HDS

We cruised the Irrawaddy with Pandaw in October 2013 and I reported on this board after we returned. Pandaw offers several itineraries. Ours took us past the tourist strip of Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay, north almost to the China border. We found it fascinating and found the Pandaw product superior to any of the four cruises we have done with Viking.

There was no facility for checking luggage when we travelled TGV Avignon-Gare de Lyon independently after our cruise last year. We found it much easier than expected to handle our own bags on and off the TGV. We had been travelling for two months in arctic and hot climates so each of us had a large bag, about 15 kg, plus a carryon.

There were ramps and elevators to all elevated platforms at Avignon station; Gare de Lyon is ground level. The train had luggage racks at the end of each carriage. As you are boarding at Gare de Lyon you will have plenty of time to get your bags aboard and settled before the train moves.

The carriages are on two levels so we were concerned about carrying bags up or down stairs on a moving train but it travelled so smoothly that we had no problem. The brief stop was just about enough for us to carry our bags upstairs to the luggage rack. I hope Dijon station/stop will be as easy to manage as Avignon.

I have no idea what level of assistance your cruise company will provide. We travel as light as possible with bags we can handle ourselves.

Good to hear you enjoyed. Have you considered posting in the River Cruising section as well?

Many posters seek advice about river cruisers there.

If you are considering engaging private guides for tours along the way, be aware that the sailing schedule can change with very little notice to the passengers. On the Delling last September the scheduled sailing to Macon was cancelled; the scheduled excursions became bus trips from Lyon. Passengers informed the evening before. The docking and evening tour of Viviers was cancelled completely. Passengers informed two hours before the scheduled docking.

Would you consider posting this to the River Cruising board? Readers there may be familiar with Vantage River Cruises and have some suggestions to offer.

In 2008 we cruised with Uniworld. After a hot summer the Danube was low enough to cause the crew some concern but we sailed through. We were moored within walking distance of the centre of Belgrade. The other ports were towns or villages with the opportunity to stroll early morning and evening. The excursions involved bus trips but the traffic was light. We enjoyed the rural countryside and some passengers enjoyed a snooze. Our trip to Arbanassi / Veliko Tarnovo was heavy on long coffee breaks, lunch and tourist shopping but the trip to Constansa and the Black Sea coast was great.

I second Traveller Thom's enthusiasm for rural Transylvania. Our private trip there was one of the best travel experiences in seven continents.

Trip advisor may have some useful information about the places on the Viking excursions.

We preferred the Presqui'lle area north of Place des Jacobin. Pedestrian area, huge choice of restaurants and farmers' market on block away on the riverbank. Stayed at Citadine apartments, heating but no aircon so not good in summer.

Tourist Information in the main square has maps and information. We used hop-*****-hop-off bus to orientate then public transport and walking to visit or revisit. Metro, buses and trams are easy to use.

We loved Lyon, it is a beautiful city.

I rate our Irrawadddy cruise with Pandaw in 2014 as one of our best experiences on all seven continents. The small boat took us almost to the China border, well beyond the tourist strip from Yangon to Mandalay. The Irrawaddy is the highway of the country and we saw so much of life in this country emerging from its long period of isolation.

I did post on this board on our return and there have been several more recent postings about Irrawaddy cruises here since then that should reveal themselves if you "do a search".

I hope you enjoy as much as we did.

This would be of interest to readers of the River Cruising forum where there are often questions about river cruises on the Irrawaddy. Please consider copying this to that forum?

Our Viking Elbe "cruise" in July 2014 was disrupted by low water. We spent three nights moored close to the centre of Dresden, a brilliant spot to moor, if moor one must. Then a long bus trip to Wittenburg (2 nights) at a mooring way out of town, nowhere to walk but a busy, narrow dusty road. We had one day's cruising to Madenburg and mooring was an easy walk to the city centre. All our local guides were excellent.

You may be right about very little notice of change. In our experience Viking subscribes to the mushroom principle of keeping passengers in the dark. To be fair, river levels are ever changing and beyond Viking's control. There are no locks downstream of the Czech German border to control river flow and the Czech water authority controls the border gate to retain water in its territory.

You will get more information from these boards (including the All River Cruises Roll Calls) and from the excellent websites that monitor the river levels of European rivers. Links to these are given in other posts, try a search here and on the river roll calls board and if you can't find links to the river level websites, post again and I will post website address.

Jane, I hope your brother-in-law continues to recover and you continue to have good memories of Lyon.

