Sea cruises to France — page 45

In scale and pace. A sea ship takes several thousand passengers, leaves from a port outside the centre and covers the distances overnight. A river ship holds two hundred, ties up in the middle of town and sails by day. At sea you see several countries in a week; on a river, a dozen towns of one country.

Usually with one change, as direct flights are few and often seasonal. We check the schedule against your sailing dates. The run from the airport to the terminal is short, but plan to fly in a day early — boarding closes two to three hours before departure. The five-hour figure that circulates around cruises means something else: it belongs to a transfer booked through the line and says nothing about when you report at the quay.

Yes, and that is the commonest shape of a week in the western basin: Marseille, one or two Italian ports, Barcelona or the Balearics, then back. It is why you should compare lists of ports rather than cruise names — the same route can be branded quite differently.

That there is no berth alongside and passengers come ashore in small boats, by tender. The transfer takes time and can be cancelled in a heavy swell. If you have something booked for a set hour, check whether the port is a tender port.

If you are flying with a change, almost always — you lose a day travelling anyway. Aix, Avignon and the Camargue are an hour or two by car from Marseille, and three days of car hire cost less than a full set of shore excursions bought on board.

It is a good choice if you want Normandy, Southampton or the fjords rather than a warm sea. Routes from Le Havre are seasonal and concentrated between May and September. September on deck there can be cooler than April in Provence.

The currency of the contract is either the euro or the US dollar, and the booking itself decides which. Payment goes by transfer, in euros or in zloty, to the details we set out in the document. With a payment link the settlement runs in zloty only. Prices on the site are shown in zloty at the day’s rate.

Your contract is with us, so a complaint comes to us rather than to an operator abroad. We hold an insurance guarantee against the organiser becoming insolvent. Most matters — a cabin change, a question about paperwork, a problem during the sailing — are settled by telephone in Polish during office hours.