The opinionsof our boaters

Our first cruise and only two of us so we deliberately chose the smallest and most basic boat - hence the ratings, ours was also quite an old boat but everything worked fine and this did not detract from our enjoyment. We had a great time. My only criticism of the equipment/booking was confusion on the on board electricity. I had understood we could only charge phones/computer from the boats battery and had not realised we needed to hire an adaptor for the purpose, lost in translation perhaps. Did not cause a problem as we could do this while hooked up to the mains at night in port and used the phones very little anyway with everything else to do. My only other comment for inexperienced first timers like us is be prepared for a steep learning curve at the locks, particularly going upstream with just two of you. One jumps off before the lock and walks up to it, the helmsman navigates into the lock and then has to rush to one end of the boat, throw the first rope up to the 'crew's on the bank who takes a turn around the bollard. Meanwhile the helmsman has dashed to the other end of boat to throw the second rope up to the crew who takes a turn round the bollard and returns it while keeping control of the first rope. Once you have your routine sorted and ensure the ropes are properly coiled in advance so they're easy to throw it all goes smoothly and is in fact great fun. As all boats go at the same speed and the locks on the Canal du Midi usually take 4 boats you will often go through a number of locks with the same group of boats. You get to know them, tips and advice are exchanged, have some good banter and if anyone's having any trouble they're helped out by the others. In fact, after the first couple of locks learning our routine, we were usually the ones helping out the bigger boats who'd got in a tangle. All great fun.