Trip Report: Arles to Lyon | Saône & Rhône | Emerald Liberté | July 1-8, 2017

In 3 hours we'll be picked up to head to the airport! My husband and I (40 & 34) are traveling with my mom and dad (64 & 77) and some friends from a past cruise on the brand new Emerald Liberté. I'll post short updates as I can, and do a longer write-up when I return. If you have any questions about this itinerary, post here and I'll try to find answers for you!

Have a WONDERFUL cruise!

Just tested posting with my mobile phone since the laptop is staying home. It works! Hooray!

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Can't wait to learn more about Emerald. Bon Voyage!

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Have a great trip ewizabeff,

make sure to take the excursion to Pont du Gard (I hope they offer it). Really fascinating.

notamermaid

Looking forward to hearing about your trip and your ecperience with Emerald as we are cruising once again with Scenic. Emeralds sister company once again and doing a similar trip in September on the newly redesigned Sapphire in one of the newest additions that of the Royal Owners Suite.

Doing what is called the Spectacular South of France with Paris and Monte Carlo September 24.

Can't wait to read of anything that you may recommend to go and see.

Thanks Lisa & Gary

LoneStarCruisinCouple

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Have a great trip ewizabeff,

 

make sure to take the excursion to Pont du Gard (I hope they offer it). Really fascinating.

 

notamermaid

That is definitely happening!

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After 2 cruises with Scenic we're on Emerald later this year. Looking forward to your posts.

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Bon Voyage! Looking forward to reading your posts and hopefully seeing pictures, hint,...hint.

We made it, after a prolonged travel day with a flight delay in Brussels and an airport evacuation and bomb squad in Nice. The Liberté seems to be full, with most of the passengers from the USA and UK. Also some Aussies and Canadians. The ship has a sleek, modern decor and it doesn't appear that any corners were cut. The welcome dinner (buffet, the only one of the trip) was good and had some solid French items on the menu. I had the included white wine with dinner, and it was as a solid table wine (both options were local). Darren, our cruise director, is from the UK and has a lot of energy. My husband and I are once again the youngest on the ship by many, many years. My mom commented that the crowd looks even older than our Uniworld trip on the Danube.

I'm very happy with our cabin, but will pot more about that once I've taken some photos.

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I know I've seen questions about the cost of drinks and beverage packages on Emerald's ships, so I took some photos of the menu for you fine folks. Hope this works when posting with the app! Tapatalk only allows 6 images per post, so I'll need to put up two separate posts to cover the entire drink menu.

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Thanks for all the great info so far. I know you will have a fabulous trip since we have done that area on land by car a couples of times. Yes, Pont du Gard is a must! And we love Lyon! Best French Fries ever in Lyon!

Looking forward to reading more about Emerald and your trip.

Can't wait to hear about the stops along the way, we are doing a Rhone cruise with Scenic in September. I have always wanted to go to Avignon!

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Have a great time! Looking forward to following your journey and reminiscing about ours a few years back.

If you are a "foodie", don't miss the Paul Bocuse Food Hall in Lyon:

http://www.wiveswithknives.net/2013/08/28/les-halles-de-lyon-paul-bocuse-the-food-hall-of-lyon/

or even his somewhat hokey but excellent restaurant

https://www.bocuse.fr/fr/

We've had a good time so far in Arles, Avignon, and Tournon. Emerald is definitely a quality line, but a notch below Uniworld. We're very happy with the food, which is locally influenced. The excursions have been good, although none of us were particularly happy with our choices today after the included walking tour. Three of us did the bike ride, but were disappointed in the heavy cruiser-type bikes they provided. On our prior Uniworld cruise, the bike excursion was done with a local company that provided hybrid bikes. Mine was in a bit of disrepair and I had to work pretty hard for what should have been an easy ride. My dad did the wine tasting (extra cost of 16 Euros) which was billed as being in the vineyard at Le'Hermitage. It wasn't in the vineyard and multiple people said the wine was disappointing.

We've been very happy with our cabin. We watched a movie in the pool room last night and liked it, but it didn't seem to be popular with the rest of the group.

Paulchili - we won't make it to Bocuse, but we are eating at Georges Blanc in Vonnas tomorrow while we're docked on Macôn. We also ate at Jean Luc Rubanel's restaurant in Arles. And we're eating at a modern French restaurant in Lyon. 7 Michelin stars in 7 days. [emoji3] We had a great lunch at a winery/cafe in Le'Hermitage today.

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What's happening, ewizabeff? We miss you. Hope that you had a great cruise. Looking forward to the rest of the story when you have time.

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What's happening, ewizabeff? We miss you. Hope that you had a great cruise. Looking forward to the rest of the story when you have time.

 

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Hope she's having so much fun that she doesn't have time to post!

We spent 4 days in Paris, and just got home last night :) I'm back to work today (and was up at 3:30 a.m., so this should be fun!).

I took pictures of the cabin and ship, and all the dailies, and will try to get them up by the end of the weekend.

Overall impression from my fellow cruisers that had cruised with other lines before is that Emerald has a few kinks to work out. Those that are used to more luxury lines won't be back. My impression is that Emerald's buildout is Scenic trying to compete with Viking, so comparing it to lines like Uniworld is a bit unfair. This was clearly more of a budget crowd, which was fine. Everyone needs options on the river. Also, Americans are in the minority on this ship. The crowd is mainly UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Thanks for the report.

Just wondering if you did the drink package. Compared to an ocean cruise, it looks like a great deal. I was wondering if the wine included is only the house wine that was shown in one of your pictures.

My husband and I did not do the drink package, as we had only 1-2 drinks per day and it didn't make sense for us.

My parents chose packages on the third day of the cruise, I think (they only charged them for the remaining days). Dad did premium package and mom did the extended package. I believe the extended package just had the same wine and beer that was offered in the dining room.

While I'm sure it will be a while before I do the full write-up on our blog, I'll post a bit about the daily itinerary, excursions, ship, and meals here for those that have questions.

Here is the daily program for our first full day onboard (the ship stayed docked in Arles the night of embarkation).

We received our first laundry offer, which may be handy for folks that want crisp clothing during their time on board. We didn't have a need for it.

We met our fantastic guide at the dock at 9:30 a.m. for a walking tour of the city. Although the itinerary says the tour is 3 hours, it was really only a 90 minute tour with about an hour of free time and a walk back to the ship.

After making our way through a few streets, we were treated to the glorious Roman amphitheater.

More walking through streets, more history of Arles. We had a short bathroom/shopping break in the Van Gogh Garden.

The tour ended at the Place de la Republique. Aaron and I ventured out on our own. On Sunday in Arles, women may choose to wear some traditional clothing. The first Sunday in July, though, is something special. They have a costume festival and hundreds of people dress as traditional Arlesiennes. There's a parade, a crowning of a queen, and other festivities. We caught these two women at a cafe before the big event.

We continued our walk through town and found our way up some stairs and through some winding streets to Place de la Major, where we had a wonderful view of Western Arles.

Just before noon, most guests returned to the ship. Neither of the afternoon excursions had enough interest to run, so I'm not sure what they did with their time. Aaron and I weren't there, as we had something much more special planned....

Love the pics! Glad to hear you had a good trip!

Full review is posted, since I'm being a slow poke here.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=584910&et_cid=2861228&et_rid=85338261&et_referrer=Boards_Million_Member_Newsubhttps://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=584910&et_cid=2861228&et_rid=85338261&et_referrer=Boards_Million_Member_Newsub

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