Avalon Grand France Southbound

[Suzanne123]

If anyone has taken this cruise, can you explain what goes on the day we take the high speed train from Paris to Dijon and bus to Beaune?  Lunch is not included.  Are we on the train at that point or are we on a bus stop near restaurants?  I read somewhere that we can upgrade our train seats.  Is that available? Thanks.

[jsn55]

I did this cruise in April.  Actually two cruises, Provence to Paris on Poetry, then Tapestry for Paris-Normandy-Paris.  The 'transfer between ships in Paris' was a VERY long day.  There were severe water-level issues the entire two weeks, so it may not always be that bad.  I'll try to recreate it here.  We boarded a bus at 730am (Lyon I think) and boarded Tapestry in Paris about 5pm.  Very nice stop in Beaune with a walking tour.  At some point we stopped for lunch on our own, Avalon gave us cash for lunch.  The guide was very helpful and we had a nice meal with a little time for walking around and a tour of some wonderful building. 

 

Back on the bus to Dijon to board a train.  For those of us with little train experience, it was a harrowing adventure, with a local guide who just kept babbling about what and how we were going to board the train.  We were in the middle of the Dijon station bustling with travellers, looking at incomprehensible TV boards full of constantly changing information.  We finally figured it out and got on the right train.  Not a bad ride to Gare duNord, we were hustled out to board yet another bus to go find Tapestry.  Apparently she had been moved and it seemed that nobody knew exactly where she was moored!  After seemingly hours driving around Paris, we finally found her.  That's when we found out that she had not sailed at all the week before because of the water-level issues.  I was glad to not have known that!  Tapestry must have been moored up on the north end of la Seine.  It was a beautiful day and I was very disappointed to not sail through Paris itself, but glad to be on my way to Normandy.  

 

Other than catching the train, Avalon handled it all very well, our Cruise Director probably hadn't had a decent night's sleep for a week.  Looking back, I hadn't done my usual research into all the details of that last day ... definitely not prepared for an all-day transit.  Not unpleasant at all, but VERY long!  It was very comforting to know that no matter what happened, Avalon would take very good care of us.

[Daisi]

@Suzanne123, @jsn55 raises a good point. Do some research on the trains and platforms for your trip. Even if Avalon is holding your hand right up to boarding, it's always nice to know how things work. 

 

We don't have easy access to transit - bus/tram/trains where I live. Our first cruise, we arrived a few days early to do some of our own exploring. We took our first tram the day we arrived, our first train on the 2nd day. Thanks to watching several YouTube videos (and major help planning from a site - The Man in Seat 61) I had it fairly down pat as to what was required and how to use the trams (and what trams to take). We ended our cruise with a milk-run trip by train from Basel back to Amsterdam, and it was very smooth switching trains about 4-5 times. Just knowing how things operate (and knowing what to look for on the signs in a foreign language) helped a lot.

 

Enjoy your cruise, we have the French cruises on our bucket list..

[Suzanne123]

Thanks so much for your advice. I’ve done the northern France and southern France cruises previously, but never as a back to back. I wasn’t sure how they were going to keep all the cruisers together or if we were basically on our own after they provided a train ticket.

[cbr663]

I echo the previous posters' advice to try and prepare yourself as much as possible prior to taking your cruise.

 

We took a train from Basel to Lucerne during our recent Avalon cruise and we had placed our faith in our Cruise Director.  That faith was a mistake.  When we arrived at the train station several of us in our group saw the CD struggling with determining which platform to take and we had to tell her which it was.  She then tried to lead us to the platform and it was obvious this was her first time at the train station and she didn't know her way.  We had to go underground in order to reach the platform and the CD would stop us as a group and run ahead to try and figure out the way.  This created problems for other passengers to have this large group just stop in the underground hallways.

 

Once we eventually got to the platform it is important to understand that your group will be sharing the platform with all the other passengers.  Public announcements notifying us of delays were difficult to hear with many in our group refusing to stop talking and refusing to pay attention.  The CD had no idea how we could determine our train number until the train actually arrived and then it was a mad dash as we discovered that we should not all be together as a group and had to quickly move up and down the platform to board the correct train car.  And if you are not use to boarding trains, you have to do this quickly as everyone else is trying to get off.