I was writing in the Leopard Bar, fondly referred to by my shipmates as the Cougar Bar. It’s the last full day of the river cruise from Lyon to Avignon and the Rhône is making its way to the sea as it has for all the days on the cruise and for thousands of years before we got here. It occurred to me that the volume of Santa Barbara’s desalination plant is going by every few minutes. It’s easy to take water for granted when it’s always there, and it’s definitely here thanks to the Alps.
The river, the boat, and the people have all been a wonderful experience that I would consider again. The best part is the connections you make with your shipmates. We have all promised to meet again in Santa Barbara probably to drink French wine and eat a meal together. Speaking of food, some days on the boat you feel that you are in the continuous buffet line with not enough activity to justify the calorie intake. Admittedly, after just five days, I’m looking forward to every meal. The food is very good, with more choices than you could try on a voyage three times as long.
The boat carries a top flight contingency of mostly Eastern Europeans fleeing their governments corruption and people’s poverty. Miro, our Bulgarian waiter is preforming parlor tricks along with table service. His sense of humor only partly disguises his professionalism.
After just a couple of days he was teasing us and remembering our favorite choices like we were all old friends. The company treats them very well, and they seem to love their jobs, and that translates into excellent service that appears to be genuine.

The ship is small, but too long to dock in some river ports, and too high to make it under some bridges during high water times. There are about 140 people aboard, which is as big a boat that I would want to be on. A friend aboard told me of a recent cruise he did with six people aboard and four crew members. They would plan meals with the crew who shopped that day and cooked for them. Sounds like this might be a better alternative if we were to hit the river again. Kind of like a floating bed and breakfast
Today is bon voyage to the friends that we met and the staff that cared for us. Tania, the Activities Director said: “don’t cry that it’s over, smile that it happened”.

Avignon April 8th 2018