Excellent Cruise

Item: Riviera
Rating: 5
Author: Cruiser96413109

Riviera Cruise Review to Europe

Cruiser96413109

Contributor Level: Third Mate

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 58

Overall rating:

5 out of 5

Verified Review

Monte Carlo to Lisbon

Sail date: October 26, 2016

Ship: Riviera

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

Beautiful ship, great food and service, outstanding staff. Really enjoyed the time on board. Very smooth sailing. Easy on/off experience. Great destinations. Just found the excursions to be pricey and they need to use transmitters and headphones or decrease the size of tour groups. The guides were knowledgeable and friendly and spoke excellent English. It was just difficult to hear them at times. They need to be sure ports have adequate rest room facilities and restaurants that are open when they set you free for lunch (Vernazza). Given the price of theses excursions, I was a little surprised that certain tours required additional purchase of entrance tickets (the garden at Eze, the castle at Carcassone). Theses should already be purchased and included. Also, the on board wifi was very poor. Difficult to connect and very unreliable. It was "free" on our trip but really not useful.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Excellent quality and variety

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Beautiful, spacious room. Well appointed.

Ship tip

Book your dinner reservations for specialty restaurants before you cruise. Had no problem getting into the restaurants, just not always at our first choice of time. All food venues were excellent and the grand dining room was spacious and never had a problem getting in there. Service was excellen

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Barcelona, Spain

5 out of 5

Sete (Carcassonne), France

5 out of 5

Portofino, Italy

5 out of 5

Portovenere, Italy

3 out of 5

Restaurants were not open when we had free time and bathroom facilities were a little difficult to find. But beautiful, beautiful area. We took the first part of the guided tour and enjoyed the view from the watercraft. After we were set on our own for free exploration, we informed our guide that we were going to go back to La Specia on our own. We hiked between Vernazza and Monterossa on our own and loved the experience! Then took the train back to La Specia and a cab to the port. Very easy to arrange and we had plenty of time to get back to the ship.

Thumbs Up 0

TUSCANY REGION, ITALY

5 out of 5

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

3 out of 5

It would have been helpful to know how close we were to car rental facilities once we took the shuttle bus out of the port. The shuttle was free but we had to wait a while and you had to get your own luggage on board the shuttle (below the bus). There were a fair number of people who were going on to other things once we left the ship (not the airport) and needed to use the shuttle to get out of the port. Taxis were not available until you were out of the docking area (shuttle). There were buses to the airport and other destinations that appeared to be well organized and smooth. Easy to pick up the shuttle although the line and getting a spot for luggage was a little hectic and not organized. Kind of every man for himself. Then the area outside the port (where the shuttle took us) was spacious and had plenty of cabs. We had rented a car from Europcar and were pleasantly surprised to find the office adjacent to the shuttle drop off. The ship had not been able to provide us with those small details.

Thumbs Up 1

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Other reviews of this sailing

Outstanding cruise with attentive staff