Belmond Orcaella Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We did the 11 night "New Year Celebration" cruise departing 22 December '14. We booked this cruise in January '14 as "Gorges of the Far North" but due to low water levels experienced in December '13 and the problems Orient Express (now Belmond) had with that cruise it was changed in September '14 to the "New Year Celebration Cruise" and we went from Mandalay to Bagan.
The Orcaella is very well run boat, the crew and staff are all happy and well organised and the Logistic team are excellent. From the moment you arrive till the day you depart the staff are caring for you 24/7.
The boat takes a max of 50 passengers but on our cruise we had only 36. We were divided into groups and there was 10 in our group and we had Soe as our guide. He was a friendly knowledgeable young man who spoke excellent English, you could ask him anything, he was a delight and we enjoyed travelling with him. There was a constant supply of bottled water and wet wipes on our bus for our excursions.
Cabin Review
Our room (507) was a state cabin on the main deck. It was a spacious room with a sitting area as well as a desk, double floor to ceiling glass sliding doors ( great for taking photos of the river action) and a walkin robe. The bathroom had a large shower and double hand basins. There was always plenty of bottled water in the bathroom, the desk and on the bedside tables at night. The AC worked very well. The room was serviced three times a day.