Uniworld Grand Cruise Through France

Ti · Guest

Does anyone know what is happening at Uniworld? We had booked the cruise for July 2004, and were just informed that it had been changed to "Grand France Cruise Tour" The two ships that were scheduled: Seine Princess and Rhone Princess are no longer mentioned on their website. Only the Cezanne cruising in southern France. We are trying to decide whether to cancel or hang on. Any comment will be much appreciated.

Guest

[quote="Ti"]Does anyone know what is happening at Uniworld? We had booked the cruise for July 2004, and were just informed that it had been changed to "Grand France Cruise Tour" The two ships that were scheduled: Seine Princess and Rhone Princess are no longer mentioned on their website. Only the Cezanne cruising in southern France. We are trying to decide whether to cancel or hang on. Any comment will be much appreciated.[/quote]

cem · Guest

I am in a similar situation! My husband and I were originally scheduled for the late July French Impressionist theme-cruise through France and Normandy. I was recently notified by my travel agent that due to low interest in that itinerary this summer, Uniworld was cancelling that cruise, and reducing the number of excursions this summer. We were given a few choices, and are now scheduled on a wine themed cruise through the South of France and Provence a few weeks earlier. I just now saw the same thing on the website--no mention of the Rhone and Seine Princess, but the Cezanne instead. I was not aware of this, but am assuming they are not using all their ships this summer. It's hard to know what to do here...but I'm hanging on still and hoping for the best!

cem · Guest

Me again--actually, my brochure doesn't even mention a Cezanne ship. Maybe the Seine and Rhone ships have merely been renamed.

Ti · Guest

We almost cancelled after a couple of days with Uniworld customer service person; could not find date/cabin that we wanted (she tried very hard to help). However, we got a call from Uniworld manager today, and they apparently got a block of cabins released for the June 27 departure date. So we are back on. The northern part of the cruise had been substituted with tour from Caen to Paris, with Mont St. Michel and D-Day landing beaches (oritinally the cruise extension). The cost had been reduced accordingly. We are happy campers. By the way, the Cezanne seems to be a good ship, highly rated. Hope you have the same luck.... may be we'll see you on the cruise! Very Happy

cem · Guest

That sounds wonderful! Good for you. We are on the July 2 South of France/Provence 7-night wine theme cruise. I'm still unclear about the ships...we can't both be on the Cezanne since our cruises overlap! Unless--maybe we are on the second half of your trip on the same ship?[/u]

Janaa · Guest

We were originally booked on the 16 day cruise from the south of france to the north on May 30. Unworld cancelled that. We rebooked on the north to south trip and they cancelled that also. Now we are booked for the May 30 cruise tour which in my mind is a poor substitute for the original cruise. The Uniworld rep we are working with, Amanda Mc Daniel, is arrogant, insulting and uninformative. We're locked into the dates due to air and another cruise booked later in the month. I tried all the other companies and was unable to book anything at this late date. I certainly don't recommend Uniworld!

cem · Guest

I'm very nervous. I've already had to change my flights, and our itinerary is completely different now. In truth, I greatly prefer our current itinerary, but I will be really upset if they cancel this one on me too. Keeping my fingers crossed.

MARY · Guest

:(Uniworld cancelled a Seine River cruise I booked in October without telling me or my travel agent. I found out they were cancelling cruises on this message board. When my travel agent finally was able to talk to someone at Uniworld, they admitted they had cancelled the cruise and offered to substitue a "cruise" of Normandy in a bus. We booked the same cruise with Viking for less money.

Guest · Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 12:09 pm Post subject:

We were scheduled to take a Rhine cruise from Switzerland to Amsterdam in September and got a call two weeks ago that our cruise had been cancelled. They had rebooked the entire ship for a "company function". They wanted us to rescheduel our trip for later in the month. We refused. They rebooked us on a different cruise from Amsterdam to Vienna for approximately the same dates. But I am wondering about river cruising. Have cruised on big ships with Princess several times and Norwegain and NEVER had any problems. Any one have any advice for first time river cruisers?

ron · Guest

We just returned from a Uniworld Rhone river cruise. The vessel is excellent and the crew fabulous - however the the uniworld rep sprung an additional side tour to Perouges on the passengers the cost of which was not included in the original package (no one seemed pregared to question that) - that being said the medival town was not to be missed! A number of passengers voiced their negative comments about dealings with Uniworld this spring. I understand there were some problems between Uniworld and Rhone Princess management that resulted in the screw up to the schedule. Can highly recommend this tour!

JimC · Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 9 Location: Sacramento, CA

We too had our plans completely disrupted by Uniworld. We sailed with them 2 years ago and had a wonderful time. This year we were suppose to be on the Seine Princess and they cancelled it with the flimsy excuse that no one wanted to go to France. That was a complete lie, as we knew that our particular cruise was almost fully booked. In addition, when we did go to France, using another tour operator, it was busy everwhere with tourists. Flights were completely full. Uniworld simply was not upfront in explaning why they cancelled the cruise.