Riviera River Cruises

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William Shakespeare

Jane Austen

Douro Elegance

Thomas Hardy

Oscar Wilde

Lord Byron

Emily Bronte

George Eliot

This review endorses that of BJ149 regarding his July 2019 cruise on this ship and should be read in tandem.  (We only wish we had read it before booking!).

We have enjoyed nearly sixty ocean cruises and three river cruises (this being our first with Riviera) and never before have we experienced such inefficiency, poor administration, lack of courtesy, mediocre food, poor service and overall non-professionalism.

It started when we arrived at Marseille airport as three unfortunate passengers, also bound for Lord Byron, became stuck in the aircraft lift and no-one had any idea when they could or would be released.  The courier who met us was adamant that we remaining thirty-seven passengers would have to wait for their release before we could be coached to the ship, one hour forty-five minutes away.  After waiting in the airport for well over an hour, we suggested to the courier that we all be taken to the ship and the three others be taxied later, but he said he had no authority to do this, nor was there any way he could obtain it.  After some persuasion, he permitted us to board the coach so that we could at least sit down while we waited.

All of us now were becoming quite irate as some passengers had already been travelling for nearly ten hours, so with the agreement of all, one of us rang Riviera in England, explained the situation and asked for someone to authorise the courier to let us be taken to the ship and have the three missing passengers taxied when they were released as who knew when that would be?  It was Sophie who took the call and promised to ring back - but that never happened at all.

This set the scene for the rest of the cruise:

When we eventually got to the ship, in view of the late hour we were unceremoniously herded into the dining room for a buffet dinner but, just like BJ149, instead of being greeted with cheerful smiles and sympathy for our delay, we were rushed into placing drinks orders with surly waiters, many of whom were lacking in courtesy or professionalism, and indeed did not appear to have been trained properly.  Despite being told there would be a few tables for two at the time of our booking, there were none.  We booked one of the four top suites on the ship which seemed to offer no privileges at all except the extra space, and one could reasonably expect that we be given a table for two as advised at the time of our booking.  

Our food that first evening - and thereafter - was of mediocre quality, with very, very little choice.  All breakfasts, lunches and part of some dinners were buffets and as the size of the dining room does not accommodate the space needed, invariably there was a scrum, particularly at breakfast time.  Alarmingly, there was no policing or management of the serving tongs which people would regularly leave on top of the food, thus spreading germs to all as was self-evident by an increasing number of passengers contracting a cold during the course of the cruise, including many of the staff.

Our cabin was clean but on trying out our bed for comfort, we discovered the mattresses were just slabs of foam - not even memory foam!  Our cabin stewardess brought duvets to put on top of the mattresses which made them slightly softer, and confirmed that they had already had many complaints about the hardness of the beds.

The so-called complimentary WiFi on board was almost non-existent as confirmed by the Hotel Manager who agreed that it was a very basic receiving system.  We passengers were actively encouraged to use our own data allowance rather than rely on the ship's WiFi.  We know that a ship's satellite connection is always slower than on land, but this was appalling, even with full signal!  It took ninety minutes to only part-download a newspaper which would take just ten minutes on any other ship!

We were obliged to buy our own soft toilet paper from a local supermarket as on board it was thick, hard, rough and most unpleasant.  Its texture and thickness were extremely surprising considering the ship's vacuum system.

We were advised that the water from the bathroom taps was of drinking quality but it tasted earthy so, again, we were obliged to purchase our own.

There was a distinct lack of entertainment on board other than the resident pianist/singer each evening.  A "treat" promised to us after dinner one evening turned out to be just a quiz which was repeated a couple of evenings later.  Some members of the crew put on their own show which was amateurish and embarrassing.  

Television was very limited, with only one channel showing films in English, just two per day at 3 pm and 9.30 pm, which had to be started manually by someone in Reception and was often forgotten altogether.  The DVD/film system is very basic, much like the WiFi.  Blank looks met our request that the films be played continuously throughout the day .

The excursions were very much as commented upon by BJ149 in his review, so nothing has changed there then!

We have to agree with BJ149's concluding paragraph - and we will not be choosing Riviera ever again.

Lord Byron - River Rhone

We had high hopes of this cruise with previous experience of the company and fairly good reviews. The flight to Lyon was fine but had to wait nearly 30 minutes for one of our party in a wheelchair who seemed to have very little assistance which I was promised also but didn’t get. To get to the coach with was parked some 10 minutes walk away across roads up and down pavements hauling all your luggage was a mission for me with breathing difficulties. I was promised assistance but got none. Arrived at ship 1.5 hrs later.

