Could we have some separate river line discussion areas in addition to this forum?

[Oceans&Rivers]

Could we have some separate riverboat cruise line discussion areas in addition to this forum? Not just roll calls, but areas where we might discuss specific lines and their line-specific idiosyncracies/policies and ships etc.?

 

My choice would be to have several river cruise line discussion areas in addition to a general river cruise forum.

 

I have pretty much decided that Viking is not for us, and yet Viking threads dominate this board. Fine, but could we please move the Viking-specific threads to their own area, set aside just for Viking?

Edited June 9, 2015 by Oceans&Rivers

[Hoyaheel]

Previous discussions on this topic reveal that there aren't enough posters to maintain separate boards by company the way that Ocean Cruises are organized. Plus, MANY people come here and ask A vs B comparison questions that are best answered in a combined type forum.

 

Even combined, this is a very quiet forum. As I say repeatedly, it's a numbers game. Despite the increased popularity of river cruising, the number of people who take river cruises compared to ocean cruises is very small. Which means that the % of those who might be posting on Cruise Critic is even smaller....

[CPT Trips]

As pp mentioned, been there done that and it wasn't working well. Not only do a lot of people want comparisons between lines, but they also want information about rivers/itineraries.

[Oceans&Rivers]

As stated, my comment was "Could we have some separate riverboat cruise line discussion areas in addition to this forum?"

 

What I advocate is a forum like this one for comparisons and general discussion, and in addition separate discussion boards for the major players (AMA, Avalon, Amadeus/Gate1, Grand Circle, Scenic/Emerald (they are related), Tauck, Uniworld, Vantage, Viking) and an "other board, perhaps, just as is done in the Ocean cruise line boards. I might add A'Rosa in the future when they have more offerings that cater to a wider audience.

Or we could take a poll of readers and find out what lines are most important to them to discuss separately.

 

River cruising is growing by leaps and bounds as the world ages and many find that river cruising is an easier way to "dip their toe" into foreign cultures.

 

Failing that, I would like to at least cull this general river cruising forum of all it's Viking-specific threads, (i.e. not the comparisons which are general in nature and include Viking in the comparison), as it is so overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Viking as it stands now.

 

 

 

 

Full disclosure: I have already travelled to, lived and studied in West/Central Europe, and taken numerous day and evening trips on the Rhein and Mosel with KD (though never overnight on a river boat/ship), so my interest in river cruising is an easier way (physically) to return and show my husband what I have seen in addition to an extensive land tour (train or car with me as our guide as I speak several European languages and am totally comfortable there).

Edited June 10, 2015 by Oceans&Rivers

[CPT Trips]

Yep, understood what you want. That's the way the board was a year or so (?) ago. It was not working real we'll hen and needed revamping. After experimenting with a few different formats, it ended up like this.

 

Perfect? No. But it's working much better.

 

I've learned things about river cruising ports and itineraries from Viking centered threads. I suspect that Vikingphiles have benefited from the perceptions and experiences of those of us that never traveled with Viking.

[Oceans&Rivers]

Yep, understood what you want. That's the way the board was a year or so (?) ago. It was not working real we'll hen and needed revamping. After experimenting with a few different formats, it ended up like this.

 

Perfect? No. But it's working much better.

 

I've learned things about river cruising ports and itineraries from Viking centered threads. I suspect that Vikingphiles have benefited from the perceptions and experiences of those of us that never traveled with Viking.

 

Well, of course, anyone can visit any of the forums, so I don't think that should be a problem.

 

Even though I haven't cruised on Cunard, Seabourn or Silversea, for example, I choose to check out their boards from time to time.

 

I would possibly visit the Viking river forum; however, it would be by choice, not because Viking posts have taken over the river cruise forum (more in the past few years, by the way, than before).

 

Here I feel as if the entire river cruise forum is fundamentally a Viking forum with the occasional comment about other lines.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Oceans&Rivers -- To fill you in on the history of this idea: apparently before I got involved as a Host, the Admins tried reorganizing this area by cruise line -- and the reaction was so bad they changed it back to the way it was. When I came on board, I succeeded in simplifying the Ports area from several subforums (most of which had almost no activity) to one, which seems to have enough activity now to work. But none of the other ideas I floated got any traction. Here are two threads that contain most of the discussion from that time:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1995991

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2078978

 

At this point I think it's a closed area. None of the river cruise lines except Viking would have enough activity to maintain a forum. Many posts are deliberately cross-line in nature. And since most river cruise lines are more alike than different, people want to be able to learn from the questions and reviews that may mention one cruise line but are more generally applicable. So in the end I couldn't get any clear agreement about whether to divide the forum, and certainly nothing close to a consensus about how to divide it.

