Hello Board!

My partner Hiro and I will be on the RSSC Voyager for the August 31st Dover-Monte Carlo cruise, and would like to ask some advice.

We'd very much like to maximize our only full day in the Bordeaux Wine Region on Sat. Sept. 3rd. by hiring a driver guide who knows the "in's and out's" of the best houses. Essentially, I'd like us to be picked up at the ship in the morning, visit as many chateaus as feasable, as well as have a really good lunch...then be dropped off at the ship before she sails at 6:00pm.

We normally enjoy the ship's excursions and the company of fellow cruisers, but on this occasion I'd really like to focus solely on wine orientated points of interest.

Anyone out there ever done a similar private tour in Bordeaux? Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Eric

P.S. - I also posted this question on Cruise Critic, so please forgive the repetition if you see it there as well!

Welcome Eric!
We (6) did exactly this when we were in Bordeaux in June. We visited excellent wineries including Chateau Lafite Rothschild (which required special arrangements) and Lynch Bagge in Bordeaux and another one in St. Emillion. It really is the BEST way to go. Besides the tour through out, you also get to sample which was fun.

We are on the Voyager right now, as are Joanna & Tony who were with us so I don't have the guide's name and email address. I'm hoping that Anne will see this and be able to help you since Anne and Gary were also with us.

I may have posted this information somewhere on this board...I can't remember.

Marcie - wasn't Lawrence with you too for the tour?? Or am I thinking about a different Bordeaux tour?

Masaki

Hi Eric! Welcome to LCT. Here's the information Marcie posted after our Bordeaux port stop. It's in the Private Guides section of this chat board from June 28, 2004. We loved the itinerary that you & Hiro are taking in August. In addition to Paulliac, we also went down towards Smith-LaFite in the southern part of Bordeaux. The ship held a dinner for everyone aboard at Chateau Carbonnieux .. it was simply magical.

"We used Claudia's recommendation in Bordeaux and were very pleased.

Alain (pronounced Alan) was just wonderful! The first day was spent visiting Chateaus and wineries (including a tour and tasting at Chateau Lafite Rothschild). The 2nd day we went to St. Emilion (a beautiful, quaint walled-in city!) I'd highly recommend using Alain. His email address is: dionysos.bordeaux@free.fr "

Masaki - you bet Lawrence was on that adventure! :D :D Lawrence and Tom were quite a duo at Lafite-Rothschild, offering to stay on as professional tasters. Cheers, Anne

Hi Eric and I too welcome you to LCT boards. My husband and I will also be on that sailing with you - we were thinking of the St. Emilion tour on the full day. I'm glad you posted this question because I remembered that several people did this last year but couldn't specifically remember who, now I know. Will look forward to meeting you perhaps onboard.

Marcie - when you did this, did you have two full days in Bordeux? Apparently we arrive at 7:00pm on the 2nd and sail at 6:00pm on the 3rd - so we really only have the one day. I think maybe you were going the other directions, but don't remember for sure. I was a little disappointed when I realized that, as we were hoping to manage two tours of some sort into the wine country.

Hi Joann!

The ship has to enter the Gironne River to reach Bordeaux, so the arrival & departure times must coincide with tide conditions. The ship's travel time on the river is around 6 hours. We arrived sometime between midnight & 6 am in Bordeaux, did the all-day excursion with Alain, had the dinner at Chateau Carbonnieux that evening, did the St. Emilion visit the next day & left around 4 pm. They had the derring-do helicopter pick-up for the river pilot around 10 pm. It was good we had a sea day afterwards to get ready for St. Malo.

We docked in the middle of downtown Bordeaux, which was great. There's a tram system that's right near the ship for those who are doing a little sightseeing in Bordeaux proper. The main shopping district is walkable from the ship. I think you'll find some of the wine stores near the ship will offer free tastings.

The ride to Paulliac was around 1-1/2 to 2 hours from the ship. The winery tour & tastings took about 45 minutes. The area to & from Paulliac is a lot of rolling hills with occasional little towns & some chateaux off in the distance.

The ride to Chateau Carbonnieux (which is very close to Smith-Lafite) from the ship was also around 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Scenery is similar to Paulliac.

The trip to St. Emilion (which is east and across the river) was also about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. St. Emilion is very picturesque; all limestone medieval buildings. There are some steep sections to get to the UNESCO world heritage sites where they have the underground city area. That part of the tour takes about 45 minutes and only registered guides get the keys to take you through that part of the town. Most of the wine shops in town will also do tastings for you.

We found the wines in Bordeaux to be about 50% more expensive than identical ones we could buy in the US. It was fun to find a few labels that aren't readily exported to the US and try those wines.

Hope that helps. Cheers, Anne

Anne - thanks so much for your response, that really helped. I guess then because of the tidal conditions, thats why we will only have about 24 hours, arriving at 7pm one night, leaving at 6pm the next, so we will have to plan our excursion carefully - I think the 1/2 day to St. Emillion sounds most apealing to us, and that should leave us some time to explore the town of Bordeux a little hopefully.

