Would we enjoy a European River Cruise?

[NSWP]

G'day people..my wife and I (both 59 and fit) are contemplating a European River Cruise next year, we have done a few ocean cruises recently. The only european river cruising we have done are lunch/dinner cruises along the Rhine and in Budapest as part of a European Coach Tour.

 

May I ask a couple of silly questions:

 

1. Is dining on the river boats, buffet or waiter service?

2. Is there evening entertainment, if so what does it consist of?

3. Is embarkation/disembarkation easy?

4. What nationalities/ages generally do these trips.?

5. Are tips (hate to say the word) generally included in fare?

6. Do the boats travel at night or 'tie up.'?

 

 

Cheers..Les:cool:

[paul929207]

G'day people..my wife and I (both 59 and fit) are contemplating a European River Cruise next year, we have done a few ocean cruises recently. The only european river cruising we have done are lunch/dinner cruises along the Rhine and in Budapest as part of a European Coach Tour.

 

May I ask a couple of silly questions:

 

1. Is dining on the river boats, buffet or waiter service?

2. Is there evening entertainment, if so what does it consist of?

3. Is embarkation/disembarkation easy?

4. What nationalities/ages generally do these trips.?

5. Are tips (hate to say the word) generally included in fare?

6. Do the boats travel at night or 'tie up.'?

 

 

Cheers..Les:cool:

 

We have been on one river cruise, Uniwirld from the Black Sea to the North Sea. So my answers are pretty much limited to that cruise.

 

1. Dinner wasa Waiter service. Smaller menu than on the large ocean cruise ships. Breakfast & lunch were buffet.

2. Staff played some instuments. Local folklore groups came on board.

3. Embarkation/debarkation were very easy.

4. I believe everyone on ours was American.

5. Yes, you need to tip personnel. The documentation included recommendations.

6. The boats usually tie up at night, but often sailed at 3 or 4 in the morning.

[Coral]

I was on a Russian River cruise with an American company (Amadeus). Our breakdown was 50% Canadian, 25% American, 25% Australian. All the Australians booked this trip through APT (I think that was the name).

 

If you sail at night, probably depends on the itinerary and distance to the next port. We spent 3 nights in St. Petersburg (tied up) and then sailed each day after port times until we got to Moscow where we spent 2 nights in port.

 

Embarkation and disembarking is very simple compared to cruise ships. Also, our ship felt like a hotel - you walk on and walk off with no security checks, etc... It was really different than a cruise ship.

 

Look at tipping on the line you are going on. On our Amadeus sailing, tipping was $20 US per day. Twice as much as most cruise ships.

[CPT Trips]

We traveled on Grand Circle Tours (www dot gct dot com) - they market only in the US and one must have a US address. That said, several of the others on board were not Americans . . . a Dane travelling with his sister who lives in the US and some Irish who used relatives in the States to book. Any one doing this will want to book their own air unless NY is on the way.

 

I was not certain I would like a river cruise . . . it was terrific!

 

I don't recall the exact amount suggested for tips, it was less than $20 per day per person. But ther was an expectation that the "Program Directors" be tipped about $5 US per person per day, so the total may have been $20. Everyone involved earned their tips.

 

Lunches offer either buffet or menus and there was always a non-buffet breakfast special.

 

Evening entertainment was low key . . . as our boat was all english speaking, the entertainers were fluent. As many europeans are multilingal, I would assume english is not an issue on any ship except for lengthy announcements in several languages.

 

We travelled many nights . . . sometimes departed late or arrived early. As we were midships, we never heard a think. Others, far forward or aft did hear the winches and thrusters.

[Carhut]

G'day people..my wife and I (both 59 and fit) are contemplating a European River Cruise next year, we have done a few ocean cruises recently. The only european river cruising we have done are lunch/dinner cruises along the Rhine and in Budapest as part of a European Coach Tour.

 

May I ask a couple of silly questions:

 

1. Is dining on the river boats, buffet or waiter service?

2. Is there evening entertainment, if so what does it consist of?

3. Is embarkation/disembarkation easy?

4. What nationalities/ages generally do these trips.?

5. Are tips (hate to say the word) generally included in fare?

6. Do the boats travel at night or 'tie up.'?

 

 

Cheers..Les:cool:

 

My experience has been 4 GCT river boat trips.

1. Dinner is served along with complimentary wine.

Lunch is partly buffet and partly served. Usually some choices there.

Bkft. is buffet.

2. Local fokelore groups singing and dancing. Once we had a pianist entertain. Once we had an excellet string quartet. A couple of times we had one man band and comedian (very entertaining). One night would be a show put on by the crew. Sometimes we had passengers put on entertainment.

