The La Belle de L'Adriatique is a old vessel with a capacity of 150 passengers. We cruised the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik to Naples. I would not recommend this vessel for those expecting a luxury cruise. I think the European market is a better fit, but not for the American cruiser that expects a certain standard. The lounge on this vessel is the ugliest I have ever seen on a cruise ship. I have cruised 23 times. The colors are dark chocolate brown & milk chocolate brown. No cheer what so ever. There are many oil paintings on the walls throughout he ship which did not inspire me at all. The art in the cabin was amateurish. As this was a charter cruise I cannot comment on the beverages included. Food was good for all three meals. Service by the Philippino staff in the dining room was okay. They would at times reach over in my face to deliver & take plates. I had to be vigilant as at times they would take away my unfinished meal. The maids were cheerful. The laundry room for the ship was a few doors from our cabin with an open door. I have never been on a ship that had the ship's laundry on the same floor as guest cabins. This could be a problem with people sensitive to laundry products. If you don't mind the rough edges this is a ship for you. Looking for a more luxury experience you need to go elsewhere. Read Less

I wanted a small ship experience and I was also keen to try out a French ship - I was travelling with my children and they all learn French at school and I thought it would be a good chance for them to practice with natives! And this was a family sailing too, so I thought there might be some other kids on board for them to befriend. In the event there weren't many other children (though there were some) but my children still spoke French to plenty of the adults who were very friendly and chatted to them in the tender boats or in the pool on the sun deck. It was lovely. And there were some English-speakers on the boat too, so that was fun and they were sat on the table next to us in the restaurant. What did we like about the cruise? We LOVED the food - it was 10/10 gourmet superb and mealtimes were an absolute delight. At first we thought it was too much having a 3-course meal for lunch as well as dinner, but we soon got used to it. And it ended up being much healthier, because none of us snacked between meals which is very unusual for my children! We also loved that the ship stopped in more than one port on some days and that we could just hop off and explore somewhere new for a couple of hours, get back onboard for lunch, then arrive at 2pm somewhere new for the afternoon. It was great fun and really diverse, especially as we loved all the stops. Mljet with its saltwater lakes was awesome. Hvar (like a French St. Tropez) was also great. Vis had a great beach. Split is awesome. Ditto dubrovnik and Kotor where we hiked up to the fortifications which was a real challenge in all that heat. And it was always nice to come back to our ship. The staff were all very friendly and one of our onboard higlights was the first show the staff put on for us! Another highlight was me winning a game played on sun deck whilst at sea. It was a fluke, but I got presented with a bottle of bubbly at dinner that night which was lovely! There was a pool and exercise bikes on the sun deck which was a bonus and suprise considering this is such a small boat. Back to the food - there were a couple of really special touches that I've never had on another ship. One was a BBQ on the sun deck for dinner, whilst we were docked in Split and the other was breakfast on sun deck as we sailed into the stunning bay of Kotor in Montenegro. We only did one shore excursion, preferring otherwise to go it alone, because I didn't think my kids would thank me for dragging them around churches/monasteries. The one place I was so grateful we went it alone was in Mljet where there are two saltwater lakes in the national park. Had we done the excursion there is would have cost about $250 for the four of us. Instead, I just paid for us all to enter the park ($50 approx) and then we walked by oursleves to the lakes where we swam for an hour and a half in one of the most stunning places I have ever swum. Had we done the excursion we wouldn't have had time to swim and would have just seen the glorious lakes and then taken a little boat to a monastery. The shore excursion we DID do was from Sibenik to the Krka National Park. Instead of doing the classic tour (really for the less unadventurous person) we did a new 'dynamic' excursion which was slightly longer, with lots of hiking throug this park which was STUNNING as well as time to swim in one of the park's famous waterfalls. This wasn't cheap this excursion, but it was worth every penny. We had a great day! Read Less

