My wife and I had a wonderful time on the Avalon Scenery cruise on the Soane and Rhone Rivers and would highly recommend it to anyone who would appreciate the lovely scenery, the medieval towns, the lush vineyards in the company of a terrific crew and staff. The only jarring note was the painfully loud dining room, which others have mentioned. It desperately needs more sound dampening. Part of the problem is likely caused by the average age of the voyagers, which I would peg at about 70. So there might be some hearing issues that contribute to the loud voices. In any event, a quiet, relaxing dinner on board the boat was impossible. If it was not for this, I would give the trip five stars.
Our trip started in Paris at the Pullman Montparnasse. It is not a typical Parisian hotel, but, for our purposes, it was more than adequate. The breakfasts buffets were staggering in their breadth and quality. The rooms were clean, and, best of all, the location is a couple of blocks from the Montparnasse Metro Station. We arrived a day early and found this a great location for exploring Paris.
After a couple of days in Paris, we left by bus to embark on our boat. The rooms on the boat are small but are very well designed. We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of storage. The bathroom is small but fine and very clean. We loved having the floor to ceiling windows in our cabin. We saw many other tour boats with much smaller windows. The beds were quite comfortable.