3. Very easy.

4. GCT caters to just Americans. We had a British couple that actually used their daughter's address in the states to be able to book the trip.

Ages were mostly 65+, but did have occasional 50's couples.

5. GCT gives these guidelines for tipping. For the Program Director, $4-6/day and for the cruise staff, $7-12/per day (this is divided among the whole staff). On tours, local guides $2/half day and $3/full day. Same for bus drivers.

6. This was answered before.

 

Hope this helps. River cruising is more casual and low key than ocean cruising. I like both. But river cruising is my favorite. It's more educational and I like being able to see a different city every day. So much history there and our Program Directors have all been excellent in giving us much background and historical facts about the places we visit. Ocean cruising has gotten too commercial and glitzy. They want to get money out of you every time you turn around.

 

Carole

[tiggypooo]

Hi NSWP:

I'm always happy to relay my thoughts on this topic.

Last May I went on my first river cruise. I've always been a big ship kinda girl. The bigger the better as far as I was concerned. As a matter of fact, Royal's Liberty and Freedom of the Seas suit me just fine and you can't get any bigger than what they are.

I had had some of my clients ask me about river cruising and thought that in order to answer them correctly, I should experience one myself. A friend of mine was born in Vienna and really wanted to go back, so Uniworld's Amsterdam to Vienna itinerary looked like what would suit us best.

 

I was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing at first, but after having 3 great days in Amsterdam pre cruise, started to look a bit more forward to it.

It was a little strange after we boarded the ship at the pier in Amsterdam, as when you look up, all you see are the large ships. The large ship pier is right next to where the river boats dock.

We familiarized ourself with the ship on the first day and experienced our first wonderful meal with them that evening.

The hotel and cruise director, were very quick to make everyone feel right at home. Before dinner that first evening, they welcomed us all in the lounge and explained a little about the things onboard and also what we would be doing the next day.

That night set the pace for each evening's activities. First drinks and a little history about the next days ports and tour at 6:00 and then dinner at 7:00.

It flowed very nicely.

 

The dinners on Uniworld were all 4 course, sit down meals. The service and the food was excellent. The seating was open and it was very nice to sit with different people all the time. We eventually did end up with about 10 people that we always sat with, but it was nice at first to speak a little with just about everyone.

For the other meals, breakfast and lunch, they are all served buffet style.

The only problem was, when I'm serving myself, I'm definately serving myself way too much. The food was all very good though. In particular the soups, breads (all baked right on board) and cheeses were to die for. All ingredients are fresh and brought on every couple of days.

 

Myself and my friend are in our mid-50's. At the beginning, I really felt like we would not enjoy the company with us, as we were a good 10yrs. younger than the next youngest people. I couldn't have been more wrong. We ended up making friends with people that I'm sure we'll be friends with for life.

I found that most of the people that will do this type of trip, are very interesting. They are usually very well travelled and have lived life to it's fullest. People that do not travel much, are not likely to even know that this type of cruise exists.

Since returning, we have corresponded with people anywhere from 65 to 80 yrs old and we're all young at heart, so that's what really matters.

 

I think that the entertainment has been covered nicely already. You don't really need much entertainment I found. You're up early every morning and you're tired at night. By 11pm most people had gone to bed and were happy to have been going then.

 

Nationalities on our cruise were American, Canadian, Australian and British.

 

Tips are not included in the fare, but are well earned by each and every member of the crew. The recommended amount per day, per passenger, is 10 euros. The same as on the large ships, but only in euros, as that is their currency. The tips are pooled and split evenly among all the staff members.

One thing that did impress me on the river cruise, was the lack of the nickel and diming that goes on with the big ships. Yes it is an expensive trip to book, but I had such a small bill at the end of the 12 days, I really couldn't believe it. I mean they don't even add the 15% tip on drinks that the large lines do.

 

The land tours were perfect as far as I was concerned. We had one each day. Most were 1/2 day. We would get a 1 1/2-2 hr. tour and then a couple of hours on our own to shop or drink or whatever. The guides were all local and English speaking and most gave excellent information.

We generally spent 1/2 the day sailing. I mean that's the idea of a river cruise, to see all the great scenery along the way. The "Castles on the Rhine" area was spectacular and our wonderful cruise director, gave us a commentary all along the way.

We did sail some at night, but I think that they're very careful to not sail the areas that people want to see when it's dark out.

 

Summing up I will give a few points.

1. River cruising is so different than large ship cruising, that it's really not fair to compare the two. I would compare it more to a coach tour, that you don't have to pack and unpack for.

2. We had 77 people onboard our ship so it was easy to get to know quite a few of them. The down time when you're sailing, is a perfect time to socialize and get to know people. If that doesn't suit you, there was alot of reading going on then also.

