Riverside Ravel Ship Tour
Hank Schrader, USMA '71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Anne Schrader, Certified Travel Counselor & Certified Luxury Cruise Specialist
With the bankruptcy of Crystal River Cruises, their four 135-meter ships were purchased by Uniworld. Then, a German Company, Riverside, leased 2 of these ships to add to their double wide Mozart, which can only sail the Danube River
With only 3 ships sailing at present, it might seem that you could just ignore this cruise line, but we believe it has a lot to offer and recommend you take the time to read this blog to see if they offer a good match for a future vacation.
The Ravel, one of these leased ships, sails on the Rhone River. So, let’s take a look at this ultra luxury rivership.
The Ravel
The Ravel was built in 2018. It holds only 110 passangers (55 staterooms—fewest in the industry on 135 m cruise ships). All staterooms are on the upper 2 decks—these ships are the only ones built I know of that do not have staterooms at the water level
At the bow, right above the name of the boat, is the wheel house. Most other ships have a collapsible wheel house that is in the center of the top deck. The top glass windows on the right are the Palm Lounge and directly below is the Waterside Restaurant.
Restaurants
There are 4 possible eating venues.
The Waterside Cafe is the main dining area.
Breakfast and Lunch are served buffet style in the Waterside Cafe. Here are some pictures of the setup:
During lunch and dinner, unique among river cruise lines, is a pasta station available for every lunch and dinner meal—you can see the chef ready to make the pasta in the middle of the hot service buffet area in the photo above. Typically there was a couple of meat or fish dishes, and a vegetarian option .
The salad area on the lunch buffet.
The dessert area on the lunch buffet
This is my first lunch—a roasted chicken from the carving station, saffron rice and a salad. The food was wonderful!
The next pictures are of a typical dinner meal. It is served at your table after you order from the menu.
There are tables for two.
This is grilled asparagus with a poached egg and cheese sauce—Anne really liked it!
French Onion soup
My pasta dish
My steak with pepper corn sauce
A Cheese plate
Dessert
The Bistro is a more informal area to eat during your cruise. It serves late breakfast, and a light lunch.
Among the items offered is a range of specialty coffees and teas and a selection of sweet treats. But the show stopper was the bone in ham!
Another cool feature is to get up late one day and still get eggs benedict instead of just some bread or sweet rolls as a late riser!
The coffee preparation bar is well stocked
The bone in ham—a true delicacy!
This was my late riser eggs benedict.
Here is part of the seating area of the Bistro.
The salad area
The dessert area
You can order a hamburger in the bistro or have one in the Waterside cafe.
The specialty dinning room is the Vintage Room. It is only available if enough guests agree to pay the extra charge (we had the experience and paid 580 Euros for both of us). We will blog about this later.
There is room for 12 in the Vintage Room.
This is the wine storage area in the Vintage Room.
The Outdoor Grill Area
Weather permitting, once a sailing, they try to have an outdoor lunch. It was too windy to eat outside, but the chefs cooked a wonderful meal (the next 2 pictures).
The top deck has a pop up bar. This lowers to go under low bridges during sailing.
The outside covered area and tables on the top deck during a less windy day.
This picture captures how windy it was, so we had to eat inside
It was quite a good spread. On my plate a prawn, pork, sausage, steak, chicken, grilled potatoe and mac-n-cheese. Also bernaise sauce. Awesome!
Common Areas
Among the shared areas on the ship are the Plam Court Lounge. a swimming pool, guest laundry, a fitness room and spa treatment room. Here is the Palm Court Lounge (the next 3 pictures):
Here is the swimming pool area on deck 3:
On the first level, here are photos of these venues:
Fitness Room
The next picture is the guest laundry, that is free for guests.
Here are some of the spa services available in the above photo.
On deck 2 there are some small common areas outside the Waterside main restaurant.
This is the pantry snack area with a gourmet coffee machine (above).
When returning to the ship, we were often treated to wine and a cold towel to refresh ourselves. This is the entrance area on deck 3.
Our Stateroom
We were in stateroom 316.
Our bed faced the French Balcony stateroom.
The above photo shows the open air French Balcony partially open from inside our stateroom.
To let fresh air in, the glass window sticks out. as you can see in the outside picture of our stateroom 316. (upper window ). These must be closed while in the locks, as they stick out too far to avoid being damaged when transitioning locks.
The shower area in stateroom 316. It has a rain shower and a hand-held shower faucet. There are clear buttons to start and stop the shower.
There are twin sinks in stateroom 316.
This is the small walk in closet
A welcome bottle of champagne; fresh fruit and 2 small chocolate pastries were there to greet us at check-in.
The desk area
Glass ware for our use
Coffee cups for us
The coffee maker and a small bottle of Cote du Rhone wine for us.
Our Final Thoughts
This is an all-inclusive, luxury experience! We really enjoyed our vacation onboard and would recommend this line for a good time on the Rhone River. It is luxury in every aspect of your vacation and you will experience the same great food and services we did.
We are travel experts, ocean and river cruise specialists, and Europe destination experts. We have first-hand knowledge of almost anywhere you want to visit in Europe. We know our products and the vendors who sell them to you. We have designed special tours for dozens of clients, led several and will continue to find just the right vacation that will exceed your expectations.
When you are spending your hard-earned money for a vacation, you want an advisor who can match you with the right trip. You want someone who will understand your expectations and fuel your anticipation (or excitement) to get you the best possible trip experience. And, you want someone who can help you with the decision making process. We think we have all these qualities.
Whatever your Dream Destinations are, we are here to help you get the best possible vacation based on what is important to you! We will provide you high quality, expertly planned travel. Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@visitdd.com . We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
ANNE has earned a degree from the University of Houston in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Serving as the President of Visit Dream Destinations, LLC, since 2016, she is uniquely experienced professional travel advisor with over 26 years’ experience in the travel industry. Among her numerous certifications, she is a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) by the Travel Institute, considered the gold standard in travel agent certification and she is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC) by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), as well Luxury Cruise Specialist also from CLIA. Having traveled often to Europe since 1989, she has expanded on her certification as a Destination Specialist in Western Europe (DS) with extensive first-hand experience in luxury vacations. She holds numerous other specialty designations from individual vendors. An expert photographer, she delights in capturing the true essence of destinations to share with all.
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 52 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
Brit Agent
