Danube or Rhine River Cruise

I haven't got a clue. I have been saving the river cruises for when I can no longer walk well. But I have always found this advertisement interesting. 2/3rds of the advertisement are in Budapest. What about the rest of the trip?? https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7wvw/viking-river-cruises-see-things-differently-

My wife and I went on Avalon from Budapest to Nuremburg in May of 2014. The standard of service and the food are very high. The rooms are smaller than what you would see on an ocean cruise. There are a lot of included activities and walking tours, you don't have as much free time as you do traveling on your own. We spent an overnight in Vienna and got an evening and a day there before sailing on again in the early evening. It also stopped in Regensburg, morning was an organized walking tour and afternoon was on our own as I recall. Also Passau. Nuremburg is actually not on the river so they bused you into town for a choice of excursions. You don't get your evenings in town generally because they sail around 5 or 6 p.m. most days. We spent time on the ground in Budapest and Nuremburg, Munich before and after. It was a nice balance of structured travel and being on our own. The nice thing about a river cruise is that the shore is within easy sight, not like an ocean cruise where it may be many miles away. You can always skip the organized tours and go off on your own, but we found the walking tours to be pretty good. I was in my late forties when we took this trip. While the passengers skew a bit older, I did not feel uncomfortable or out of place. The number of passengers is few enough that you will get to know people, we had dinner with the same people on multiple nights. I would recommend a river cruise, would not want to always travel that way but once or twice over ten or twenty years of travel it's not a bad way to go. I was looking at the Rhine route just today and that would be a good one, too. Be aware that one of pitfalls is that if the water level is too high or two low, they know how to work around it but you end up with a very expensive bus tour.

Another good source for cruising questions is cruise critic.

Other great rivers to cruise include the Douro in northern Portugal and the Rhone in SE France. Both cruises are as good as it gets.

River cruises are great ways to see more in depth the internal areas of Europe compared to ocean cruises. The huge benefit of visiting great places without having to change hotels frequently. Also, most river boats have from 125 to 170 passengers, which allows you to get to know many of your fellow travelers.

We have found the food and service on river cruises to be excellent as well as the tours that are provided.

Okay. I will add my insights.

We have been planning our vacations for 38 years, from 2 week trips to 6 week excursions, on our own through the love of research and reading and have visited over 70 countries.

Although we prefer this style of travel, we also have taken ocean cruises - you don't have to plan how to reach countries and you unpack once. Sometimes, that is fun after a vacation where I spent a long time researching the logistics of a trip - someone else gets me to a country and then we can just explore ! We have peppered our vacations with a few cruises over the years for these reasons.

So, when a friend asked us to join them on a river cruise, we were up for any adventure.

We took our first river cruise on AMA from Budapest to Belgrade last summer - here are some thoughts-
--AMA boats are new and have a lovely top deck for viewing, the food was delightful, and with 150 people, we felt very well cared for by the staff
--We chose them because they have bicycles on board - and we rode them !
--We also chose the excursions which were experiential based - we learned to bake banitsas in Belgrade, for example, in a woman's home
--We selected this cruise because we had not been to Serbia, Romania, or Bulgaria - this was a great way to experience these countries in a completely different style

--Riding in a bus to take a tour, however, is not our usual preferred means of visiting a location.
--With a river boat, you have fewer activities - this can feel slow to people !

Hi Marci,

I took a Christmas markets cruise with my family in November/December 2015 on the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel. We took Viking. To answer some of your questions:

The good:
1. The food on board was amazing. They made an effort to have local cuisine everywhere we docked.
2. I was 33 at the time of the cruise and my group of cousins and I were definitely the youngest. There were a few other family reunion type trips at that had an age span. But you would not feel out of place in your mid 50s.
3. I definitely saw cities that I had never thought to tour on my own.

The not so good:
1. I thought the ship would be like a floating hotel-docked close to theI got city center and you could come and go as you please. This was true in some cities, like Cologne. But in some cities, it was a mile walk to be able to get to a place to be able to take one of the shuttles arranged by Viking, or a taxi if you wanted to go on your own. Viking explained this that all of the ships took turns at the closer docking sites. But there were really only 2 out of 8 days where we were docked conveniently.
2. My younger relatives and I had planned to do some things on our own but most days, you really had to do the group tour. This was because the ship dropped us off in one place and picked us up in another- it would have been very difficult to find the ship without the group. This meant leaving the ship earlier than I would have liked 7, or 730, most days.
3. We spent a lot more time on the ship than I anticipated. Most nights the ship would set sail at 7 or 8 so we had to eat dinner on the ship. There was one night we had until 10. And there was a fair amount of sailing during the day. Since the ship was small, I got a little cabin fever. If it had been a touch warmer, I could have made more use of the outside deck. But I don't think that would have made a significant difference.

Overall it was a positive experience but it's not a trip I would do again without more research on the day to day. My parents, who were on this cruise, had also done a Danube cruise through AMA and loved it. They thought the ship docked closer to the cities and they had a little more flexibility. So whether or not my dislikes were a function of the Rhine, the time of year, Viking, or it's something that happens on all river cruises, I don't know. But I found that I spent less time mingling with locals and eating at local type restaurants than I do when I travel on my own.

We are going on an Avalon cruise down the Seine from Paris to the ocean and back this spring, stopping at towns along the way. We're first doing 4 or 5 days on our own in Paris. There are 4 of us ranging in age from 58 to 63. We like the idea of having someone "take care of the details" during the cruise, especially since we're on our own in Paris and aren't all experienced travelers (we did have Avalon make our hotel reservations in Paris and include airport transfers). We'll be ready to leave the details to someone else. 2 of us have been on a large ship cruise to Alaska though my spouse and I have not. I'll make a point of letting people know how it goes when we return.

I personally don't care for the large river tour ships. I like a smaller ship with about 100 - 150 passengers. No formalities, private cabins with a window or balcony......
Open seating in the dining rooms, entertainment, lectures on the area if you want.....

I have traveled a couple times with Uniworld river cruises and Gate 1 Tours/River cruises.
I like their ships, itineraries, more casual atmosphere, lots of stops along the way.
We had free time in each town we visited to wander around, shop, meet some locals.
In larger towns we had more than one day stop.
No formal dress. Just wear the clothes you wore for your touring during the day.
You can see lots of reviews of these cruises on their websites, or on Tripadvisor.