This was my first River cruise but it was such an excellent experience I will certainly do another one and go with Avalon. Firstly the location through the south of France was great with beautiful scenery and amazing history. Using the river cruise and with the aid of local guides we were able to explore the towns and villages on the river. The crew on the Avalon were wonderful. Very friendly, helpful and efficient. The perfect combination in my view. The cruise was quite informal. While there was some dressing up for dinner it was also ok to stay in the same clothes from the day, as long as they were not shorts.
We had an excellent tour director who was knowledgable and articulate. My cabin was comfortable and the food on board was outstanding. We also had a number of regionally based food tastings which were interesting and delicious. The included tours were very good and were well complemented by the additional tours which at €40 -50 each were reasonably priced.
To really get the advantage of the cruise you need to be prepared to do a fair amount of walking, which is a good thing light of the amount of excellent food we consumed. We had around 100 passengers on our cruise compared to the boats capacity of 130.