Thank you for your report. Excursions on Silversea Expedition cruises should offer personal, in-depth learning experiences not a jostle with 39 others to hear an indifferent guide, followed by shopping, shopping, shopping. Add to that cramped bus seating and one has the pro-forma for the largest and cheapest cruise lines.

It seems Silversea are outsourcing excursions to local providers of one-size-fits-all excursions without sufficient investigation by management to ensure the product is appropriate to Silversea expedition cruising.

Jane, I share your enthusiasm for Lyon. We thoroughly enjoyed our two days pre-cruise. We stayed at the Citadines Presqu'lle in a studio apartment which had heating but no aircon; fine for us in September but maybe not so good in high summer. Fabulous situation between the Saone and the Rhone, huge choice of restaurants right outside and a delightful fresh food market a block away on the Saone.

I recommend a visit to the tourist information centre in Place Bellecour, an easy walk from Citadines for maps and information. To orientate we took the hop-on hop-off bus once around the city and on the second trip exited at the Roman theatres, walked up through the theatres and caught the next bus at the cathedral.

Public transport is well mapped and very easy to use. I recommend taking the subway to visit the Mur des Canuts which is much better than the small mural seen on the regular cruise ship bus tour.

The Art Gallery in the former convent has a small but interesting collection of Impressionists and Moderns and lunch on the terrace there was delicious.

Lyon is a delightful city to explore on foot, there are walking paths (watch out for cyclists) on both rivers and the streets and squares of the older area are lined with interesting buildings. I loved the quirky modern buildings in the Confluence area that we saw from the bus. There were a few places near the railway station that I didn't want to linger but at no stage did I feel unsafe walking alone in daylight.

I'm not a shopper and I travel light but what I saw in the shops between Place Bellecour and Place des Jacobins was very tempting.

We cruised Lyon to Avignon with Viking in August. When we arrived we were told the river levels were too high for us to cruise to Macon so the advertised excursions were bus trips from Lyon. I read on these pages that several 2016 cruises had missed Macon.

Our Viking cruised missed another port and city walk for obscure navigational reasons announced in French by the captain and translated by the hotel manager in a manner that left no room for questioning. Not good for anyone who had made private arrangements in either town.

Viking is now informing passengers in advance, which is an improvement on our previous cruises where Viking treated passengers like mushrooms, kept in the dark as long as possible. We have learnt to put our brains in neutral, accept whatever is dished out, enjoy the company of our fellow cruisers and, pre and post cruise, we explore the region independently to see the bits the cruise leaves out.

Our Viking cruise director was exceptionally good, the local guides were excellent to very good, the food quality was high, cabins comfortable, destinations delightful. Lyon is one of the most delightful cities I have visited and we enjoyed it as much, maybe more than Paris. It is a little like Prague, with a flat city area, a river and a cathedral on the hill overlooking the city. The centre of the city is a pleasant walk from the usual dock at Quai Claude Bernard, public transport is very easy to use; good maps available from Tourist Information Centre.

The Viking ships are larger than others on the Rhone; they cannot dock at Arles so there is a bus trip from Tarascon and return to Avignon where our cruise terminated. For us, the time the cruise spent in Avignon and Arles was adequate but we are delighted we spent extra days in Lyon and a week driving ourselves in Provence after the cruise.

Eight years ago it was a large chain hotel a longish walk from the city centre. Well appointed bedrooms, insufficient dining options for the whole boatload, most of whom wanted to eat in the hotel but not room service. Nothing in the surrounding streets.

Why not ask Uniworld?

Looking forward to your posts.

We spent four days exploring Transylvania with a private guide after our Uniworld river cruise eight years ago. Loved it, wish we had stayed longer. Sighisoara and the tiny villages with Saxon churches were our favourites. Pelles, Siniai, Bran, Sibiu were also fascinating. Wish we had taken time to go to Mamures.

Amazing history of which Vlad the Impaler (the inspiration for the Dracula fiction) was only a small part. Trip Advisor is usually a good place to look for guides and tours, though I haven't checked the Romania page lately.

Why not ask Uniworld what hotel they use? Our 2008 hotel was very swish but a longish walk from the centre of Bucharest. Other than the hotel's poor location we enjoyed the Uniworld cruise (Amsterdam to Bucharest) enormously.

In August we cruised on Silver Explorer from Iceland to Greenland, disembarking in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland on August 22. Explorer had one more cruise up the west coast of Greenland (Kangerlussuaq-Kangerlussuaq) then was crossing to eastern Canada and disembarking St John Newfoundland.

I assume Explorer has sailed down the east coast Canada and USA to Manhattan yesterday. What a contrast to Greenland!