JoAnn - We also did the 1/2 day tour in St. Emilion and thought it was about right. That left us an hour or two for downtown Bordeaux. Enjoy - it was a lovely, lovely trip and a great port stop. Cheers, Anne

Anne - what other tours did you do on the itinerary? Any specific ones you would or wouldn't recommed? I'm so glad you and Marcie posted, because as I said above I was trying to remember who had done this trip last year, and would have posted a question eventually.

JoAnn - we had a slightly different itinerary (Monte Carlo, Malaga, Lisbon, Bilbao, Bordeaux, St. Malo, Dover). We hired a private driver in Malaga to see the Alhambra and enjoyed it immensely. I recall Doug, Marc and/or dougburns made the Cadiz stop instead and raved about how good one of the two all-day tours to Seville was. The author indicated they thought it was even better than the Greneda & Alhambra tour option. In St. Malo, definitely go to Mont St. Michel if you haven't been there already. If you have, it's easy enough to walk from where the ship tender leaves to take a local ferry over to Dinard. It's a lovely seaside village that will probably be just emptying out by the time you arrive. If Maitie (? sp), one of the headwaitresses is aboard, her family still lives in Dinard and she can give you good advice.

Lisbon was just wonderful! Marcie had a great driver who took about six or seven of them to Estoril, Sintra and one of the other coastal towns. They loved that tour. We had one and a half days in Lisbon, so did the evening tour when we arrived (city drive) and then took the free shuttle bus the next morning into the main part of town. The main railway station (which we had spotted on the prior day's city tour) was about a 10 block walk from the shuttle bus stop. We took the local commuter trains out to Sintra and then caught the hop-on, hop-off bus up to the Pena Palace. This is like Crazy Ludwig's castle as it could only be interpreted in Portugal. Very interesting. It was about 6 euros to get into the park and another 1.5 euros to catch the bus to the top where the palace can be found.

In Bilbao, we had hired a private driver to take us over to Santilla del Mar and two of the caves that have great examples of prehistoric cave art. We wish we would have spent more time in Santilla del Mar and only gone to one of the caves. It's a quaint, lovely town. We took a quick drive by the Guggenheim museum on our way back and enjoyed that very much. The Guggenheim got mixed reviews - outside it's stunning; the artwork didn't thrill too many of the folks on the inside. Of course, the floral dog statue is a treat to see in person. Keep in mind you're stopping there on a Sunday (just as we did) and a lot of stuff is closed. One benefit of taking the Bilbao and Guggenheim tour would be the opportunity to see the beautiful scenery between Bilbao and Santander (about 1 hour drive time). The locals gather around the plaza in Bilbao and eat little tapas called pichtox (? sp).

I hope that helps you. I was seriously considering taking the Aug. 31 sailing myself as I'd see some new ports (Cadiz, Vigo, La Coruna) but we talked ourselves into the Nov. 6 Monte Carlo to Funchal instead. If you have any more questions, please be sure to let me know. Cheers, Anne

Thanks Anne - all great info. Too bad, wish you were going to be with us, we don't know of anyone yet on this portion, except for the above poster, and since we don't actually know them yet, have to hope we can meet up and enjoy some wine together at some point. We have some friends joining us for the second leg, the Monte Carlo to Rome portion, so that will be fun. I'm sure though that we will meet people and make friends and before we know it have a whole group of fun people to hang out with.
Thanks again for all your help and info.

Anne - thanks! I was SO sure that I had seen pictures with Lawrence and the rest of you at Lafite-Rothschild ... :)

Masaki

Marcie & Anne:

Thanks for recommending Alain. He's available, so we've booked him. Our interests are also Rothschild, as well as Haut-Brion, Margaux, and Pontet-Canet (Hiro and I bought futures at Pontet-Canet last year for the marvelous '03 vintage, so I'm looking forward to visiting my little darlings before they get shipped to Los Angeles for a ten year "Big Sleep"!) Unfortunately, September 3rd is a Saturday, and all of the above chateau's are "closed". Luckily, we have friends in the biz who'll "make them an offer they can't refuse" in order to open up! :)

JoAnn: My partner Hiro and I look forward to meeting you and your husband aboard the ship! We're in cabin #754, so please drop us a line so we can have martinis or dinner or both. :)

Cheers,

Eric

Eric - sounds good, we are in 862, so between us we'll work it out - drinks and dinner sound fun, will look forward to it.

Hi Eric and JoAnn. My wife Mona and I are also on this cruise. We're going with another couple we met on the Voyager in the Baltics in August 2003.

I haven't begun planning shore excursions yet but I guess I should get started. We're looking forward to this cruise since we haven't been to any of the ports. We're going to spend three days in London before and three days in Monte Carlo after.

JoAnn it looks like you live close to us. We're in Alexandria, VA. Perhaps we'll have a chance to meet before the cruise. I think our email is on here. If not, it's giustot@comcast.net. Thanks. Tom.

Hi Tom,
As I mentioned above, Hiro and I are in cabin 754, so we hope to see you and Mona aboard. Please make yourselves known. Hiro and I were also in the Baltic in August '03 on RSSC "Song of Flower." At only 180 passengers, she was very intimate...I'll miss her.

