Amsterdam, Cologne and the Best of Holland & Flanders River Cruise for Solo Travellers - MS Geoffrey Chaucer
Holiday Highlights
- Change your booking free up to 45 days before travel
- Covid Cancellation protection included as standard
- Happy by day two or we'll bring you home with a full refund
- Seven nights on board in your choice of luxury cabin or suite, with river views
- Eight visits and tours including a canal cruise in Amsterdam and guided tours of Cologne, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Rotterdam and visits to Kinderdijk, Airborne Museum or Het Loo Palace
- All meals on board from dinner on your day of arrival through to breakfast on your day of departure, including a welcome dinner and the Captain’s Dinner
- A packed lunch during the full day trip to Bruges
- Five-star service from an English-speaking crew and knowledgeable local guides
- Complimentary on-board tea and coffee
- Complimentary on-board Wi-Fi
What's Included
- Prices are per person based on one person in a twin cabin for sole occupancy. The price includes:
- Full board from dinner on your day of arrival until breakfast on your final day; if you choose to travel with us on any of the full day excursions by coach, a packed lunch will be provided. Anyone choosing to stay on the ship may of course have lunch in the restaurant
- Morning/afternoon tea and coffee
- All visits and excursions as mentioned
- Airport transfers
- Coach travel as mentioned
- Travel to and from port of embarkation
- The services of a Riviera Travel cruise director & concierge
Itinerary
Day 1
Arrive at the airport for your flight to Amsterdam or take the Eurostar from London St Pancras International to Brussels, where you change trains and continue to Amsterdam. On arrival, transfer by coach to your five-star cruise ship. The friendly crew welcomes you to your spacious and superbly furnished accommodation – you’ll feel immediately at home on your first-class floating hotel. The ship remains here overnight, so watch dusk descend over Amsterdam as you enjoy your first dinner on board.
Day 2
This morning, awake to the colourful canalside of Amsterdam as you enjoy a delicious breakfast on board. We embark on a charming glass-topped canal cruiser to begin exploring this beautiful city. With a network of 165 17th-century canals radiating from the city centre, taking to the water really is the best way to immerse yourself in Amsterdam’s history and culture. As you drift between the cobbled streets, fringed with tall, narrow merchants’ houses, past characterful houseboats and interesting bridges, your guide imparts a wealth of knowledge about life, past and present in this unique city, once home to the famous Dutch painter Rembrandt and the legendary Anne Frank, who wrote her world-famous diaries whilst in hiding during the Nazi occupation. Amsterdam is an incredible city to explore on foot too. This afternoon our ship remains moored, so you can wander its inspiring streets at your leisure. If art is your passion, then no visit would be complete without experiencing the vast collection of masterpieces housed in the extraordinary Rijksmuseum or Van Gogh Museum. Alternatively head to the vibrant Jordaan district, crammed with independent galleries, quirky shops and fashionable cafés from where you can linger over a refreshing locally-brewed beer and watch the Amsterdammers skilfully dodging each other on their high-handlebarred cycles. Step back in time with a thought-provoking visit to Anne Frank’s house or enjoy bargain-hunting in the bustling Waterlooplein flea market, the largest in Europe. Feeling peckish? If raw herring, a Dutch delicacy often accompanied by gherkins and diced onions, from a traditional haringhandel (herring stand) doesn’t appeal, perhaps opt for a plate of mouth-watering poffertjes, mini pancakes dusted with sugar.
After years of painstaking research to create the most perfect vessels afloat, a new era in river cruising dawns as we introduce our brand new, state of the art, ‘all suite’ ships. Swiss operated and truly world-class, we are absolutely delighted to present the five-star MS Geoffrey Chaucer.
It is extremely difficult to convey just how extraordinary this outstanding ship really is and exactly what distinguishes it from similar vessels. It would be very easy to just say ‘luxurious’ but it’s much more than that; we have deliberately avoided the current trend for a minimalist style where you could be anywhere in the world, creating instead a unique yet exquisite blend of understated taste, style and elegance at the highest level. Immediately striking is just how exceptionally spacious this new vessel is as you enter a gleaming, richly coloured marble-floored lobby flooded with natural light from a stunning atrium above. Moving inside, exceptional creativity from Europe’s finest design studio has produced a superbly balanced masterpiece of onboard style, utilising sustainable rich hardwoods, gleaming brass and polished copper, sparkling glass and intricate wrought iron. The ship is beautifully illuminated throughout – including the exterior and imaginatively furnished with harmonious colour schemes, all designed to create the serene atmosphere reflective of the golden age of cruising which time after time you tell us you adore.
The restaurant rivals the finest on shore establishments taking fine dining to another level complemented by delicate European porcelain, gleaming glassware and the intuitive service in which the Swiss excel. This superb vessel carries 44 in-house trained crew members serving just 167guests (similar size vessels may carrywell over 190 passengers) giving the ratio which our experience proves is concurrent with our first class service levels.
Furthermore your suite will easily exceed your expectations for not only will you enjoy the most discerning décor, so too the ship’s dimensions afford the ultimate in space and comfort - a minimum 17 square metres (183 square feet), with upgrades available to ‘Superior’ and ‘Deluxe’ accommodation.