Considering a river cruise, please help

[mike-c52]

My wife and i are considering a river cruise in 2010. Possibly on the Danube on one of the major river cruise lines. We have been on 6 cruises on ships with about 2000 passengers ranging from 3-14 nights. I feel we are well suited for a river cruise as we enjoy having many stops on a cruise and taking a wide range of shore excursions. Typically we take the late dinner seating so that we come back from an excursion we spend time relaxing by the pool since it is less crowded by that time and then maybe have a drink before dinner.After dinner we go to a show, the casino, or just sit on our balcony watching the night sky.

I am wondering what people do at night on a river boat. Will i get bored? especially on a cruise that is 10-14 days long. It just does not seem that a boat that size will have much to offer compared to the much larger ships that i am used to.

I would love to hear what experienced river cruisers have to say about this.

thanks for your help.

[paul929207]

We took a 21 day cruise across Europe. It was on a ship with a little over 100 passengers. There was some entertainment in the evening, but nothing compared to that on the larger cruise ships. Many evenings, we sat on deck and talked to new friends as we enjoyed sailing along.

[Talisker92]

Dear Mike,

We have been on 2 river cruises with Vantage and enjoyed them thoroughly. We cruised from Budapest to Amsterdam this year and from Budapest to Passau Christmas 2007. Both stories are on our website.

[eandj]

I am on our first river cruise as I write. The days are for the most part pretty busy with visits to the towns and /or optional excurions. however after the 7:00 dinner, which stretches to near 9:00, the choice of activity is mostly limited to what you choose to make for yourself. there is sometimes a "special" entertainer/s on board and always a keyboard player that will allow for dancing or easy listening. But that's it. If you like to sit around and talk to other cruisers in the lounge, that's what many do.

Nothing like the many venues or choices on a cruise ship.

[KCcruisin07]

We went on our first river cruise, the Danube from Budapest to Nuremberg, then on to Prague this year. I worried about whether my husband would like it, as he likes to walk on the deck at night and in the morning on a cruise ship.

He loved it...frankly even miore than I did. I would consider a cruise ship or river cruise for our next trip, but he wants a river cruise.

The main emphasis for us was the guided tours, and by the time we returned and had dinner we were ready to turn in. They did have some local entertainment after dinner though.

[Go Pack]

We have done both. River cruising is totally different from ocean cruising. No casino, no dance clubs, no nightly shows, no 2 seatings for dinner. You have one seating with complimentary wine, a decent dinner and than its back to the lounge for a relaxing drink and you make your own entertainment. A couple of nights the boat will provide local entertainment but not the show quality of the ocean cruise. Its more relax cruising. I am a very active, healthy, athletic 69 yr. old man that loves to laugh and have fun. I much prefer River cruising. We will be taking our 4th river cruise in April with GCT from Nice France to Paris. Can't wait.

[Kellie Poodle]

Hi,

 

I think you would have to look at river cruising as a different type of vacation. You can't compare it to an ocean cruise because they are not at all alike except that they both travel on the water.

 

We enjoy ocean cruising and we've done many and we didn't quite know what to expect when we did our first river cruise. We fell in love with river cruising. We liked the small number of passengers. It gave us an opportunity to meet lots of really great folks from all over the globe. We loved the food and the wine, of course, but we also enjoyed the sight seeing.

 

Most of the included guided tours were in the morning and our afternoons were free to roam around on our own. We enjoyed both the guided tours and the extra time to look at things that were not tourist attractions.

 

On the line we traveled, the water days were filled with special programs and narrated sight seeing by the host. We did a couple of optional tours and thoroughly enjoyed them. The line provided us with lots of information about the ports and the waterways and that also helped make things interesting.

 

We came away from our first river cruise knowing that we would still do ocean cruises, but we were hooked on this new "gracious" way to travel.

 

If you think of it as a different way to travel instead of a "cruise" you will have a great time.

[KarlS]

Hi Mike,

 

You've gotten some terrific responses here so far.

 

We've done both larger-ship cruising and river cruising. As stated by another post, just consider them different types of vacations where your hotel happens to float.

 

What I might add: Sometimes the river ships stay in the village/town/city after supper, so you get to supplement any on-board local entertainment with an evening ashore stroll and exploration on your own wherever you happen to be. We really do enjoy that opportunity.

 

Something else that might help you is to look at the various river cruise lines' web sites, where they have free access to what their ship is doing day-by-day for any of their itineraries. Also, if it's of any interest, we have some of our cruises' daily programs posted on our web site at http://www.hillrisefarm.us/Cruising.html . We've only river cruised on Uniworld, but there are many other fine river cruise lines out there.

 

We're sold on the river cruise product, but that's not to say we won't be back on a larger-ship cruise again.

 

Have a wonderful time doing your homework and learning about river cruising!

 

...Karl

[mike-c52]

thanks to everyone for taking the time to help me out. i'm sure a river cruise will be a wonderful experience. i have always felt that the destinations were the best part of any cruise so this should fit us to a T.hearing how much all of you enjoyed your cruises just helps solidify my feelings.

 

mike

[brownblonde]

having gone just this summer with GCT and it being our 3rd every post it true. You just have to go to see for yourself. In fact sounds like you must make a choice soon if your doing it in 2010. Take in one of the Christmas River cruises, it is like 2 in one the village and the added attraction of the mkts.

 

I posted some time ago, riverboats are good for seeing a lot of the small villages, if you don't want to do overland bus trips. Ocean cruises you only get to the larger cities or take tours that may take you out of the cities to see the country side but your stay is so short you then don't see the city the ship docks in.

 

Just pick one and go it is only 7 days then tell us all your feed back

 

Eleanor

[mike-c52]

Brain freeze......i meant 2011...probably in june

[KarlS]

Brain freeze.

 

Happens to all of us! This will give you more time to compare itineraries and cruise lines, and time to ask more questions of the folks here in the forum.