Don’t Knock It Until You’ve Tried It!

All I will say is, don’t knock River Cruising until you try it!  I was lucky enough to be chosen to experience 5 nights River Cruising around Amsterdam onboard the MS Bellejour with Titan Travel.  As you can imagine, I was extremely excited as River Cruise has something I’ve never even considered, let alone tried!

So I started off from my house on Sunday night, to stay in my airport hotel at Birmingham (there are packages that will coach/ferry you across).  I wasn’t going to stay over the night before, but after a few of the group decided they were, I thought it would be a nice way to break the ice with everyone, and it certainly did!

After a very quick flight the next day, we were met by Titan Travel representatives who guided us to an area to meet the coach, however, as we were a group of agents, the organisers of the trip and arranged a private transfer for us, so headed off to our taxi and headed towards the ship.

First impressions of the ship were amazing!  Having only seen the Ocean Cruise Liners previously it was amazing to see these smaller ships and for Amsterdam, there are were a good 10-12 ships docked for the day.  So we were taken onboard the MS Bellejour and given our room keys and we headed off into our cabins for a freshen up and to meet later for some lunch together.  I was allocated cabin number 234 which was a mid-aft location on the 2nd deck (no stairs to go up or down), which was a French Balcony cabin, very spacious and I was very impressed.  So freshened up, and took the opportunity to take some photos of around the ship before the coaches of passengers got on.

MS Bellejour holds 183 passengers and has 4 decks, Deck 1 being the Head height windows (water level), then 2 and 3 were decks, but also on Deck 3 you had the lounge and restaurant so only 1 flight of stairs to climb (or 2 if you are deck 1), and on deck 2 at the front was the small gym, and jacuzzi facilities etc and finally Deck 4 was the Sun Deck.  I was amazed at its size and what it could feature, the restaurant and bar were great small in size but enough to hold the number of passengers it was carrying.  For the evening dining, it was always at 7 (and lunch at 1), and the tour director would always have a Daily Briefing before dinner, just to give a rundown of the next day, which is always good 

to know, and they also put a daily planner in your cabins.

Anyway, after our walk around Amsterdam, we boarded the ship and headed up to the top Sun Deck, as the weather in Amsterdam that day was amazing, so we all had a great afternoon chatting and just getting to know each other and was nice to see all the other ships sailing away.  Then as with any cruise, we headed for dinner and then the lounge for evening drinks.

And that ladies and gentleman is Day 1 of my MS Bellejour trip, keep a look out for my next blog where I will tell you about my excursions that were planned for the week to Keukenhof Gardens, Zaanse Schans, Zaandam, and Amsterdam!