Although we have taken a number of ocean and Caribbean cruises, this was our first river cruise and our first visit to Paris. Bottom line: This was a very enjoyable trip, and that was essentially the comment we heard from everyone on the cruise with whom we spoke. A few people were unhappy that the Rinda docked in Le Pecq, rather than Paris as originally advertised, and had we not opted to take the 3-day pre-cruise extension in Paris I’m sure we, too, would have been.
We made our reservations direct with Viking. Because this involved a number of firsts for us we purchased the air arrangements from Viking, along with an air “deviation”. And because of the deviation we chose we lost the airport transfer for our arrival in Paris, even though we were scheduled to arrive at about the same time as flights that Viking arranged. That’s Viking’s policy; however, after 3 attempts I got to someone at Viking who offered to try to get an exception for us. She succeeded. (Things did not go smoothly at the airport – it became obvious that we were swimming against the tide – however they did get us on one of the vans going to the hotel.)
The pre-cruise hotel was 2 short blocks from the Eiffel Tower, 2 blocks from a Metro station, one block from an RER (suburban/regional railroad) station, and less than half a mile from a self-service laundromat.
Superb cabin attendant; clean, large, fully-equipped, well-maintained room.