Paris 3-Course Gourmet Dinner and Sightseeing Seine River Cruise

Edward_G, Aug 2024

Let say first that the cruise and the meal were excellent. That gets five stars. The staff were excellent, the length of the trip was appropriate, the service was good. All of that was well worth the money.

Here is the key: We just had a very bad experience trying to get to the boat and the port alongside the Seine River. In short, we missed our original cruise because our cab driver couldn't get us anywhere near the departure point because of the Olympics and the fact every street in that part of Paris was closed because of bicycling racing.

I thought this would have a simple solution. The cruise company would understand the logistical nightmare of the Olympics and allow us to reschedule. No sweat.

Well, that didn't happen. Through texts and What's App, they communicated that we were simply out of luck. If not for the persistence of our concierge at our hotel, we'd have lost the $400-plus I'd spent on this. Instead, we got rescheduled with a fee to change the reservation. That's what I wanted all along. I think the cruise company should have been more understanding of the unique circumstances and given us less hassle about changing.

Adam_M, Jul 2024

In short, stay away from this experience, it's quite honestly the worst excursion i've been on for a number of years and i feel completely ripped off!

The long of the story, the whole thing looked promising to begin with, the boat was nice and the area seemed lovely enough. We were greeted in a kind of friendly way and offered a window seat for an additional charge, which we declined. We were then promptly sat at a window seat without paying the fee which sounds great, but left me wondering why the operator tried to fleece us for money for quite literally no reason.

We then waited a long time for any kind of service, which was only provided because i waved a member of the team over. Then we were presented with a drink menu, but no food menu... little did we know there were no food options and the meal was completely out of our hands.

They started with salmon and some kind of salsa with pesto topping. I don't eat nuts and fish, but still tried the food and was completely sickened by the taste. My partner also didn't really enjoy the first course even though she adores fish. The second course was pork and some kind of cheese bake. The pork was tasteless and my partner's pork was so undercooked it still had blood coming out of it (see picture), the cheese bake was average and no flavour to the jus. The final course was some kind of fruit filled chocolate, which was the only redeeming thing in this experience, but who can get chocolate wrong...

The view from the Seine is just awful, nothing really to see (I'm a fan of architecture and decorative sights, this cruise didn't supply anything of interest) and if you think you can have a couple of glasses of wine to make the experience tolerable, be prepared to pay a hefty sum for the alcohol they have on this cruise. We had the bottle of red wine (the only red wine they had) and that cost €30 for something that was under average in flavour. Don't even get me started on the €8 for still water...

After this abysmal experience the waitress came to collect payment and when i refused to tip, their demeanor turned from "happy to help" to "you disgust me".

Finally, to top it all off, i contacted the operator to try to discuss the experience and request a refund of some degree for our level of dissatisfaction, but i haven't heard anything back after a number of days.

If i could, i would give this experience 0 stars out of 5. It cost us £200 in total to have less than 2 hours (more is offered in the description) of our time, which we feel was robbed from us. Please stay well away from this tour, take that £200 and spend it somewhere that's more deserving of your time and money. I can't implore you enough to ignore this experience and find absolutely anything else to put into your itinerary.

Deborah_K, Jul 2024

Great experience with beautiful Paris sights and enjoyable entertainment on board. Fun and relaxing way to see the city at night

Z1161KKdavidl, Jul 2024

Wow what a horrible experience! Treated like pariahs, seated next to bathroom, waiter barely came to table, served hunks of paté with no bread or crackers to eat it with. Smelly fish (I love a good oily "fishy" fish; this was not that. This was fish not kept fresh before cooking, either old or left out too long). They presented a check for the full amount even though we paid in advance. Maybe they just didn't like our look, who knows, but baffled and embarrassed by this horrific torture. We can have fun anywhere and did our best, but this was just plain bad.

Jose_B, Jul 2024

Beautiful scenery and views. Mediocre food.

The service was adequate though we shoved off late. Nice to do with family.