The M S Lord Byron is a nice ship with reasonable sized cabins and nice bathrooms. We had booked the top deck.

Food was cold on Ist night and they didn’t have half of the wines available from their wine list. Said they had sold out on last trip. Didn’t bother to restock. Food improved during the week but still poor at times. Service was average due to inexperienced staff most of whom were training. Some bar staff didn’t know all the drinks and one didn’t know what soda water was.

The egg station at breakfast was a joke as the chef there hadn’t a clue how to cook eggs and omelettes and when asked for a Spanish omelette the customer had to tell him how to make it. 

Lots of coach travel for excursions but overall they were very good.

The two hosts on board for the week did very little other than enjoy themselves.

Return journey to Marseille Airport was another 1.5 hrs and another hike to the Terminal with no assistance.

Flight home uneventful except for a 15 minutes disembark problem at Heathrow.

To sum up there were a lot of issues with service and food and drink and generally very unprofessional for is a very expensive weeks cruise. Won’t use this company again as they weren’t forthcoming with the assistance and information about travelling to and from the ship.

Not as good as our heart of Europe cruise 2 years ago with Riviera.

Just returned from a 7 night cruise to Provence on the river Rhône from Lyons to Avignon. 

The ship is classed as 5 star, but I would take issue with that.

What we found disappointing, was the way the cruise was structured. We started the cruise at Lyons, then sailed upriver to Chalon sur Soane for Beaune, we had a pleasant excursion to Beaune, after which we sailed slowly back down the river past Lyons again. We then made our way down river to Vienne and then stopped overnight at Tournon. I’ve no idea why we stopped there, I suppose they had to stop somewhere, but we arrived in Tournon at 5pm(ish) on a Sunday night with nothing open and dinner was being served at 7 and we left in the morning at 8am, so although we went for a walk after dinner , it was all pretty pointless. Next morning we continued on to Arles, then sailed back upriver to Avignon. Now the point I’m trying to make is that there are a great many locks on the river, but these would have been significantly less if the cruise had been structured to start in Beaune and end in Arles. I presume they want to start and end the cruise in places of more interest, but passing up and down through more locks than was truly necessary was pretty wearing and frustrating. 

The staff were friendly and hard working. The hotel manager Veronica was everywhere keeping an eye on things. The food was usually excellent, although there was a problem with timing during the welcome aboard dinner. It took 3 hours to serve. We had both ordered beef for mains which when eventually served was very rare. I like my beef at the very least medium, but we’d waited so long for it to be served we ate it anyway. 

I will say the rest of the dinners were much better. Breakfast was good, although slightly eccentric. Sausages should be beef or pork, never chicken!  There was a chef making omelettes and fried eggs. Boiled eggs could be ordered which my companion did one day and it was excellent.  

We always ate lunch in the Lido bar at the back of the ship, which served a light lunch and this was always nice. The coffee machine was also situated here, however that broke several times, but was fairly promptly repaired. 

The panoramic lounge is pretty bog standard, club chairs with some longer couch type seating, the seating was disappointingly not overly comfortable. On this cruise we had quite a lot of time to watch the world go by as we sailed slowly down the river, but the chairs weren’t really comfortable enough to allow you to lounge for any length of time. I expected squashy sofa type seating for comfort, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. 

The reception area is very attractive and the reception staff were helpful. 

All in all I enjoyed the holiday, but it wasn’t the 5 star experience I was expecting.

Nice ship, but not 5 star

After being bombarded by a plethora of river cruise advertisements, a leisurely cruise down the River Rhone stopping at mediaeval villages visiting vineyards sounded a good option. 

This cruise on Riviera Travel’s Lord Byron from Lyon to Avignon (or in our case the reverse) proved to be a huge disappointment. After a four hour exhausting motorway drive in the rush hour from Lyon Airport we arrived at the Lord Byron berthed in Avignon at about 8.30pm, some fourteen hours after we set off, only just in time for a late dinner. It was interesting that some of the passengers were flown to Marseilles, a lot closer to Avignon but then had to be coached back at the end. We did think it would have made more sense to fly us all out to Marseilles and fly home from Lyon, but I suppose that would be too complicated.

Our first impression of the cabins were that they were quite small with only enough room to get round the bed,  no sofa of course, and no long hanging space in the tiny wardrobes. Saying this, they were kept incredibly clean.

