Planning for travel, traveling, and reflecting on travel are some of my absolute FAVORITE things to do! I try to blog as soon as I get back when the memories are most fresh. They take awhile, but I’m glad to have them later! I’m also glad that I have a week off before work begins. We’ll see how many of these there are!

About four years ago, Richard and I started seriously considering a river cruise. We wanted to go to the French wine regions but didn’t feel confident just venturing out on our own to an entirely different continent where we didn’t speak the language. Then, I started to narrow down WHERE we wanted to go: Bordeaux? or Rhone? In the end, Rhone won out for us for its beauty and because we LOVE Syrah and Grenache… and the trip we picked threw Burgundy (Pinot Noir) in there for good measure, so why not?

We have found that river cruising is a great introduction to a region. We will certainly go back to go more in depth, but we loved it for getting a literal and figurative taste of each place. Pack once, unpack once, and have people already set up to show you each place without making a single other plan.

Once we planned where we were going, I started really researching the cruise lines. In reality, all river cruises are going to be “luxury.” I went with Uniworld because the alcohol program was all-inclusive. (Many of the cruise lines only offer beer and wine at lunch and dinner; other spirits or drinks at other times have a price. A few- Scenic, Tauk, Uniworld, and likely others- offer full bar service all day.) I also chose Uniworld because of the lavishly decorated ships. Some people think that’s a downfall of Uniworld. We walked by an AMA ship that was sleek, modern and gorgeous. It’s all a matter of taste.

Once I had already decided, I contacted an old high school pal, with Beeline travel to bee (see what I did there?) my travel advisor. This contact was in December 2019… for a cruise planned for June 2021. Whelp, life happened… and the reschedule was for July 2022… We scheduled everything through Jennifer with Beeline and Uniworld. As expected, flights kept shifting and changing up until a few weeks before. Ultimately, things couldn’t have gone more smoothly.

We flew business class Austin>Houston>Montreal>Lyon to get there. ALL of the flights were delayed, which worked just fine… We left Austin at 5 AM on July 23 and arrived in Lyon on Sunday at 7 AM. That, friends, is a travel time of 19 hours… Stopped at the Air Canada lounge to get some poutine and greatly enjoyed the lovely little pods on business class. The lights were turned off just after the meal, and it was actually a pretty peaceful flight, but not long enough for a good night’s sleep (the lights were out and there was little movement for about four hours, the whole flight was only a little longer than 6).

Once in Lyon, we exited the plane and found our Uniworld rep pretty quickly and were whisked off to a very nice Mercedes Benz bus. All busses on the trip were very comfortable and none of our rides (except the one in Burgundy) were longer than a half hour. The weather felt great in the early morning.

It was surreal to be going down the road and seeing the names of places I’d only learned about in school and in wine classes.

The ship was about 30 minutes away, and when we arrived it was QUITE early. Our room wasn’t guaranteed to be ready until 3, and I think we arrived around nine. We wandered around the ship for awhile before deciding to wander around Lyon. On that first day, after very little sleep, we didn’t wander around for long. The temperatures were in the mid 90’s and we knew that we would have more time time discover the town later, so we went back to the lounge to have a few cocktails and wait for our room. Staying awake was a STRUGGLE!

We eventually dragged our zombie selves to lunch. Immediately afterward, we were greeted by the WONDERFUL hotel manager, Daniela. She told us she knew we had been there since very early, and our room was ready for checkin! We couldn’t have been more excited. We wanted a shower. We wanted a nap! The room had EXCELLENT storage. There were drawers everywhere, and the bathroom, although small, definitely was serviceable. I wish the bathroom had better ventilation, but the room itself stayed plenty cold. We got a French balcony room, which meant that the far wall of our room was one giant window. We could open it down halfway which essentially turned the whole room into a balcony. I was happy with the room. I had no desire for a standard balcony room, but a suite could have been nice! The standard balcony room actually takes up a little bit of your room space to make a “balcony” which isn’t really usable at all. (I wouldn’t have minded a little more space from the suite, but the room was very comfortable.)

After dinner, it was back to the Van Gogh lounge. Every night began with a cocktail hour of passed hors d’oeuvres and an explanation of the upcoming events. We were also introduced to our hotel staff each night. Ingrid organized all the tours and gave all the options for each day. Most tours were included. There were some for which you could pay extra (masterpiece tours) or you could just do your own thing. There were SO many options! Also, each night the sommelier would describe the white and red choices for dinner. They were always regional and always interesting.

At our first dinner we met some of our first cruise friends, Gene and Susan from Idaho. We were surprised by the age of people on the ship. We were expecting MOST to be in their 70s and 80s. That didn’t seem to be the case. I would say that most were in their mid 60s or younger. (There were quite a few in their 20s as well). The dinners, for me, were hit or miss. It was all beautifully presented. Most of the time the chicken dishes were very good, the desserts were very good, but seasoning and cook times seemed off on quite a few meals. Still, nothing to keep me from wanting to return time and time again! Each night you had an appetizer, a soup, a main, and a dessert, BUT you could choose as many or as few of each of those as you liked.

Most nights involved cruising the river during and after dinner. It was lovely to go up to any of the many decks and watch the countryside (or cities) of France go by. Day one had been wonderful, and we couldn’t wait for waking up in Macon in order to take our journey to Beaune, France on day two.