Croisieres de France CDF Horizon Comprehensive Review (Jan 26, 2015 sailing)

I recently stumbled across the repositioning cruise on this ship on VTG (for some reason, if I put the actual travel agent company name here, it gets ***ed out). It was listed at a very low price ($119 for 14 nights), so I thought I would give it a try. Once I called VTG, I learned that the port charges and taxes were more than the quoted price for the cruise, but it was still a good deal (even with having to fly to Santo Domingo for the start of the cruise and back from Barcelona after the cruise), so I decided to go for it. The total for the cruise and port charges for two people ended up being $717.50 -- still a good deal.

One of the things that I hate about cruises is that you don't get to spend any significant amount of time in the ports. Very seldom do you even get to overnight in the port. So, I decided to arrive in Santo Domingo a week early and then leave from Barcelona a week late. Unfortunately, my wife has a prior engagement in May, otherwise I would have scheduled a longer time in Europe. I don't have any definite plans for Europe yet other than to drive from Barcelona, eventually going though Monaco and Paris before ending back up in Barcelona a week later.

I don't speak French and my Spanish vocabulary consists mainly of:

"Dos cervezas, por favor"

and

"Banos?"

I should be fine... :)

I discovered that the cruise is "all-inclusive" (i.e. sodas and alcohol included). I suspect that I'll end up drinking my way across the Atlantic.

Burrrrrpppp...

They went through a LOT of wine on that cruise. I spoke with one of the crew about halfway through the cruise and they said that they had already gone through 4000 bottles of wine. You might think that this was a lot of money, but after the cruise, I spent some time in France and found that it is entirely possible to buy adequate wine for very little money even in single bottle quantitites. I was at a grocery store (Auchan, I believe) after the cruise and saw large selection of wines with many in the €3 per bottle range. I even saw some for less that €2 per bottle. A saw a Merlot for €1.79 and a white wine for €1.29. Just for curiosity, I bought the Merlot to see how good a really cheap bottle of French wine might be. Admittedly, I do not have a very refined wine palate, but it seemed perfectly acceptable to me. It was at least as good as any of the "bag wines" that you see in the cardboard boxes or gallon jugs in the grocery stores around here from California. Since my wife does not drink, I also learned that a single bottle of wine is about as much as I would want to drink at a single sitting.

We have booked the CDF Horizon out of St. Maarten for January 2016. We are looking for advice about whether we can book cruise line shore excursions in advance or should wait until onboard to book. Our travel agent mentioned that the excursions listed on the CDF website may not represent what is actually available when the cruise sails. Don't know if that is true or not. Any advice on this issue? We don't speak or read French so navigating the French-only CDF website is quite difficult for us. As all US Citizens must obtain a Venezuelan Visa before boarding the ship (or you will be denied boarding) and which is a pain in the neck to obtain, we are likely to be the only or a couple of the few Americans on the ship.

We booked our tours at the tour desk after the ship had sailed. The lines were long and tours are in French or Spanish. Recommend that you sit near the front and tell the tour guide that you are an English speaker. Generally they will try to accommodate you, assuming they speak English (most do). But certainly the bulk of the tour will be in Spanish or French.

Here's a hard-to-find list of some tours in English. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9447968/EXCURSIONS%20TROPICALE%202014%20-%202015%20-%20Horizon_EN.pdf

We booked our tours at the tour desk after the ship had sailed. The lines were long and tours are in French or Spanish. Recommend that you sit near the front and tell the tour guide that you are an English speaker. Generally they will try to accommodate you, assuming they speak English (most do). But certainly the bulk of the tour will be in Spanish or French.

 

Here's a hard-to-find list of some tours in English. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9447968/EXCURSIONS%20TROPICALE%202014%20-%202015%20-%20Horizon_EN.pdf

Hi Stockjock,

your shore excursions list is fantastic. Can you recall roughly any prices ?

Hi Stockjock,

 

your shore excursions list is fantastic. Can you recall roughly any prices ?

St. Pierre and Distillery (Very good) was 68 Euro. Bayguana Safari (Santo Domingo) was 84 Euro and not recommended. Fiesta Margarita (Margarita Island) was 39 Euro and was fun and a good deal. That's all I've got.