sengsational

Thanks, all, for the ideas. I'm building up my knowledge with your help.

Avalon has fridges and that was a top reason we chose them.

I have a review of our Christmas Market cruise somewhere.

... we spent a considerable amount of time comparing all cruise lines on a cost per diem basis. My wonderful business accountant wife on both occasions prepared spread sheets on each and every company doing our itinerary and brought everything back to a simple figure ....

I was worried that would be the answer....hard work is required if I want to do my normal over-analyzing of the purchase. It would be easier if I had a solid preference for a destination, or time frame. But I have neither.

I'll probably find a travel agent and have them bring back some specific options. May I can hijack my own thread and ask how one finds an unbiased travel agent that's experienced with river cruises?

The pricing, discounts, freebees, services included, etc makes it less than clear which river cruises are really a better "deal" and by how much. I've seen some generalities like X is more than Y, but you get free booze at 8am if you want it (chokes just thinking about it). So obviously some amenities are of value to some, and not of value to others, and that makes comparing across cruise lines hard. But even within one line, the brochure fares seem to be always 50% off? There always seems to be some free or discounted airfare available. They offer to cover some odd expenses or add some odd amenity that I have no clue how much it's worth? Seems to be designed to confuse and obfuscate the real pricing.

I'm NOT interested in learning "which is the cheapest", but to learn from those experienced in shopping these cruises, 1) how you spot a value from a so-so (or bad) value, 2) what percent is the difference between a good value and just an average value, 3) do the sales incentives (like reduced airfare, sailing soon prices, etc) make that much difference?

If you're familiar with "dealnews", a "hotness" of 5 out of 5 is a screamin' good deal, all things considered. The ATC means if the cruise was shunned by others because of some known factor, that would be considered in the hotness. A low price here would NOT be a 5/5. So it's a rating system that compares what 'like' things are currently selling for compared to each other. Or it compares what this thing was recently really (not fictionally) selling for earlier, and now is less.

So considering my question (2), above, if the difference between a deal hotness of 5/5, and a hotness of 2/5 is only 5%, it's not worth worrying about. But if it's 25%, that would get my attention. This would be a gut-feel for those that have shopped these cruises and know the differences between ships, lines, seasons, itineraries, etc.

My FIL loves the rauchbier - he brought home a few bottles from a river cruise a few years ago and my husband (an avid homebrewer) has brewed rauchbier a couple of times. I am not a fan;) But it's certainly something interesting to try! I travel to enjoy new foods & drinks so I'll try anything once!

 

(if you have a good bottle shop/craft beer store nearby, there's an export available in the US)

Hoyaheel, Having professional beer appreciation and is a tarheel gives us something in common. Your experience as a European river cruiser sets us apart, so I wondered if you would say the Rhine be a good place to start, or would Elbe or Moselle be more "interesting", from a beer perspective. I'm looking for unique, out of the way pub and/or brewery experiences. I'm not going to go off-season just to have them line-up beer specific tours, though. Going pubbing or beer shopping, finding what my sister calls "weird beers" and bringing them back aboard is something that sounds cool to me. I also need help finding a river cruise line that's got no corkage fee and a fridge, but that's another thread! BTW, rauchbiers are great if you like drinking a campfire, hehe!

Here are the first few days of stuff I found in my mailbox on a recent Princess cruise. I'll admit to being not very wired into this community, so maybe this is not so interesting. That's why I didn't scan the whole stack...just the first part. If there's a demand, I'll scan more. It's a PDF.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6X74x23Hx7DMml4RmZZWW16bEU/edit?usp=sharing