Much has been written in previous reviews on this website about this ship and the cruise among the islands and ports of South Dalmatia plus Kotor in Montenegro with which I entirely agree. I will just add some extra points which occur to me. First, unlike one reviewer, we booked direct through Voyages Jules Verne. Transport to the ship and back to the airport was included in the price of our holiday and we did not have to pay anything extra. Aboard the ship, they made full use of the sundeck and one evening we had a barbecue and one morning when we were passing through many islands on the very scenic approach to Kotor, they served breakfast up there. Our cabin was on Deck 3 which was very convenient for the restaurant. The only problem was that you could hear the ship's dynamo or a similar noise all the time whether or not the ship was in dock but you quickly got used to it. I agree with one reviewer that the safe was on a top shelf. Whilst I could reach it, it was not very convenient. The food was excellent. Whilst my wife is on a diet, the restaurant manager was very accommodating and always provided an alternative if there was something she did not want to eat on the menu. It is probably a good idea to mention it to your travel agent when you are first booking which we did. There are many good tours with good English-speaking guides. Although I am slightly disabled and walk with a stick, people were very friendly and supportive. Whenever we went ashore in a ship's tender, at the time to come back on board, they used to provide fresh cold, mint tea at the landing quay. This was always welcome and refreshing. Like another reviewer we were a fairly small group, 16, of English-speaking tourists amongst mainly French people with two Americans and I think a few Germans but everyone was very friendly. To sum up, we had a very enjoyable holiday and would certainly go again. Read Less

We wanted to visit Croatia and hike while cruising and that was exactly what we got. The ship is very clean, well managed, everything works, smooth and quiet sailing, with excellent staff, food and service. Our cabin was the basic cabin and perfectly adequate. We had two hikes a day with two guides and about 40 passengers so we got to see more of each island, be outside in the lovely weather and get al ot of exercise so we could enjoy the great food and drink in the evenings. Our guides were great, some of the hikes were quite strenuous but always well planned with beautiful scenery everywhere. We enjoyed getting to know the other hiking passengers. I liked the fact that the very reasonable price included everything, all excursions, drinks, etc etc. so there were no "extras". There were fairly simple programs in the evenings which was fine because our days were very full. The Dalmatian coast is absolutely stunning so everywhere we went was gorgeous. Even though there were only 4 English speakers, they provided special English speaking guides in a couple of the cities where there were historical sites. We will definitely go on another CroisiEurope cruise as soon as we can. Read Less

We booked this cruise through Kuoni, and they found us a Voyages Jules Verne cruise. There was a party of 19 (all English) and we were allocated Places on Croisi Europe cruise. The ship had 100 cabins and was just the right size for our first experience of cruising. On arrival at Dubrovnik Airport we were met by Ivor, our taxi driver who took our bags and drove us in a Mercedes to the port where our ship was docked. We had paid for private transfers £55 per person each way, totally £220 for return journey. ( I will comment on return journey later) We were greeted by the Cruise Director, George, on arrival and were allowed to leave our luggage on board until it was time to register for our cabin later in the day. The cabin was really nice with a compact shower room, but had plenty of storage space. There was a safe, but it was situated on a high shelf so was rather awkward to get to as were not tall enough to reach it. The twin beds were comfortable and the linen was clean and fresh, towels were changed every day and were displayed on the bed in some very decorative patterns. There were 50 crew members and at the evening meal we were introduced to the Captain and the officers and crew by George, our Cruise Director. All of the crew were friendly and gave excellent service to all, in the restaurant the waiters introduced themselves and they had a set number of tables to serve. The only critique we had was that the French passengers were all served first and we, The English, were always last to be served, hence we were unable to view the concerts and special entertainments, as there was no room left for us in the Salon Bar/Lounge. The food was exceptional, three courses for lunch and dinner with plenty of wine to accompany it. The Chef and his team prepared first class meals which were enjoyed by all. The breakfasts were buffet style and all tastes were satisfied. For our Party, all shore excursions, were included and they were excellent, with Engish Speaking tour guides on each occasion. We stopped at some wonderful locations and every time were treated to some beautiful scenery and historic wonders. The two lounge areas onboard had bar facilities and drinks were free and an early morning coffee service was also provided as there was no coffee making facilities in the cabins. All of the areas accessible to us were well maintained and immaculately maintained. All too soon our cruise came to an end and it was time to depart for the airport, As we had paid for the transfer to Voyages Jules Verne at the time of booking, we expected the same standard of vehicle that had brought us from the airport, to take us back, but this was not the case, we were told we had to share the transport, which was a six seater people carrier back to the airport, and as I had a problem with my knee it was so hard for me to get up into the seat and then get down again, and we learnt that the 4 people sharing the transport had not paid for their transfer, as they had transfers included in the price of their holiday. So that meant that we had paid £110 for our return to the airport, when adverts for local taxis were charging 35 Euros for up to 4 persons with luggage to get from Port to the airport. We felt that we had been ripped off by VJV. We have complained to VJV about this but did not get a satisfactory reply, so we will definitely not be recommending them in the future to anyone. Also our Travel agent at Kuoni feels that they treated us unfairly and they will be very careful not to recommend them to their customers. VJV have lost our future business and we have booked two cruises next year with another company. Very poor Customer service from them. Read Less