Our first confrontation with the waiting staff did not make a good impression. A menu was thrust into our hands and “Order drinks!!” barked out before I could get my feet under the table. Unsure about what epicurean delights we were about to consume I begged humbly for a few minutes to get our bearings, without success. With a lot of demanding and eye rolling on his part he stomped off to re-appear a few seconds later like Manuel in Fawlty Towers bellowing “Drinks!!” again and again, only satisfied when we gave him a random order to shut him up.

Unfortunately this set the tone for the remainder of the cruise. The idea of good customer service seemed to sit uncomfortably on the shoulders of the mainly Bulgarian waiting staff. On one occasion I received a cocktail with no spirit in it and the bar manager refused to believe me, and another time when waiting to be served coffee at breakfast I was told off in no uncertain terms when I told the waiter we had been there for twenty minutes.

I have been on 25+ ocean cruises from rock bottom standard to 6 stars and have never encountered service as bad as this, and, coupled with mediocre food we found it hard to believe that this was advertised as 5 star luxury. It was interesting to note that both the food and the surly expressions on the waiters faces transformed on the last night. This couldn’t have anything to do with gratuities being due could it? Heaven forbid. 

 The actual itinery of the cruise was not what I expected. The only wine tasting that was organised was in a cellar in the middle of the town of Beaune which seemed odd as we could have stopped at the numerous wonderful vineyards that we passed through later on and only viewed from the coach. Avignon and Arles were interesting places to visit but, in general, coach trips were the order of the day and on two occasions in the week the boat moved on while you were on the coach and you rejoined the boat at a different place. Erm…forgive me, I thought this was a cruising holiday not a coach tour.

Opting to miss one of the trips so we could experience the actual river cruising, the realisation of the geography of the Rhone was brought home to us. There are massive locks about every 20 minutes which meant that we had to stop and wait, once for over an hour, then enter these huge concrete tombs and sit for another half hour. As the French rely on these for part of their electricity supply the locks are huge blots on the landscape surrounded by ugly concrete buildings and electricity pylons. There was no shade on deck as the sunshades were taken down for low bridges.(Although I did see one river boat with better designed sun shades that they could leave up all the time)The Saone was totally different but unfortunately we only cruised a short time on this lovely river.

We arrived at Viennes and Beaune in the heat of the afternoon when only “mad dogs”etc were around and on two occasions we were told that the museums, shops etc were closed on that particular day. Our impression was that the passengers had to fit around the itinery that was easier for the company rather than the other way round.

There was no entertainment on the ship apart from a pianist who played quietly (thank goodness) each night to a bizarre selection of odd, poor quality backing tracks including “A Child is born” by Johnny Mathis virtually every night. In July?.... Weird. A staff show was performed on one evening which was amateurish and embarrassing.

If you like coach trips, mediocre food, hard seating, rude, or at best, indifferent service, this might just be the holiday for you or…..you might like a respite week at the local care home. Take your pick.

Riviera cruises, Lord Byron --Rhone .

My wife and I have never fancied an ocean cruise but saw an advert for the Burgundy, River Rhone and Provence cruise which took our fancy as we had several French holidays with our children many years ago. The cruise was everything we hoped for despite the poor weather. We booked a deluxe suite on Diamond deck and this was as large as many of the hotel rooms we have had over the years. The only drawback, if there was one, was that no suite/cabin on Lord Byron has a full balcony, but our suite had a full-size sliding door which we could open and enjoy the views.

The reception area was excellent as were the lounge, restaurant and lido bar/restaurant. There was also a small boutique, steam room, sauna and hairdresser's. The sun deck had plenty of loungers, a giant chess board, a putting green and small splash pool/Jacuzzi.

Breakfasts were buffets (hot and cold) with plenty of choices plus waiter service full English, smoked salmon with scrambled eggs etc. Lunches were also buffets with once again plenty of choices. Dinners were waiter service 4 courses (6 on the gala night). All of the food was first rate.

The crew were all polite, friendly but professional and all of them seemed to have a great sense of humour. They put on a show one night and every passenger thoroughly enjoyed it. On all other nights, a pianist entertained.

The tour director and tour manager were both very good and the arranged tours (with professional local guides) also very good. Highlights of the tours were Avignon, Pont du Gard, Ardeche gorges, Beaune (and the Burgundy vineyards) and Vieux Lyon.

All in all we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise, couldn't fault anything and will certainly think about another river cruise.

Totally enjoyable first river cruise..

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