Uniworld's River Tosca?

[opal21]

Thanks Next trip. We are planning to take the Abu Simbel excursion.

Carol

[next trip?]

Opal21,

Great, you will love it! An awesome sight! Listening to the history of the temples, tombs, pyramids etc. is mind bloggling. How everything was done without the tools or instruments for calculation that we have today is unbelievable--and to think---it is still there!! Really Awesome!

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[Dakotabear34]

Hello Next Trip and Rosie01 it was so nice to meet you and your husbands on this trip. Still trying to get over jetlag and trying to figure out what my big trip will be next year. I don't think anyplace can top the experience of seeing Egypt.

 

One of my kittens had been injured while I was away, but he is on the mend. It is an injury to his lower back.

 

Abu Simbel was definitely worth getting up early to catch the plane. I think of all the magnificent sites we saw, my favorite sites were the three tombs we were able to enter at the Valley of the Kings.

 

I must add the Spa on the Tosca gives a very good foot massage.

 

I emailed customer service at Uniworld about the Tosca, as well as the rep who took us to the airport on the return flight home and than abandoned us in the airport. Still waiting for their response.

[King Dodo]

We will be traveling on the Feb 14th River Tosca Tour for 4 nights and I have been reading with great interest all the comments posted by the folks on this site. Thanks for all the information it is greatly appreciated.

 

I will be 'breaking the Uniworld norm' by traveling with my wife and 10 and 12 year old daughters. Thus I have a few 'kids related' questions that you might be able to answer:

1) Will we be served pasta as a meal choice? (a great favorite)

2) Do they have tomato ketchup or do we need to bring our own....

3) Did anyone take some photos of the top deck / pool and if so could they post them online?

 

Thanks again for all your help in preparing for our trip of a lifetime.

Finger crossed all the nails are banged in and paint splashes mopped up by mid February...

Cheers,

 

King Dodo

[King Dodo]

Is anyone else going on the Feb 14th cruise?

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King Dodo,

There was excellent pasta served during the lunch buffets. A different kind each day. The selections for the evening meals did not include any pasta--most of the choices were veal or fish. The staff was so accommodating though that they may fix a pasta dish if you request it for your children. They try very, very hard to please. I did not notice any tomato ketchup so if that is a "staple" you may want to bring your own.

 

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[next trip?]

Dakotabear and Rosie01,

It was so nice to meet you and enjoy Egypt together. What a wonderful trip?

I sent everyone in our group an e-mail. Let me know if you receive it.

thanks,

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[Dakotabear34]

Kingdodo

 

The pool is not very deep, so don't expect a good swim.

They had pasta dishes every day at the lunch buffet, but I found them to be too salty for my taste.

[49er]

Wow! The hits just keep coming... Lots of not so happy campers out there:eek: Hope by February UniWorld gets it act together.

 

http://www.facebook.com/uniworldrivercruises

 

49er

[next trip?]

Yes, unfortunately Uniworld should have inspected the ship before it went into service. This will give the company a bad name and it could be an absolutely beautiful ship! Hopefully, 49er, everything will be in shape before you cruise.

If they take the ship out of service, like that said they would, what about the people already booked who are looking forward to sailing on a "new" ship?

It was very obvious on our cruise that the upper management people who were there were very unhappy!! They were holding meeting after meetings. As I said, this should have been taken care of before the first cruise! They certainely had enough delays to inspect the ship and do everything it took to make it 5 *.

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[opal21]

49er,

Since I don't subscribe to facebook, could you tell me what that first report said.:confused:

Carol

[49er]

49er,

Since I don't subscribe to facebook, could you tell me what that first report said.:confused:

Carol

 

You don't have to have a facebook account to read the comments, just open the link. Basically, there are comments from former Tosca cruisers that are pretty unhappy with the conditions of the ship (looking for compensation from UniWorld) and others that are considering canceling their trips. Sounds like they (UniWorld) are considering taking the Tosca out of service sometime in January.

[49er]

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I neglected to offer my congratulations on your upcoming 50th anniversary. Sounds like you will be celebrating in style:-)

I do have another question regarding our upcoming trip to Egypt. What (and when) do you receive from UniWorld prior to departure? We are newbies to river cruising:-)

49er

BTW, you are so right about the joys of retirement. May will mark the 10th anniversary of our retirement and have enjoyed every minute of it!

[jperkin1]

Good grief. We are on the Feb 5th trip. If they will indeed take it out of service, what are the chances they will be done by then?

 

Honestly, how bad can some paint and loose tiles be? I didn't book this trip for the ship, it was more experiencing Egypt. The ship being new was just an added plus. Sure hope things get settled :(

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49er

Thanks for the congragulations. Yes, retirement is wonderful after all those years of teaching. Just yesterday we decided to take a few days next week and go to Branson for the Christmas lights. you are able to do things at the spur of the moment.

Well--back to the subject. We received our documents about 3 weeks before departure. We had done our own flight so already had that info. In the Uniworld documents you will find your luggage tags, verification of you payment etc. and a nice small booklet outlining your daily schedule.

