We celebrated our wedding anniversary ('Ten on the Seine') with a river cruise. We've done quite a bit of ocean cruising (Regent, Oceania, MSC Yacht Club, NCL Haven) and had previously sailed on the Rhone River with AMA Waterways. Our overall experience on Scenic was very rewarding.

The weakest link was our arrival. Paris was brutally hot when we flew in the morning of the cruise. Scenic met us at CDG and transferred us to the Gem in a private Renault limousine. Of course traffic was impossible but, sadly for we Floridians, the limo's A/C was just about nonexistent. Then, when we finally arrived at around 1 pm, nobody seemed prepared to greet us (including the cruise director who remained seated behind her computer). So we did get started with a thud.

After being fortified with a drink and a light lunch, we got our key cards and name tags (used to scan in/out of the ship) and were shown to our cabin, a balcony suite on the middle deck. We sailed out of Paris that evening and left stress behind us, although the hellish heat continued for a couple more days before seasonal temperatures returned. Read more