We too are spending a couple of nights in London before the departure and a couple nights in Nice before we return to LA. I've been working on our wine tour for Bordeaux, but now I'm going to start thinking about exploring the wine country outside of Nice.

Do any of you nice people know of a private driver guide to reccommend for Nice - Provence?

I suppose we could just rent a car and do some exploring, but I really dislike getting lost...especially when I don't have a great deal of time to fritter away.

Anyway, we look forward to the trip!

Cheers,


Eric

Eric - you know I think the same people that gave you the Bordeux info might as well be able to give you some info on Private Guides in Nice - email them or post it up to Anne and I'll be she will respond. We have some friends arriving for the second portion of our cruise that day, so we plan to stick pretty close to the ship until they arrivw, as we are taking the next portion also to Rome. This will be our first trip to Europe, so we are really excited.

Tom - how fun that you will also be on this cruise. You have our cabin number 862, so maybe we can all get together on boarding day but in any case leave a message or something. Maybe we can all have those drinks and dinner together that Eric and I talked about above. Actually we might meet up on the transfer from London if you are all staying at one of RSSC's hotels and using their transfer, as we are also doing two nights in London prior. We will be at the Radisson Edwardian Hampshire, and will be using RSSC transfers over to Dover on the 31st. As I said previously, we are sailing on the next segment, so will not be doing a post in Monte Carlo. Tom, you are right we are right down the road "so to speak". Depending on where everyone is staying in London, and what everyone is doing - in any case should we plan to meet up in the Observation Lounge prior to sailing maybe???? Its a long way off, but we can work that as things get closer.

Wow! It looks like the Washington metro area all had the same idea. My wife, Judy, and I will be on the cruise and we're in Reston. This will be our second cruise on the Voyager (Baltic 2003) and our 6th on Radisson (2 each on Diamond, Mariner and, with this cruise, Voyager). We certainly like the Voyager best, but are itinerary-driven more than ship-driven, at least until we’ve been everywhere once! This cruise is also to celebrate our 25th anniversary.

Hi JoAnn,

Wow, how exciting to be traveling to Europe for the first time in such high RSSC style!

I fondly remember my first trip to Europe as a geek 19 year old student in 1979. I went for a month during summer break from San Francisco State, flew over on ultra-cheapo Laker Airlines to London-Gatwick (Remember Freddy Laker? I think the fare was $369 and I had to bring my own food!) and traveled around on a 2nd class Eurail Pass that my late-father bought me.

He drove me to LAX, and as he dropped me off and said goodbye, he gave me an envelope and told me to open it on the plane. It contained $1000.00, and boy did that come in handy when combined with my meager travel budget! :D

Great experiences and wonderful memories (yes, a romance even! :app: ) that I now wouldn't trade for all the dough in the world...

Enjoy!

<img border="0" alt="[vhappy]" title="" src="graemlins/icon_vhappy.gif" />

Eric

Eric - your story was great about your first trip to Europe. Yes, I do remember Laker airlines, I think maybe they were the first discount airline.

Scott - great to have you also sailing. Reston is basically right next door. Great way to celebrate your anniversery. Are you doing a pre in London? Looks like we will have a fun group onboard. What cabin are you in? Ours is 862. It seems so far away, but at least we have a couple of things going to keep our minds busy before then, new Grandbaby due in the next 4 weeks, and a 2 week family beach trip in May - by the time we get back from the beach, it will only be a couple of months.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

We are in cabin #704 (I was adamant about portside for this cruise. We’ve spent a lot of time in Great Britain and are therefore cutting the front end. We’ll fly into Heathrow the day before and transfer to Dover where we’ll spend the night and wander around there until we can board the next day. We are going to spend two days on the back end in Nice (Beau Rivage based on comments found on this board). We’ll be touring Monte Carlo, Eze and Cape Ferrat enroute to Nice on the 10th and then explore Nice on our own the next day before flying back on the 12th.

We've actually ended up with an Alpha to Omega, Radisson-based celebration for our 25th as we'll be on the Mariner from LA-Alaska-Vancouver in May which pretty much marks the start of our engagment...leading to marriage 4 months later (the Voyager cruise)!

Sounds great! Ooohhhh two RSSC cruises in one year, I could so go for that - but May is beach time for the family. Oh well, I'll just sit on the deck with my drink and pretend its a balcony on the ship!!
Look forward to meeting you guys, and we'll have to have a "celebration drink" and dinner maybe? You two might want to eat together, which we'd understand, but we can play that by ear as things go along.

This is great. Four LCT'ers on this cruise so far, and three from the DC area. We don't have a cabin assignment yet but I'll let everyone know when we do. Tom.

Great sounds good!! Should be fun.

Hi all! Sounds like the start of another great LCT group on this itinerary.

I've been out of town so sorry for the late reply. The private guides section on this website does include some ideas for a private guide in Nice. We didn't use one so I can't personally recommend or comment. The thread is more than 45 days old so you can either set the date for showing messages as one year or do a search on this site for Nice. Claudia made some recommendations so you could try searching under her name, too.

Enjoy! Really wish we were going with you but will be there in spirit. Cheers, Anne