FRENCH WATERWAYS HOLIDAY CRUISE: HIGHLIGHTS OF BURGUNDY, PROVENCE & PARIS, by VANTAGE DELUXE WORLD TOURS, 11 nights on the ship & 4 night extension. 12/1/2013

INTRODUCTION: Since there seems to be a scarcity of reviews for Vantage Deluxe World Travel river cruises I’d like to add some reflections on our recent cruise and a few comments on the company and their new offering: "French Waterways Holiday Cruise: Highlights of Burgundy, Provence & Paris" on the Discovery 2 beginning December 1 . Before I begin, let me say that while my husband and I have lived abroad and traveled for business and pleasure throughout our lives we are not particularly experienced with river cruising. This was our first Vantage cruise. Our only other river cruise was with Avalon on the Danube. We are in our early sixties.

VANTAGE MARKETING: I admit that at the outset I was concerned about signing on with Vantage because there is so little information about it on Cruise Critic or other sites, our travel agent didn’t know of the company, and pricing for the French Holiday Cruise seemed rather low for what they were offering. Apparently Vantage doesn’t advertise much in travel magazines or on TV and they don’t market through travel agents, so the line doesn’t get a lot of mentions or reviews in the press or on blogs. They rely on ‘Word of Mouth’, direct mail, past passengers, or their online site to attract business. I think this keeps their pricing very competitive or somewhat less than other river cruise lines like Avalon, Uniworld, Tauck and Viking. In fact, while on the cruise we learned that the Vantage ‘Affinity’ program of ‘friends recruiting friends’ accrued big discounts and ‘bonuses’ for participating returning passengers and was very popular. Read more