3. I loved it so much that I am going on another one next May. I still like the large ships, but not as much as the river boats.

 

Anything else that I can help with fire away.

[NSWP]

Thanks to you good folk for the river crusing info. Most helpful, it sounds very relaxed and plenty of walking adventures ashore to work off that wonderful food you all talk about. Now we have to find a cruise..looking at Amsterdam to Budapest..have to start researching...Sept/Oct maybe when we go, bit cooler I know, but we like Europe in Autumn, not as crowded.

 

Cheers..best wishes from Les in Australia.:cool:

[Buckland]

Hi NSWP

I started a thread called "On the Amadagio" when I was on the cruise. I would go to the cabin aft and get on line and write of my experiences of the day. There was a lot of activity on that thread, if you want to read it, it's on page 5 now, well back in the pack. It's a very long thread now, so you may want to sit down with a nice hot cup of something and read a while. Browsing the other threads is also very informative.

I'm sure what ever you choose, you will love your cruise and wonder why you didn't do it earlier.

 

Buck

[Dale]

Hi NSWP

I started a thread called "On the Amadagio" when I was on the cruise. I would go to the cabin aft and get on line and write of my experiences of the day. There was a lot of activity on that thread, if you want to read it, it's on page 5 now, well back in the pack. It's a very long thread now, so you may want to sit down with a nice hot cup of something and read a while. Browsing the other threads is also very informative.

I'm sure what ever you choose, you will love your cruise and wonder why you didn't do it earlier.

Buck

 

Buck,

I hope you don’t mind.

 

NSWP,

This is the link to Buck’s thread.

"On the Amadagio"

[Namby]

We just returned from the Castles Along the Rhine & Danube cruise with Vantage. We too were a little skeptical. It was fabulous! It is very fast paced - a town almost every day. We rarely had to rise before 8am for their buffet breakfast - which had everything you could possibly want. We were always back for changing for dinner and cocktails. Lunch was menu or buffet or you could do both. Many did a salad bar and then ordered the lunch from menu which was always at least 3 choices. Dinner was just menu. Three evenings they had free cocktails and free wine with dinner. I was very impressed with the organization that the program directors did. They actually did everything for you. They even paid for the women to use the "facilities" in several cities. We had great weather the first 10 days and then last week it turned bitter cold in Europe. Perhaps you have already read that. So if you go at this time of year be prepared for a possible cold snap. We even had snow fall in Passau. Hope this has helped. I would go with Vantage again. Oh, another thing we had the stateroom with the French balcony. I highly recommend that - our beds were so comfy I wish we could have brought them home! Another thought occurs: the dress is very casual (a little more than I prefer) they had two dress up nights the first night & the last night the rest of the time most people wore what they had had on during the day. I would say the age levels were 50-80.

[mac321]

Hello NSWP - small world isn't it - we live in the Bay and did Amsterdam to Basel last year on Avalon Tapestry. You will find a few threads of mine on this forum - do a search for Tapestry. Happy to give more info if you need it.

[trufflelady]

We just returned from the Castles Along the Rhine & Danube cruise with Vantage. We too were a little skeptical. It was fabulous! It is very fast paced - a town almost every day. We rarely had to rise before 8am for their buffet breakfast - which had everything you could possibly want. We were always back for changing for dinner and cocktails. Lunch was menu or buffet or you could do both. Many did a salad bar and then ordered the lunch from menu which was always at least 3 choices. Dinner was just menu. Three evenings they had free cocktails and free wine with dinner. I was very impressed with the organization that the program directors did. They actually did everything for you. They even paid for the women to use the "facilities" in several cities. We had great weather the first 10 days and then last week it turned bitter cold in Europe. Perhaps you have already read that. So if you go at this time of year be prepared for a possible cold snap. We even had snow fall in Passau. Hope this has helped. I would go with Vantage again. Oh, another thing we had the stateroom with the French balcony. I highly recommend that - our beds were so comfy I wish we could have brought them home! Another thought occurs: the dress is very casual (a little more than I prefer) they had two dress up nights the first night & the last night the rest of the time most people wore what they had had on during the day. I would say the age levels were 50-80.

 

Thank you so much for your information. My DH, DB, and DSIL are doing the Holiday Markets on the Danube this December. We are using Vantage, and I was worried about them. You have put my worries aside. Thank you. You also answered a few questions, such as dress for dinners, being more casual, and that the cold front has approached Europe. We will be taking layers, and I finally got a pair of boots that are lightweight. Did you have any problems finding ATM machines near the cities you visited? We are looking forward to this journey our first River Cruise, and my husband's first time to see Europe. I normally take 60 string students in the summertime, so I am anxious to see Austria in the wintertime.