When you are paying over $15,000 for a cruise... You would think you were getting your moneys worth.
The Uniworld Cruise tour was a good experience for a taste of India, which mixed land tours with a week cruise along the Ganges river.
The land tour started in Delhi where we were put up in the Oberoi Hotel, a 5 star establishment. While extremely posh, we had to pay for several meals at a huge cost. The excursions where interesting where we visited temples and monuments and rode a cycle rickshaw to blend into the local market.
The boat experience was uneven. On the plus side, the standard rooms are very spacious. Lots of room to walk around. Oddly enough, with all this room, places to put your stuff was lacking. This was especially the case in the bathroom. Although the bathroom was huge there was little space to put your toiletries.. did we really need a humungous shower area ?.. Workmanship was lacking, as the grouting around drains and tiles looked like it was thrown on , and not applied. Door hooks were place near the top of the door making it difficult for short people to hang stuff up. The same goes for the peep hole in the front door which was about 5 feet off of the floor.This was the second sailing of the River Ganges II and it sailed still under construction, mostly in the crew level). You would think that the boat would only sail when done. The whole third floor had air circulation problems with bad smells wafting thru the rooms.
The food was generally good, with occasion misses in terms of taste and quality. Mostly Family Restaurant quality..
Many people complained that the Indian offerings were too Americanized… and lacking in complex taste.
Although coffee was free, you had to pay for speciality coffees such as cappuccinos.
The staff was very friendly and eager to please but language was an issue. Very few knew how to speak anything more than basic english and you sometimes had to repeat yourself to get understood. They messed up one of our wakeup calls, and sometimes, a call to the front desk went unanswered.
Considering sanitation standards in India , i don’t think Uniworld took things seriously enough after 1/2 the boat came down with a stomach virus. At that point, they should have had the staff dish out the buffet food, instead of letting everyone handle the tongs with their hands. It didn’t help that your soiled toilet paper was not allowed to be put into the toilet. You had to wipe and keep your paper in a bin on the floor next to the toilet. I wouldn’t be surprised if that contributed to the run-away virus.
The river part of the cruise was quite uneven as well. Some of the excursions were for me.. just thrown together (Another walk thru another village) because the scenery was mostly uninteresting
. A tour guide told me that there are more interesting things to see in those areas which we never got to see. probably because the transport from the shore would have been too difficult.
@@@ we had great air conditioning and heating in our room. No problem in that area.
People rave about Uniworld, but my Viking trip to Myramar was much better.
India's Golden Triangle & the Sacred Ganges with Uniworld
in River Cruising
Posted · Edited by Intellibyte
When you are paying over $15,000 for a cruise... You would think you were getting your moneys worth.
The Uniworld Cruise tour was a good experience for a taste of India, which mixed land tours with a week cruise along the Ganges river.
The land tour started in Delhi where we were put up in the Oberoi Hotel, a 5 star establishment. While extremely posh, we had to pay for several meals at a huge cost. The excursions where interesting where we visited temples and monuments and rode a cycle rickshaw to blend into the local market.
The boat experience was uneven. On the plus side, the standard rooms are very spacious. Lots of room to walk around. Oddly enough, with all this room, places to put your stuff was lacking. This was especially the case in the bathroom. Although the bathroom was huge there was little space to put your toiletries.. did we really need a humungous shower area ?.. Workmanship was lacking, as the grouting around drains and tiles looked like it was thrown on , and not applied. Door hooks were place near the top of the door making it difficult for short people to hang stuff up. The same goes for the peep hole in the front door which was about 5 feet off of the floor.This was the second sailing of the River Ganges II and it sailed still under construction, mostly in the crew level). You would think that the boat would only sail when done. The whole third floor had air circulation problems with bad smells wafting thru the rooms.
The food was generally good, with occasion misses in terms of taste and quality. Mostly Family Restaurant quality..
Many people complained that the Indian offerings were too Americanized… and lacking in complex taste.
Although coffee was free, you had to pay for speciality coffees such as cappuccinos.
The staff was very friendly and eager to please but language was an issue. Very few knew how to speak anything more than basic english and you sometimes had to repeat yourself to get understood. They messed up one of our wakeup calls, and sometimes, a call to the front desk went unanswered.
Considering sanitation standards in India , i don’t think Uniworld took things seriously enough after 1/2 the boat came down with a stomach virus. At that point, they should have had the staff dish out the buffet food, instead of letting everyone handle the tongs with their hands. It didn’t help that your soiled toilet paper was not allowed to be put into the toilet. You had to wipe and keep your paper in a bin on the floor next to the toilet. I wouldn’t be surprised if that contributed to the run-away virus.
The river part of the cruise was quite uneven as well. Some of the excursions were for me.. just thrown together (Another walk thru another village) because the scenery was mostly uninteresting
. A tour guide told me that there are more interesting things to see in those areas which we never got to see. probably because the transport from the shore would have been too difficult.
@@@ we had great air conditioning and heating in our room. No problem in that area.
People rave about Uniworld, but my Viking trip to Myramar was much better.