Side trips/excursions

[debintexas]

Am researching river cruises for next year. It seems the times off the ships are short walks and not much seen. We're used to Princess excursions and take the 7 hour + ones to see all we can see in a port. Realizing that the river cruises are completely different, I guess my main question is how much of the sites do you get to see versus time just on the ship? Thanks in advance for your help!

[paul929207]

IMO, many of the ports visited on the river cruises are smaller than ones typicly visited on Princess and similar lines. For instance, we are on the Elbe now with Grand Circle. Most of our ports have populations of less the 25,000.

[YoungDubFan]

I was always happy with the amount of time that we had in port on my Avalon Basel - Amsterdam trip earlier this year. The walking tour served as a great overview of the city and pointed out a fair amount of highlights. We then had plenty of time to see places in more detail or to shop. We had full days with a lot of activity.

[KCcruisin07]

We took AMA, and I was very happy with the quality and length of the tours. (My husband hiked through everything.) We would meet after the tour and explore other places, but I felt that they covered the landmarks well. Of course there was much more to see in places like Vienna, but there were some optional tours, e.g. the Schonbrunn (which we did on our own).

 

I usually do the research, and in a way it was a relief to have someone arrange the logistics.

[swamp1sg]

I bet the 7 hour Princess excursion cost you a pretty penny. We've been on 3 different cruise lines and thoroughly enjoyed the walking excursions. The guides are superior. Also included, we did an entire day in both Heidelberg and Normandy,On each cruise I took at least 1000 pictures so I guess that I must have seen something.

 

We've been on Canadian and Alaskan cruises and basically in every port you were on your own unless you booked a fairly expensive excursion. Often you couldn't even get into the town without paying for a cab or some other type off transportation.

[beverlyjack]

On a river cruise, you can see anything from a 1 hour orientation walk to familiarize you with the layout of a town and it's more major attractions for you to visit on your own to a half day tour with a local guide, again with time to do more visiting on your own time. There is seldom and all day tour, as the towns are generally smaller than ocean ports and the ship may be making multiple stops in a day. The only river cruises we have taken have been with Grand Circle, and, by observation, they seem to spend more time in port than most other lines, as ships will frequently tie up after us and leave before us. For an report on our cruise on the Seine see http://jackthetravelingman-seine.blogspot.com.

 

Jack

[rjscott]

Am researching river cruises for next year. It seems the times off the ships are short walks and not much seen. We're used to Princess excursions and take the 7 hour + ones to see all we can see in a port. Realizing that the river cruises are completely different, I guess my main question is how much of the sites do you get to see versus time just on the ship? Thanks in advance for your help!

 

 

We took the Viking 'Tulips & Windmills' for our first river cruise. We visited a new port most days. Our included morning walking tour (some days we were bussed) was approx. 1 1/2 hrs. We then had free time after to go back into the town on our own, take an optional tour (at an addt'l cost) or return to the ship. In most ports, we went back to the ship for lunch and then back into town. We did do one optional tour, and that was to Delft, which was, we felt, well worth it.

Like you, when we have done ocean cruises, we do try to maximize our time in port, and our river cruise was no exception. ;)