 

JPerkins1,

I don't think it hinders your trip at all to have the loose tiles, paint splatters etc, but it does hurt Uniworld's reputation. Everyone on our trip was complaining about the conditions. I think the bottom line was that you paid for a 5 star ship that was supposedly brand new and you go into it with those expectations. At this point it diffinetly is not 5 star and it was hard to believe that it was new. I think that if you had booked an older ship that was maybe 3 or 4 star if would have not made a bit of difference. The problem I see is that Uniworld tries to hold a high standard and this is certainely not it. We have been on 3 other Uniworld cruises and the ships have been wonderful. this was a disappointment but did not ruin our trip at all! I think future passengers now have an idea of what it is like so it will not be such a surprise as it was to all of us!

No matter what---you will enjoy your trip. Egypt is a fascinating place. My husband, who was not too enthused about this trip, and only went because I wanted to stated on the flight home--" I think this has been one of our best trips." We have travelled extensively so this was quite a statement from someone who went rather reluctantly!

enjoy!

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[jperkin1]

Thanks next trip? I know we will have a great time no matter what! Was the ship sold out, do you know? Just wondering if they're running on sold out ships, or not. I'm not really going to worry about it. Hopefully it will all work out. As long as we have a comfy bed, clean bathroom and decent food, I am good to go!

 

I am still looking forward to the joys of retirement.. My husband retired in March, but took another job 3 weeks later! I am still planning trips, however, and he'll just work around them:)

[next trip?]

My husband also retired about 10 years ago and then proceeded to take 2 part-time jobs. He is an engineering consultant. He took these jobs with the understanding that we would still travel whenever we wanted to. it has worked out very well.

No, the ship was far from sold out on our cruise. There were the 14 of us from our group and then about six VIP's from Uniworld for the first 3 days. Then we picked up another group of about 10 in Aswan and the VIP's left the next day. We occupied 2 of the round tables for our group and about 2 for the other group in the dining room. We had the sun deck mostly to ourselves, which was very nice!

We had breakfast one morning with 2 of the upper management people and they were talking about taking the ship out of service. I asked them when this would be and they responded it would be when the least amount of people were scheduled--probably in Jan. I gather this improvement will only take a few weeks. They also have to eliminate about 20 tons of weight because it sets too low in the water.

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[Dakotabear34]

Hello Next Trip,

 

I agree with you that the ship was a disappointment after having sailed on the River Royale in France last year. I expected the same five star quality. This whole thing is more damaging to Uniworld's reputation than it was to our experience. It by no means reduced the experience of Egypt itself. Egypt is spectacular.

 

By the way I did receive an email from Uniworld Customer Service stating they were giving us some compensation for our disppointment with the ship.

 

I'm thinking about doing the tulip cruise in 2010 by myself, which boat did you sail?

 

Have a great weekend.

[conversation]

What date in February are you saining with Uniworld River Tosca?

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Hi DakotaBear34,

We sailed with Uniworlds' River Queen on our tulips cruise. It is an older ship but very lovely. We went toward the end of April and the tulips were absolutely gorgeous. We saw 70,000 tulips in bloom. A spectacular sight. You will love it.

I agree. The condition of the ship in no why detracted from our trip. Our group was fantastic--I think one of the best we have ever travelled with. Walid, our guide couldn't have been better and Egypt, itself, was specatular. We had such a wonderful time.

Happy Holidays! The kittens are great and up to a lot of mischief with the tree.

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[Dakotabear34]

Thank you NextTrip, I will look into the River Queen.

 

One of my kittens was injured while I was away. He has a spinal injury, but the Vet believes he should mend in time because he is young. And the other one was neutered on Friday. I am thinking about setting up the tree on the porch, because they are too rambunctious.

 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year.

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Hi DakotaBear 34,

The River Queen is decorated in an art deco style. The lounge is large and in the center there is a fireplace ( similar to the type you would put on a patio). It was a great touch on some of the chilly days when we returned from our tours. The ports for that cruise were all very interesting. I think you would like it!

Sorry to hear about your kitty. Hope he makes a full recovery. Yes, ours are having a great time playing with ornaments, unwrapping packages and rolling up in the cotton under the tree. The poor manager scene has been undone numerous times!

to see the maximum amount of tulips in bloom schedule your trip toward the last part of Apr. or into ealry May. Of course, all of this depends on what kind of winter Amsterdam has. Wen we were purchasing our tulip bulbs Iasked the person helping us when the ideal time would be and she said that the best times are "usually" the last 2 weeks of Apr. There are also plenty of other flowers blooming. It is an awesome display.

Amsterdam itself is a great city to explore. It is very walkable with lots of art galleries, Anne Frank home, canal cruise etc.

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[kelly@]

I thought I would just drop a note in here to let you know that we have just launched a news item on the situation with River Tosca. Uniworld has said it plans to take the ship out of service and into dry dock in February 2010 for two months to fix the poor finishes onboard.

 

The company's president Guy Young tells us that a more formal announcement will be made in a few days, but at this point, we understand that any passengers booked during February and March 2010 will be offered Nile cruises on a different ship.

 

You can read the full story here: http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/news/news.cfm?ID=3588

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Kelly,

Thanks Kelly for the update. We were on the Nov. 14th sailing and it is too bad that the ship has to be taken out of service. On a positive note though the service was excellent. The crew certainely aimed to please and we loved the nice big staterooms and bathrooms.

We have sailed on Uniworld before ( and will again) and always been very, very satisfied. This was unfortunate, to say the least. When all is said and done the River Tosca WILL be wonderful!

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[Jete]

We are scheduled for a February Splendours of the Nile cruise. Now that it's official that the Tosca will be out of service then, does anyone know which ship will replace it? We booked with the expectation of a suite--this is a major disappointment.