We chose this cruise mainly because we enjoy the small ship experience and I love anything French! Out of the 140 odd people on board, there were only 10 native English speakers, 2 from Australia, 2 from USA, 2 from Scotland and 4 from New Zealand. The rest were French and I believe a few German. The staff did their best to make sure we were informed in English and provided separate tour guides for "the English Speaking group", who all got on 'like a house on fire' and had a wonderful time. The ship was comfortable, we didn't find the cabin to be overly small - it's certainly not large, but it was adequate, as was the bathroom. Even though we had booked 12 months in advance, we were only offered the bottom level cabins, so only had a porthole. Must admit we found the cabin to be a bit "smelly" and we often felt like we would have loved to throw open a window! None of the cabin windows on any level are made to be opened. Not a huge problem and I think we became accustomed to the smell in the room. The food was good, but not fantastic! We personally found the 3 course sit down meal twice a day, once too much. Would have loved the option of a salad or sandwich bar for lunch! The Filipino staff and in fact, all the staff on board are wonderful and worked very hard to make sure we had a wonderful cruise, which we did! The itinerary is excellent, although I wished we would have had a bit more time in Kotor, Montenegro. We were under the impression from the original itinerary that the ship would be leaving Kotor at 4.30, but in fact, on our visit it left around 2.30pm which somewhat cut short the private tour we had organised. La Belle has a wonderful open top deck and, weather permitting, this is where you will spend most of your time. It was great having all drinks included too! This small ship looks very nice alongside the other huge cruise liners and is able to get into the dock in most places. I think we only had to tender in a couple of times and that was easy given the small number of board. We are glad we chose La Belle de L'Adriatique, and while not being a 5-star experience, it suited us perfectly! Read Less

We are experienced travelers and usually prefer to drive, however this is not practical along the Dalmatian coast. A small ship like La Belle de l'adriatique is the perfect way to see Croatia and Montenegro. It was able to dock where the large ships can not allowing easy access to the smaller towns and islands such as Mljet, sibernik , korcula and hvar. Of course Dubrovnik, Split and Kotor are the gems of that area. We were very pleased with TheCroiseEurope cruise line. We tend to explore on our own so we did not take advantage of the excursions. The crew was very friendly and all spoke English perfectly, so language was not a problem. Many of the crew were local and liked to talk about their homeland, adding a nice touch. The food was excellent. The staterooms adequate. I personally liked the informal dress code. Getting to the ship was easy and we were allowed to check-in early. Disembarkation was also particularly easy. I would highly recommend this ship to tour this area. Joe from Port Jeff Read Less