 

River Cruise Roll Calls are another problem area, because the small size of the ships almost ensures that no roll call will reach critical mass. I have been encouraging the use of what I call "omnibus" roll calls [e.g. "All Scenic river cruises roll call"], which has resulted in some fairly lively threads.

[Hoyaheel]

Here I feel as if the entire river cruise forum is fundamentally a Viking forum with the occasional comment about other lines.

 

That alone should tell you there isn't enough interest/posting to maintain separate other forums :rolleyes:

 

For the most part, titling is pretty efficient here - so if you see "Viking" in the title, feel free to skip the thread:D

[deec]

I have found the way this forum is set up works well for me. It has helped so much with each of our river cruisers so far. CC was an unbelievable help before we went to Myanmar.

MY thanks to all the regular posters and our host!

[JVilleGal]

Even the threads that are only about Viking trips gives a lot of very valuable info for others cruisers sailing the same or similar itineraries..... Viking cruisers have tons of great information and advice for all wanting to take a river cruise.

 

The world of River Cruising on Cruise Critic is still too small to break the board up.

Though China, Indonesia and Russia could be separate from Europe! :)

[FuelScience]

For those interested in Vantage cruises we started a thread titled "All Things Vantage." It doesn't get a lot of traffic, but it is a place where those interested in Vantage can often find information.

 

FuelScience

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2086374

[Oceans&Rivers]

For those interested in Vantage cruises we started a thread titled "All Things Vantage." It doesn't get a lot of traffic, but it is a place where those interested in Vantage can often find information.

 

FuelScience

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2086374

 

Good post.

 

Hope you get more people to post there. It's difficult to find discussion of other lines mixed in with all the Viking threads.

[Hows the Serenity]

I have to agree, we are on a river cruise in July, not Viking, but I just avoid this forum because it goes off track a lot and is certainly Viking centric. I check back every now and then, but to my chagrin 99 headings out of 100 have Viking in them. I think many forget that we are after information on the cruise ship we are traveling on as well as the ports. Most cruise companies supply good info on the ports, but it is the experience of the cruise, ie the ship, the staff, the amenities etc that most of us are interested in. But because this is definitely Viking centric, I doubt any of that will change, we will just continue to see the same old, same old..........and bugger the rest

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[caviargal]

I agree that the are a lot of Viking threads but I personally just ignore them as I am not interested in Viking.

 

I know there was an experiment as Jazz mentioned but just not enough participation. I hop over to the Roll Call and Ports of Call forums occasionally and on this forum I just read the threads that interest me personally.

[Mark_T]

I think Jazz is right, the current format is about as good as it gets right now.

 

If you did split of a Viking specific forum it would only be a few minutes before someone complained that it was unfair that only Viking has their own forum and you end up with a bunch of forums with tumbleweed rolling through them again...

 

Easier to just ignore the threads that are Viking specific and move on to the others.

[CPT Trips]

I have to agree' date=' we are on a river cruise in July, not Viking, but I just avoid this forum because it goes off track a lot and is certainly Viking centric. I check back every now and then, but to my chagrin 99 headings out of 100 have Viking in them. I think many forget that we are after information on the cruise ship we are traveling on as well as the ports. Most cruise companies supply good info on the ports, but it is the experience of the cruise, ie the ship, the staff, the amenities etc that most of us are interested in. But because this is definitely Viking centric, I doubt any of that will change, we will just continue to see the same old, same old..........and bugger the rest

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk[/quote']

 

Really? This assertion struck me as more than a bit of exaggeration so I counted.

 

On the first page roughly a two thirds of the 40 non-sticky threads did NOT have a Viking title. Given their market share . . .

Edited June 11, 2015 by CPT Trips

[pully8]

agree with others that have said there are a lot of Viking threads but we can ignore them if we want too.