River Empress or Queen, which direction for Amsterdam to Budapest, best month?

[luvs2cruzga]

We are looking to book for 2013 and this will be our first river cruise. I decided on Uniworld and the route. Please help. Any differences in the ship? Any differences in the best way? Sept. seems to be best month - why? Which to steer clear of?

[ras619]

We are looking to book for 2013 and this will be our first river cruise. I decided on Uniworld and the route. Please help. Any differences in the ship? Any differences in the best way? Sept. seems to be best month - why? Which to steer clear of?

 

We are booked on this trip for July 2013, but the date was more of what fit our schedules. I suspect that May or September might be optimum. We chose the Budapest to Amsterdam primarily because we have already been to & spent time in Cologne, Kinderdij & Amsterdam so having these at the end might give us a little more relaxation prior to flights home. This also allowed us to book the pre-excursion to Prague so it helped on the front end for jet lag & an extra new place to visit. Either direction will probably be a great trip.

[cbb]

We typically river cruise in May when all of the flowers are blooming and there are fewer tourists and the weather is lovely or September when there are fewer tourists, Europeans are back from their vacations and the weather is also great. Shopkeepers are glad to see you in both months! We don't like crowds so if you can avoid Europe in the summer months you can avoid long lines and masses of people.

 

We went from Budapest to Amsterdam since weather tends to go from the Atlantic and travel east and we didn't want to risk a "front" coming from Amsterdam's coast and traveling with us up the river!

[luvs2cruzga]

Like the idea of going from Budapest to Amsterdam to avoid continuous weather following you.

 

Curious, September is the most expensive sailing. Why? What is the weather like in September and if you see flowers in May, is it fall in September?

[pacmom]

September is spectacular on the rivers. We have beenon 15 river cruises and during most of the months. The summer months can be VERY hot. We also like the spring and fall--used to be less crowds, but with the glut of new boats and more and more people wanting to try something different, it seems to be crowded all the time. Pick the time best for you and then look at all the lines offering the itinerary and compare them. Check the deck plans of the specific boats--new Viking french balcony cabins very small according to someone on one of them. Do you need an elevator--these are European build, don't have to conform to US handicapped rules. Tell us what you wannt from the trip and there are wonderful posters here that gladly help. There are what I call cheerleaders for a specific line, but many have experience on that line only. Good luck, but watch out river cruisinf can be addictive. Pat

[cbb]

When we have sailed in September both on Oceania and Avalon we only see a little hint of color. Last Sept our trip was "Grand France with Provence extension" and we went from Paris to Normandy and back to Paris, then moved to another ship and went on the Rhone to Provence. We loved it. If you have a special interest in the America Cemetery at Normandy it is both wonderful and heartbreaking. The Provence, is, of course amazing. Just another itinerary to think about someday!!!

 

Go days early to Budapest and if you feel comfortable using their mass transportation be sure you visit both Buda and Pest. Take advantage of the optionals while on board since the cruise lines make it easy for you but if you are a researcher and feel comfortable using email to line up private guides then by all means plan your own optionals.

 

Just being able to walk off of the ship usually at city center is wonderful or take advantage of leaving the included city tours and wander about making your own way back to the ship is absolutely lovely...especially doing it with someone you love. Happy planning and have a wonderful time. c

[tassietravellers]

We are going to be travelling Budapest to Amsterdam in August 12, we hadnt really thought about which direction we wanted to go, it was more about when we could get on the ships that we wanted.

 

I had actually wanted September as it was a fantastic way to finish our 2 month holiday of Europe and the UK, but that didnt work in with sailings, so now we are starting with the cruise. Happy to be leaving from Budapest now as I've read quite a few posts on the weather being better in that direction, but either way didnt really bother us, its all going to be new for us, its our first cruise.

 

So looking forward to it all, only 3 months to go!!

[Ozjohnno]

We travelled Amsterdam to Budapest last September 6-20 and the weather which started out overcast and drizzly in Amsterdam was just perfect by the time we got to Cologne and we had great warm weather and sunny days all the way to Budapest. The opposite of the advice we got before we booked. I was not convinced before we travelled that the stories about the bad weather following you from Amsterdam were really convincing and I'm sure that you could get some bad weather no matter what direction you travel. It's the cruise that's most important and if we could control the weather we would be very rich people.

 

You'll have a great time and when you get back you'll have no idea why you asked the question on direction.

[luvs2cruzga]

Thank you for your responses. We settled on a May 17, 2013 sailing on MS Treasures with Tauck from Budapest to Amsterdam.

[Ozjohnno]

Thank you for your responses. We settled on a May 17, 2013 sailing on MS Treasures with Tauck from Budapest to Amsterdam.

 

Great choice. The MS Treasures is a beautiful boat.