ingo_e

A-Rosa tried to tend to a more younger crowd and therefore there are much more activity excursions. They also do have bikes onboard. Also very nice is that most of the cabins are available for triple occupation.

I saw a documentary about an A-Rosa foodie cruise on the Rhone / Saone. More or less they had the same age structure as everyone else :)

Ok, that last email was rather hasty before I had to go to work: If cruise lines do not disembark after free time, they usually offer a shuttle bus to the center. But as you have said, the busses are used for the city tour first, so if you don't want to attend the city tour, you'll need a bus / taxi to go to the center right away.

All cruise lines offer shuttle busses.

Public transportation is also possible, but take about 40min - 1h :

Take Bus 67 from Rotterdamer Strasse to Frankenstrasse, change to U1 (subway) towards the direction Fürth, leave at Lorenzkirche.

Day pass costs 4.40€

Taxi from Nuremberg port to center costs abround 20€ single direction.

The 2013 closure is most likely from

Begin: 2013 April 08th

End: 2013 April 24th

Thats what the german authorities told me. But be aware: Sometimes maintenance can take longer than expected, like 2010 where a lock gate had to be replaced and Hilpoltstein Lock was not working for an extra week.

APT has 99% aussies and kiwies on board, while Scenic targets aussies, kiwiks and canadians.

Both have gratitudes included as far as I know

Also remember some ships will "raft up" unlike ocean cruises

So you may be facing the river but you may have a ship right next to your side of the ship

+1 Here you'll get an idea of the problem.. http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/blog/?p=3848

Furthermore from Nuremberg to Budapest you are cruising from Regensburg downstream on the Danube to Budapest