Chris and JP, please report back here. I know you enjoy the silver Explorer, as we do, so I look forward to your review of this cruise. We are considering this cruise for 2017 or 2018.

The very same Juan Carlos. He and Stephan were the geologists on our Antarctica and Chile cruises Feb 2015. Juan went on leave after our Greenland cruise. Robin Aeillo (not spelt correctly) came on board for our Greenland cruise and is staying on Explorer. Chris Srigley was the only other from our 2012 cruises.

Victoria on the Greenland cruise was English and we enjoyed her sense of humour very much. Probably the very same person.

We sailed on Silver Explorer Reykjavik to Kangerlussuaq in August 2016.

My report below doesn't meet CC's standards for a review. Laura suggested that I post it here.

As always the crew and expedition staff were absolutely at the top of their game to give passengers the best possible experience on and off Silver Explorer. And bouquets to the company for encouraging crew and staff members to move up through the ranks. One of our expedition leaders, Nicole had previously been the spa manager and one of the former butlers was joining the ship for the next cruise as an expedition leader.

Service, lectures, food and the company of our fellow guests were excellent. Juan is a great expedition team leader; he and his staff did their best to provide us with an interesting expedition cruise in an area which, in the fogs of late summer, didn’t reveal as much stunning scenery, snow-capped mountains, towering fjords or marine wildlife as many of us were expecting.

We cruised two very lovely fjords and had one zodiac ride close to a calving glacier. Otherwise the zodiacs were transport to shore. There were no wet landings or zodiac sight-seeing cruises.

For the very fit, there were a couple of strenuous hikes and for the rest of us, a soak in a hot spring, a stroll or brisk walk, around small villages, towns and the capital city, Nuuk. Plenty of time to meet the locals, who were welcoming, some spoke fluent English and were happy to chat with visitors about life in Greenland.

Most local guides who showed us around the larger towns had good English, good local knowledge and reasonable guiding skills. Groups were small enough to manage without “quiet vox” technology. A former member of the Greenland parliament gave a very impressive lecture and Q & A session on board.

The historian, Victoria and the archaeologist, Elizabeth who were inspired by the Norse history and its amazing preservation, transmitted their enthusiasm to many of us. Thank you for sharing your passion.

Like Drake Passage, the crossing from Iceland to Greenland can be rough or smooth. We had it rough but as Juan said: “that’s what Silver Explorer is built for.” We used anti-histamines and had no problems.

Greenland is developing its tourism infrastructure. I commend Silversea for working with small villages to give its passengers an authentic local experience and I hope they will develop these contacts further. World of Greenland, a major Greenland travel provider and Silversea agent at Kangerlussuaq is struggling to offer appropriate service there.

The next leg, which travels north from Kangerlussuaq, may offer more glacial mountain scenery. I summarise our experience as very interesting, rather than spectacular. We have seen southern Greenland and learnt a great deal about its history and living there. That’s why we travel.

I have just posted my review, (in the Reviews area) of the Silver Explorer cruise of southern Greenland, embarking in Reykjavik and disembarking in Kangerlussuaq in August 2016.

Hallejulluh Cruiser,

did you arrange your post-cruise excursion to the ice cap before your flight from Kangerlussuaq?

I'm not getting any response from emails to travel providers for a similar experience on August 22. we are cruising with another line.

Hope your cruise is all you wanted.

We are booked for September 12 Lyon to Avignon. I will report after our cruise.

In February 2012 we cruised Antarctica then Chilean fjords back-to-back on Explorer with a day in between in Ushuaia. On our free day we had no problems leaving the wharf to meet our (privately arranged tour) guide nor accessing the wharf on foot to return to the ship. We carried our passports but I can't recall anyone examining them.

The previous afternoon, when we returned from Antarctica most of the passengers strolled a few blocks from the ship to the centre of Ushuaia and back to the Explorer without problems.

Conditions may have changed in the past four years, Argentinian migration rules may be more stringent, Silversea may now be using a more commercial wharf .............. but your communication does sound unreasonable and ridiculously expensive.

Harking back to 2012, at the request of the other back-to-back cruisers, Silversea had its Ushuaia agents arrange a small van tour on the "free" day. It cost more than twice what we paid for the same tour in a comfortable car.

I hope someone with more recent experience can help. There is a thread in the Silver Explorer roll calls from pax on the Valparaiso-Ushuaia cruise in November 2016.

We expect to be on Explorer next month, if I learn any thing about Ushuaia port, I'll let you know.