Firstly, can I thank you and your collegues at Blue Water Holidays for the courteous, friendly and efficient manner with which you dealt with our reservations. We were delighted that you were able to find us such a brilliant value cruise and to point us in the direction of something a little out of the ordinary. We shall have no hesitation about using Blue Water in the future and will gladly recommend your company to anyone we know who is looking for a cruise holiday.
Happily we can also report most favourably on CroisiEurope. We had never come across this company before and were extremely happy with the service offered. We were warmly greeted at the dockside in Seville where our baggage was instantly taken from us and delivered to our cabins. The booking-in was smooth and efficient. All staff were helpful and friendly. There were only 8 English speaking passengers on board but announcements were always made in English as well as French and Spanish. To demonstrate equality of treatment, the staff varied the order of language used so they would sometimes begin in English and end in French and, another time, vice versa.
The MS Belle of Cadiz was scrupulously clean and everything in our cabin was in perfect working order. With outside temperatures sometimes in excess of 40 degrees C, we really appreciated the efficient air con. We were pleased to be on the middle deck because we had picture windows whereas those on the bottom deck only had portholes.
What a truly beautiful city Seville is. We would probably never have gone there had it not been the starting point for the cruise. We intend to return when the weather is cooler (it was 42 degrees F in August) when I am sure we will enjoy it all the more.
The restaurant was of a particularly highy standard. Food was not only excellently prepared, it was also presented with flair and served by enthusiastic and cheerful waiters. It was nice that we had waiter service and there was only one sitting so we did not have to make a choice between eating early or late. The Bar/lounge was very comfortable and spacious and the music in the evening was appropriate to the country. Unfortunately we are not proficient with the Paso Doble but we enjoyed watching those who were familiar with it!
There is something very special about cruising a river, relaxing on a sun deck, watching the activity on the river banks, and the facilities on the Belle de Cadix were good - comfortable loungers in the sun and tables and chairs under the canopy.
Over the years, we have learnt to treat excursions offered by tour operators with a degree of scepticism - they are always greatly overpriced - so we were selective with what we chose on this cruise. Some were good and some mediocre. What was important, however, was that the local guides used always made great efforts to explain to us in English. One in particular gave his spiel in French and Spanish and then came and spoke to us personally, which was appreciated.
Overall, we would say that CroisiEurope, despite having so few English speaking passengers, went out of their way to accommodate our needs. At no time did we feel left out or second class. It was actually quite fun to be with passengers mainly of other nationalities and many went out of their way to speak or converse with us - with varying degrees of proficiency in English and we endeavoured to respond suitably in basic French.