The Night Riviera Sleeper service between Penzance and London Paddington has been cancelled until 28 February.
'Yes, it's expensive, but this is St-Tropez,' says Cubby Wolf, who runs Riviera Realty, a local service that sells and buys properties for the burgeoning ex-pat community.
The best hotels for service worldwide put the Desert Riviera Hotel as No. 8. Morocco dominated the list with Riad Kheirredine (No. 1), Riad Noir d'Ivoire (No. 4) and La Maison Arabe (No. 9), all in Marrakech.
No, the problem with the Riviera is not the rooms, but rather the service.
Holland America and Carnival Cruises operated weekly cruises to the Mexican Riviera for many years, but both ended their regular scheduled service in spring 2012, which was an economic loss to the region of more than $100 million.
From the 1880's through the 1920's, improved steamboat and railway service turned Coney Island into "the poor man's Riviera," while with the help of the expanded Long Island Rail Road, eastern parts of the Island increasingly attracted the rich.
But despite the numerous outlandish personally flavoured investments Russian wealth barons have made in things UK football clubs, lavish yachts, full-service private jets, summer homes on the French Riviera and in southern Spain, etc. this point still eludes most Western observers.
The most convenient way to reach the track is by train, with frequent service from Nice (about 20 minutes west) and the Italian Riviera.
Costa Riviera Capacity 974 passengers; 30,400 tons, outdoor pool, spa, casino, Continental cuisine; entered service as the Guglielmo Marconi in 1963, refitted as Riviera in 1983, refurbished in 1996.
For visitors wishing to take day trips from the bling-bling Riviera cities to those that are more diamonds in the rough, the rail service may be the best way to go.
