Good itinerary. Nice ship. Poor communications and information in arranging cruise and onboard.

Riviera Cruise Review to Europe - Western Mediterranean

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 65

Overall rating:

3.6 out of 5
Verified Review
Riviera

7 Night Riviera Rhapsody (Monte Carlo To Rome)

Sail date: May 10, 2018

Ship: Riviera

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 8089

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

Itinerary was good. Food was fair. Communication was poor. Only found out after beginning the cruise that we could dine in specialty restrauants without up charge. By then all of the reasonable dining times were taken. Destinations staff does not have maps and information of the next port until after the ship docks there. It makes it virtually impossible, for example, to try to plan a short morning visit into the port and get back for your afternoon excursion. Typically, at 10:00 AM, there is a frenzied crowd surrounding the Concierge/Destinations desk seeing the hand out maps just brought on board, Dozens of clients all trying to ask the single concierge handing the maps out, “how do I get to....” It was incomprehensible that a “first class cruise line” would not have the next day’s city Information available at least the evening before. State room was nice. The ship seemed well maintained and one did not feel as though there were 1000-1200 passengers on board.

Embarkation

4 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Service and Staff

3 out of 5
Most restaurant and house keeping staff excellent. Destination and Concierge staff disappointing or inept. Reception, Security and Enginnering staffs good.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

Ship tip

Be ready for the roll of toilet paper to fall off of the horizontal post and roll around on the bathroom floor.

Ports of call

Monte Carlo, Monaco

4 out of 5
Dock site requires up hill transportation into town center.

St. Tropez, France

5 out of 5
Enjoyable and quaint one day stop. Interesting and fun, good food.

Marseille (Provence), France

2 out of 5
No need to return. Half hour shuttle buses were packed and required lining up early, in the sun for most people.

Palamos, Spain

4 out of 5
Another quaint enjoyable short stay stop. Found a wine shop with excellent wines sold by the liter at extraordinarily reasonable prices.

Porto Cervo (Olbia), Sardinia

4 out of 5
Enjoyed the scenery of the three stop excursion through the countryside here.

Palermo, Sicily

4 out of 5

Amalfi/Positano, Italy

4 out of 5
Private tour along the Almafi coast beautiful. Sorrento, the highlight of the entire cruise. Wish we spent more time there. Almalfi Town is essentially a single, shop lined, up hill street plagued by exhaust fumes by vehicles squeezing through crowds.

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

3 out of 5
Long wait for packed shuttle buses. Then another wait for public bus to train station/rental car area. Preparation explanations from ship staff would have been helpful.

Disembarkation

2 out of 5
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3 Comments

janjanAZ    6 years ago

We found all info regarding when to pre booking dinners and spa treatments in our literature.

willwork4cruz    6 years ago

Sounds like we need to do our research before the cruise rather than wait till we dock and ask the Concierge to tell us what to do.

Catmoon121    6 years ago

Thank you for your factual comments. You've given us the motivation to prepare!

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