lorif

Thanks! Will give that a watch.

Thanks, this will definitely be of interest. There's lots of info on that site looking at the 2023 program.

Thanks @edinburgher We are hoping for good weather, not sure what to expect in April. Happy to hear about the trails from the Visitor Centre, and the abundance of bald eagles. My brother, the photographer in the group, has visited a raptor centre previously to do some photo shoots and loved it. I am sure he will get some good shots.

Thank you so much! This is all amazingly helpful.

One of the people in our group is a photographer, and may want to take any opportunities available for that. I am not sure what to expect weather wise at that time, land vs water. We are all in our 50's, mobile and enjoy walking. I saw that Kodiak Island has (had?) a Grey Whale Festival in April and wondered if whales are in the water there at that time of year. If there are any suggestions in general for those ports, anything is appreciated. Thanks,

We are on a repositioning cruise, and will be at these ports from 18th to 21st of April. It is still early but there are no excursions listed at this time for the cruise. Does anyone have experience of these ports? Thank you!

NCL has the Jewel moving spring and fall between Alaska and Tokyo.

Yes, you are docked right at the town/city, some more tourist or commercial than others. We did Danube, so different itinerary, but logistics would be similar. The other difference are the included tours. Each day we did a minimum of 1 included tour, sometimes 2. There were also options for some tours that had a fee attached, which we did a couple of. Viking has the biggest advertising budget, but their payment policies are not as good as other lines from what I saw. Also, check cabin sizes and number of passengers onboard. The ships are all basically the same size and shape, but configurations in the ships can vary.

There is a river cruise board on here that might be helpful. We went with Avalon last year and had a fantastic trip. Their rooms are a bit of a different layout that we really enjoyed while on the ship, but the whole trip was great!

We did a HAL cruise with our YA son and daughter, we loved the itinerary, and the ship was new, but the activities were skewed to a much more senior range.

As others have said, some of stops, like LeHavre, are quite a distance from the city they link to. You can choose what you want to do at those stops, planning ahead is key. In 2019, we had a stop there and felt Paris was too far, but we were really interested in a D-Day tour. We booked a private tour with a few other couples from our cruise using NST - Normandy Sightseeing. They were able to customize it so we could visit Juno Beach, they also included the path one specific regiment followed as it was specific to one of the people in our group. It was one of the best days on our cruise. Saying that, the ship did offer D-Day tours as well, but we appreciated our customized itinerary. So, look at where the port is, and choose what is doable for you.

I saw a video by Gary Bembridge that Norway is going to be putting in restrictions for cruise ships in the next couple of years. You may want to look at that info online, and see when and what restrictions there will be. If you can't go later, you may want to switch to that itinerary now.

We arranged a taxi with the concierge at the hotel (Marriott) and it was pretty easy.

It might be worth waiting to book train to Deggendorf in case something changes. Our embarkation changed while we were already in Munich. Check the schedules and see what your options look like, and have a loose plan would be my advice. In Munich we stayed at Hotel Torbräu and it was great! The location was very handy, we walked almost everywhere from there but we weren't visiting art galleries. Lots of good choices around. In Budapest we had booked the hotel through Avalon, so we were at the Marriott. Great location, we enjoyed it. The whole trip was amazing, Avalon was great, we wouldn't have changed a thing.

We did this itinerary, but used spent a couple days in Munich pre-cruise. We had planned on using the trains to get to Deggendorf from Munich, but the weekend train schedules are different (less frequent) than weekdays. We ended up contacting the CD on the ship, and he was able to get us on one of the transfer buses from Munich airport. That was much easier than transferring between buses and trains on the transit schedules. Munich was amazing, we loved it. People on the boat that were in Prague loved that as well. Enjoy!

At home I often enjoy a large mug of coffee, but after having the Nespresso on the ship I bought a machine the month we were home. Now I will mix it up depending on what is best at the time. As others said, don't worry about bringing pods they will have decaf as part of the selection.

Hoping someone familiar with Vienna excursions can help 🙂 We are booked for a mid Oct sailing, and our excursion choices just came up this weekend. For Vienna, we were looking at "Biking in Vienna with your Adventure Host" In the short description, for the 1.5 hour tour, it says it's a fun and relaxing trip, but also covers 23 km in the 1.5 hours. Has anyone done this tour? We were thinking of this in the morning, and then the Bites and Highlights in the afternoon. Thanks,

We were on Spirit in 2019, in an SH cat suite. It was absolutely great! At that time, we had butler, concierge, breakfast & lunch in Cagneys (I think) if we wanted. There's not a Haven, just the suites, usual amenities. I loved the layout of the suite, having the separate area for the bed was great.

Haven't been there on a river cruise yet, but we did visit Amsterdam and Keukenhof previously. We were there for a few days, and got a Holland Pass that included Keukenhof. Definitely worth the day to visit. I think this may be the updated site from when we went. https://www.getyourguide.com/-t85542/?

I saw a La Lido Loca youtube video about a week ago addressing reports of those who had been quarantined. You might want to have a look at that, and maybe they've had an update. I think it is in the ships interest to not advertise or make covid numbers widely available. There is the push/pull between those who want to cruise like it's 2019, and those that would like to cruise again if safety protocols are in place and effective.