Douro river cruise May 5 through May 19

[vwtlat7]

 For those of you who were on the Douro river cruise to start in Madrid on May 12 here is some information. I am on the cruise on the Douro that started on May 5. It is now May 18 and I am in a hotel in Madrid. We leave for home tomorrow. While on the cruise, on May 10, the cruise Director informed us that all future cruises on the Douro for the remainder of the year were to be canceled. All of the workers on the boat would have no jobs when the cruise ended. When pressed for the reason why, the tour Director was very evasive. We assume it was financial. In speaking to the other cruisers, many of us had problems with our flights being rebooked, leaving the states. And when we got here, the tour guides were unable to provide us with any headsets for our tours. As you will know this is an issue since there are at least 40 people in each tour group, so it was very difficult to hear the guides who were screaming at the top of their lungs. When pressed about the headsets, again, Vantage was very evasive. They said there was a problem with the headset company. This is not believable since on most of our tours, Viking tour groups were walking right along with us, and they all had headsets. Both hotels were both top rated. The rooms on the Douro Serenity were very small and the food was not as good as it normally is on vantage owned boats. We spent a lot of time on buses going to, and from the tours, which were not close to the boat. Many people people were sick for most of the trip, probably due to the close contact on the buses. All in all it was a pretty nice trip, and I am glad we got to go because in no way do I believe that we would have gotten our money back if canceled. I am truly sorry that those of you who were to start your trip on 12 May were canceled at the last minute. Best of luck in trying to get your refund. We will not be booking with Vantage anytime soon.