I know you’ve all been holding your breath:  Will the river cruise be as bad as Cellobella predicted?  Or has she gone on the epicurial journey of a lifetime?! 

Bait your breath no more my friends, and come sail with me on “Perth’s Famous Wine Cruise”.

We arrive and line up to board our flat bottomed boat and spent the time waiting deciding whether to go for the chicken (sauce too sweet), fish (very dry) or linguine (which turned out to be penne but looked the best option). I chose chicken and got a yellow sticker.  But first a pic by the waiting photographer.  Click. 

We manage to score the last booth on the boat which was great – if you don’t get a booth you are sitting in rows with little airplane tables to rest your drinks on.  And that’s no fun at all.

But we had a booth so we were happy, as were the three booths taken up by a real estate company out for a boozy Christmas lunch.  We were delayed in our departure because there was a problem with the engines but they sorted that out and off we chugged bound for the Swan Valley.

We were first offered coffee or tea in a paper take-away cup and a Sara Lee muffin – chocolate, blueberry or banana.  A little low rent I thought given the price of the tickets, but the tea was okay and the muffins not too unpleasant.   Might have been nicer warmed through.

We floated past the city with the commentator upstaged by the FESA fire bombing helicopters out for a practice. 

They were quite exciting to watch and I went to sit at the front of the boat until it got too cool without a jumper.

And then it was time (10.30am) for the first wine tasting of the day.

The cheap – oh it was cheap wine – Houghton’s White Classic – which is an okay quaffing wine but certainly not good enough for a wine tasting.  The wines didn’t get much better. 

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I don’t understand that.  Surely you would bring out the good wines first while people can still taste them?

Oh and we each got this “cheese platter”. 

Our first stop was Sandlefords Winery, where we had another tasting – this time the wines were quite nice – I liked the 2004 Cab Sav. Very pleasant.  We spent some time there, many browsed the gift shop, then we wandered back down to the river to travel to lunch at the Water’s Edge Cafe.

It was a pretty ordinary lunch to my mind.  I’ve described the options for main course. Mine was very average and I wished I’d ordered the pasta.  And just to continue my whinging – the dessert was inedible.  However they did make up for it somewhat by adding candles to my MIL’s cake for her birthday.  Sweet.

And then it was home-time.  The other tables got stuck into the wine, I fell asleep, and the rest of my party talked and enjoyed the cruise back to the city.  There was even a singing steward – who was surprisingly good.

I had low expectations (no, really) of this cruise.  I don’t like river cruises and when you have a big group of tourists I guess the quality falls in terms of the food and wine served.  My expectations were met.  But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time.  We chatted, we made scathing comments about the wine, we discovered that someone close to us has just had a boob job – and we hadn’t even noticed!  I can’t believe we didn’t notice.

And it was pleasant chugging up and down the Swan – we even saw dolphins on the way home.

But I wouldn’t do it again.

For one thing, it sounds as though it can be a bit of a booze cruise – they push the water pretty hard and thanked us for being a good crowd “especially after the week we’ve had” which suggests it can get a bit out of hand.

And for another – I’d rather spend the money on a decent restaurant with fine wine – and for $135 a head – it would be a very nice meal.

If I had to go again I would definitely bring cards.