Better than expected

This cruise was part of a 21 day Lisbon to Nice Package put together by Emerald / Evergreen as it’s known in Australia..

So this will be a trip report and review on the boat itself..

We arrived in Lisbon a day early, which I recommend..Evergreen ( E) still picked us up from the airport ...there were three couples doing that... so when we got out through customs we found the Emerald sign very easily, no Driver just the sign. So the six of us just waited until he had a cigarette or whatever it was he was doing, he showed up after about 10 minutes and drive us to the Jupiter Lisboa Hotel . the other two couples, of course had a room ready for them but not us.Anyway we just went for a walk and enjoyed ourselves ,and after an hour or so, we got our room and it was worth the wait because it sounds like we got a better room than they did.

Our room was a very good size with a French balcony that opened slightly to let the fresh Air in, and in the days, following allowed our clothes to dry .

The next day I had pre-booked a Viator Day trip to sintra and cascais... this cost about $78 Australian each for a 8 to 9 hour trip that went so many places and saw so much . Far more extensive than the evergreen 3 1/2 hour trip to Sintra that was available the following day. .

When we arrived back to the hotel after our day trip ,the foyer was full of Evergreen people having drinks and making their way into have dinner. This was very nice and it was then that we found out that most of these people had been on a land content trip with Evergreen prior to this and this was the last part of their trip . I did hear some grumblings from these people that they felt like they were being forgotten or left out because Evergreen was concentrating on the new customers now but I did not see any evidence of that . The dinner at the Jupiter hotel was very nice it was a buffet and gave everybody a chance to meet each other have a drink and retire for the night.

So the next few days were spent on a half day trip around Lisbon that was included ,which was really good and just walking around ourselves enjoying things .

Hotel it self was not particularly that close to the waterfront but there is so much to see around and easy to get to the waterfront that it’s not a problem, but it’s a beautiful hotel .

So on Saturday, 8 September we all have to pack to leave ,some going home and some going on a bus to Porto to meet this boat. We stopped at a place for a comfort stop and snack and then later on at lunch at a place called Nazare..

I did hear the usual whingeing from people about why aren’t we getting to the boat quicker but it’s a reasonable drive and obviously the people in Porto want to clean and turn over the boat ready for us and so would prefer us to be a little later .

So later in the afternoon we drove through the streets and down to the river and we could see the boat which looked really nice and staff waiting for us at the front. We got off and were excourted to our allocated rooms, then we had a briefing and a buffet dinner . the buffet dinner was excellent, , and we got to meet the other people that were already on the boat that were just doing the seven days on the Porto or joining the boat from other tours .

So back to our room and we had room 216 in the middle deck. As I am a person that does their research, I knew exactly what the room would look like and the size so there was no surprises, probably that it was slightly bigger than I had expected. I did expect that it is a narrow walkway between the bed to get into the bathroom ,but that’s okay not a problem for us ,but the balcony area was slightly bigger than I had expected. I did notice that some people said that they were disappointed that it wasn’t a true balcony and when I asked them if they had bothered to look at the brochures or even do any research, the answer was no ,so I just thought they were stupid to be honest. As the brochure says, it is a drop-down window, that you can lean out and have a look if you like, get plenty of fresh air and if you hang your clothes in front of the window like I did they were dry in a day.

There is plenty of hanging space, it doesn’t look much, but there was enough for us ...enormous amount of drawers for your clothes, plenty of bench space and the walls are metal, so I took magnetic hooks and clips and hang things up from the walls above the TV ,to free up the bench space.. The rooms are minimalist and very comfortable, the bed is very comfortable too ,so together with the small but functional bathroom that had shelves built into the walls ,we were very happy.It had a mini bar, which I filled with some wine that I had bought at Lisbon but didn’t drink.. I enjoyed it sitting in my room watching the world go by.

The ship it self is like the rooms, very minimalist and lots of mirrors everywhere so it looks extremely clean, tidy and spacious. .I did notice that the glass doors that went to the restaurant or the bar area, were always kept open so there was no accidents of people walking into them. The bar area, where all the port talks and entertainment were, has the bar in the middle and people complained in previous reviews about not being able to see anything, but I did not find that to be the case, as there were TVs that broadcast all the talks around the rooms, so it was very easy to see what was going on.

On the Top deck there was the pool and lots and lots of chairs and tables for people to sit , which was lovely. The pool is not deep, if you sit in the water it will lap at your chest and it’s just beautiful to sit there in the afternoon and watch the Vineyards and beautiful Quintas float past.

The first night in Porto, just before the sun set, we did a cruise by the Porto area under some bridges and back and watched all the lights turn on in the city which was lovely and also the start of the sunset which was beautiful..

In the mornings there was stretching classes but the only stretching I did was stretching my arm out to the breakfast buffet ,which I enjoyed at the front of the ship in the bar area ,where a light breakfast was put out every morning for those up Early or just wanting a simple breakfast. There was a coffee machine in this area and also a coffee machine at the other end of the bar set up with beautiful teas, coffees, hot chocolate’s, biscuits etc..Next to this area is a small alcove that houses some games, some books, magazines ,daily printouts of news from different countries and also somewhere where you can put your excursion listening device and hear a running commentary about what we’re passing on the river.

We had an early introduction to all the staff, they all look very nice, they are all Portuguese and seem to get on well together . Our tour director was Elizabeth who was quite funny and very good and the hotel manager was Manuel, also a very friendly man although I found him a little hard to understand sometimes .

I have done and Amsterdam to Bucharest River cruise and really did not expect much from the Portugal one. I just thought it would be relaxing but not as picturesque but I was wrong ,both my husband and I really enjoyed the Portugal scenery ,it’s different but just really nice and it’s a shame that the river is so short because I would’ve loved to have spent longer on there..

we only did the excursions that were provided by Evergreen, did not bother with any extra ,as we were quite happy with the ones that we got. we enjoyed the museums that we saw which quite frankly I thought would be boring but again I was wrong, we enjoyed going to Salamanca in Spain and the two hour bus trip getting there and back was not a problem. I can’t understand people complaining about this because there was so much to see on the road and we had some stops and I would say 90% of the people had a snooze on the bus coming back

Would definitely choose a drop-down balcony room and preferably in the middle I think called horizon rather than on the top deck, because there was a small amount of noise of the crane in the morning as it’s lifting the gangplank across and if people are doing their early-morning jogging you can hear them on your rooftop.. These are the same size as the drop-down balcony on the top level but you save quite a bit of money ,same views, same boat same everything.