home hosted dinner. It was great to see the children so grown. They were quite young when I was there. Mom and Dad looked much the same.

We also went to Oingt and to the nearby winery. Recognized the couple that own the winery and they looked much the same. It was raining when we got to Oingt, but stopped shortly after we arrived. I got some great pictures of that lovely little town but best was the fog rolling over the vineyard covered hillsides. This was a very nice itinerary but my my disappointed was in the boat Chardonnay. I was in Room 8. The room was huge compared to any other river boat but it smelled like must or mildew. The public rooms were so very small. If I were to do this cruise again, I'd want to go with a bigger and nicer boat for the price they charge.

The Vantage River Navagator has been updated and no longer has pulldown beds. They are hotel style and the entire boat has been refurbished.

Okay. My cruise on the Navigator was in Nov. 2010. They had just taken it back and put it into service for Vantage. They said they had leased it to a German company for awhile. The beds were the pull down ones then. Couldn't help notice how much it looked just like the GCT ships, but furnishings were so dark. Good that they have refurbished it.

We have traveled with Vantage 10 times-- land tours, ocean cruises (on various lines including HAL, NCL) and Rivercruises. We are booked on a French waterways cruise this summer and are really looking forward to sailing on 2 of Vantages's newer ships. (The ships in Russia and China were not Vantage owned.) Vantage does NOT have "Murphy beds"!!

 

Vantage itineraries have what has attracted us to each journey...the included tours and well-organized plan as well as knowledgeable program managers have what has brought us back. We have been more than pleased with the quality of accommodations (land and sea) and eager to experience their new Riverboats.

I disagree with you about "Vantage does NOT have "Murphy beds". I cruised on the River Navigator and we had Murphy beds on that boat. I have a picture to prove it if needed. Not that I'm complaining. I've done 6 GCT river cruises and the "Murphy beds" are just as comfortable as any other beds.

If people want to think GCT and Vantage are bargain cruises, then let them. That gives us loyal Vantage and GCT people a better chance to get the desired cruise for a decent price. Wonder why Grand Circle Cruise Line was named #1 "World's Best River Cruise Line" in 2013 & 2014 by

Conde Nast Magazine? Also Travel Leisure name them "World's Best Awards 2013".

What everyone else said is true. Long day, only do it with ship's tour, etc. We did it a few years ago and it's interesting. However, we got caught in a downpour out in the open with no place for shelter. We were all soaked and looked like drown rats. Next time I take a long tour like that, I'll have a plastic rain poncho with me. :)

Great idea about water proofing spray.....I never heard of that, but I'll look for it next time I'm in Wal-Mart.

 

I bought a strap for my water bottle that makes carrying it very convenient because it can hang from my shoulder or go over my head. It keeps my hands free and the case absorbs any condensation from the bottle. It holds just about every size of personal water bottle except the really big ones.

Check in the shoe dept. where the shoe polish is.

You know, I never really thought about it...when it rained I wore whatever shoes I was wearing: hiking boots if we were walking on cobblestones or walking shoes if we weren't. I brought a rain jacket with a hood and zippered pouches for my camera and purse, but never really gave much thought to shoes. I will say this: we did have a few rainy days and I don't ever recall wet shoes being a problem.:o

You can buy a can of spray to waterproof your shoes. Got mine at Walmart.

My husband and I also did this cruise with GCT on the Chardonnay in the fall of '06 after having done two others with Grand Circle...one on the Adagio and the other on the Aria. On this particular cruise, we loved the people, loved the itinerary, loved the food, and HATED our room (#12 on the lower deck). We traveled the beginning of November assuming that the weather would be cooler in the north and more comfortable as we sailed south toward Nice.

 

As it turned out, November was unseasonable warm, and temps continued to rise as we sailed toward the Med. Although GCT advertises the cabins on the Chardonnay as having individually controlled heating and air conditioning, that's not entirely accurate. Apparently, the HVAC system onboard only functions in one mode throughout the boat. Thus, once the boat's HVAC has been turned over to heat, air conditioning ceases to function which in our case happened on November 1. Our room was stiffling hot both day and night, and we were unable to ventilate it because as soon as the "individually controlled" unit was turned on, only more hot air would pour out of the vents. The hotel director gave us two electric fans to use,but they proved to be of little help. It got so bad that even with both fans on high, we slept every night with the cabin door propped open, as did other pax on the lower deck. As you can imagine, we got to know the other passengers quite well, and they us.

 

As I wrote in my evaluation, I would readily recommend this itinerary to my friends and neighbors so long as they did it on any boat other than the Chardonnay.:(

 

Also, although the Chardonnay entered service with GCT in '99, it was actually built in the 50's, and explains it's antiquated heat/air conditioning system. Wish I had known that before booking.

I agree that the itierary is great, the staff was great but the Chardonnay was the pits. We were in room #8 on the lower floor. As soon as you got to the bottom of the steps you could smell the plug-in air fresheners trying to cover up the musty smell, which they didn't do. We went on this trip the end of Aug. and we used the A/C throughout the trip, so didn't have a problem with heat or cold. But I thought the boat was crowded in the lounge and dining room. The other boats that I've been on were the Melody, Adagio and Dubussey. All were very nice boats, but Chardonnay leaves a lot to be desired.

I sent the complaint thread to GCT and received the following reply from my personal travel counseler:

Well thank you for defending us we appreciate it.

As you know we send out surveys to every person that takes one of our trips and we are currently at a 87% overall excellence rating for 2007.

And this is a number that has been increasing year by year...we know that we are not perfect and that is why we spend so much time reviewing these surveys to see what we can do better.

But we are very satisfied that such a large amount of our clients are so happy with us.

There are hundreds of travel websites out there and we would love to be able to respond to every one of them but all we can do is worry about what we can control and that is why these surveys are so important.

Thanks again for your loyalty.

I've gone on 4 GCT river boat trips and have #5 scheduled for Aug. to Russia. The only problems we ever encountered was with the airlines being late and missing connections. Happened twice. Once our luggage was "lost" for a while, but was delivered later that evening. Can't blame GCT for these problems. In fact their reps went out of their way trying to help.

On our last trip, one lady arrived in Nice, France without her luggage. The day we left Nice our PD ( program director) had the bus driver take us out of our way to stop at the airport and she went in with the lady. Even though the airport had reported that they couldn't find the lady's luggage, the PD and lady came out with it. Everyone on the bus clapped and cheered. They found it on their own. Now that PD went out of her way, and she made a happy customer.

We've had numerous good experiences with our program directors and other ship's personel. They are what make the trip for us.

I've not encountered any problems with the people in Boston. However, being a "Grand Circle" member, I'm supposedly assigned a "personal travel counseler". Before my last trip I had 4 different ones. I finally asked #4 why they kept changing my "personal travel advisor" and she told me that they have a big turnover in personel. Don't know what that tells me, but do know that maybe sometimes you are talking to someone that is new and just doesn't know what they are talking about. Just my humble opinion.