Grand European Cruise
Published date:
05.05.12
This cruise was a successful method of celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. The scenery and experiences were delightful on the western half of the trip. We have found, however, that our travels through the Balkan countries are much more memorable and intense. I would recommend this trip to others, but they should be mentally prepared for the 28 day duration.
Our overall experiences were positive. We have found previous travelers negative comments more useful for planning so my review will focus primarily on negative aspects of the journey.
The weather was great in Germany (59F high in Nuremberg) but became brutally hot further east. It was 105F one day in Budapest and uncomfortablly hot on the remainder of the trip. This limited some of our off-ship activities to early in the day.
The food on board is quite good, but the menu for the second half of the trip is virtually identical to that of the first half. We ate off the ship as much as practicable to avoid food boredom.
I noticed a prior reviewer mentioned unpleasant behavior by other travelers. We had never experienced such behavior on previous GCT trips but did see some on this one such as monopolizing the better seats on the coaches despite warnings, loud complaints about slower fellow travelers, and general rudeness.
I thought one of the shortcomings of the trip was that the ship did not go all the way to the Black Sea. That part of the trip was accomplished by a two hour bus ride. GCT now cruises all the way to the Black Sea.
GCT staff members were competent and polite as usual.
Traveler: Robert Cameron from Fort Worth, TX traveled
on June 22, 2011
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