2021/22 River and Canal Cruises Welcome! Welcome to Backwaters’ 2021/22 brochure. After all the disruption stemming from the pandemic we know many of you are thirsting for some cruise adventures, and we believe Backwaters will appeal to those who love their cruising but prefer for now to stick closer to home and remain in fairly small groups. And of course we offer you the chance to cruiseelectric as we all strive to respect the environment and reverse climate change. In this brochure we list all our 2021 departures scheduled from a lateAugust restart, with our 2022 programme then following through to the Autumn of next year. The index lists all departures in date order, and each cruise is then introduced in the brochure regionally. If you have problems finding anything or need further information please call 01303 316116 or email us
[email protected] How are we different? Backwaters’ focus is on the thousands of miles of more intimate waterways across France and Belgium where vessel dimensions are governed by the “Freycinet” scale of lock sizes and bridge clearances. In effect, this gives us up to 38m of lengthways space to play with, 5m width and about 3m headroom, not enough for a hotel boat of any scale. The Backwaters answer is to operate with cruisers that are configured to serve as a comfortable observation lounge, and at the end of each day’s cruising the coach drops you back to hotel. Crucially, there’s no hopping from one hotel to the next. The gentle pace of cruising, pauses for locks, waterway meanders, doglegs and circular routes mean that we stay close to the same hotel throughout, and we plan our complementary coach excursions along the cruise corridor so that they fit conveniently into our short “commute” between hotel and boat.