MS Select Bellejour - Magical Rhine - Basel to Amsterdam

[redlac]

Just home from an excellent river cruise aboard the Bellejour.... Striving to post a review, and I find that it is not included in the list of ships offered in the "write a review" section.

Thus, I will offer my feedback here.

We travelled the MS Select Bellejour in June 2017, on their Magical Rhine (Basel to Amsterdam) trip.

Built in 2004, the MS Select Bellejour has 90 cabins welcoming a maximum of 180 passengers. While the lower deck cabins have port holes, the middle and upper deck cabins each have a french balcony. The single beds are each covered with a single duvet; a top sheet on the bed can be provided on request. (Single beds are pushed together for couples.) Note in the photograph below the difference in size between the Bellejour and a typical ocean cruise ship.

Dining on board the Bellejour is excellent. Breakfast is offered buffet style, with a chef on duty creating personalized omelettes made to order. Lunch and dinner offer selections via a menu. The dinner menu offers three main selections; meat, seafood or vegetarian options. Seating in the dining room is arranged in advance. The food was very, very good.

The majority of passengers aboard the Bellejour are German; in total, passengers from nine different countries were on board. All announcements and speeches were delivered in German language and English language. The average passenger age when we were on board was probably 70-75. There were no child passengers.

The Bellejour staff were amazing. Rather than the "pecking order" seen on larger ships, these people seemed to really work together to make the ship hum smoothly. In the dining room, courses were served then dishes were taken away with amazing precision.

A Bellejour Newsletter was delivered to each cabin while the guests were at dinner. This Newsletter announced and described the next day's destination, and what tours and excursions were available. Passengers smoothly come and go from the ship at each port... no lineups, no waiting.

We have travelled many ocean cruises... this was our first river cruise. The Bellejour has certainly delivered a quality holiday. Highly recommended.

[easyboy]

Thank you for your review. It was informational for us planning to migrate to river cuising.

 

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Forums mobile app

[redlac]

Hello easyboy... Hope you have a wonderful river cruise! Here is a photograph of the Bellejour beside a full size ocean cruise ship.

 

[notamermaid]

Hello redlac,

 

thank you for the review. Lovely to read that you had a good time. It is very interesting to read about a different ship and a different company. An unusual choice for a North-American. The Bellejour is essentially German, German-built and German owned. She was christened Johann Strauss but had her name changed in 2013 when she was chartered by Transocean. In 2013 as you can read I sailed on the Belvedere and I read about the Bellejour's itineraries. The Bellejour is now with Select Voyages, I won't go into detail about the new company/ship structures. You can look up (only in German) some info on the Bellejour: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellejour On the Belvedere there where European guests on my sailing and there was going to be a whole group of British passengers on the next sailing, I was told. But no Americans.

 

The German origin (registered in Malta, though) is the reason the Bellejour is not in the list of ships that can be reviewed.

 

How did you find Select Voyages and the Bellejour?

 

notamermaid