Planning next river cruise

1. Commit as soon as you know for best price + pick of rooms as usually with exception of a ship not filling or last minute deal, your price is best early on with cruises.

2. No, there’s never a need for an agent. Some people prefer it, some agents offer a gift or incentive but in this day and age you’re perfectly able to travel and make your own plans without. (I’m a former agent)

3. You could… but if it was me I’d just do a few day or partial day tours not a whole organized thing.

Go ahead and book a cruise if you plan to go next year. You will have a better choice of cabins. We have never used a travel agent to book a river cruise. We always book it ourselves. One time out of the whole group of passengers on a river boat , eight of us were chosen to go off on a small, private junk with crew. The others transferred to a very large boat. Why were we eight passengers chosen? We had all booked directly with the cruise company.
Why do you need a package for the cities pre and post cruise? Book a hotel and buy a guide book. Ask the hotels’ concierges to get you a guide if you want one.

We generally book around the six, maybe 8 month mark. The rooms on a river cruise are all nearly the same so early selection isn't critical unless you want a short walk to the bar. We haven't used a travel agent in a couple of decades. They really don't add much value but we do use Costco Travel sometimes. The rebates and cash cards from Costco can be significant.

Our normal pattern is to fly in early -- about three or four days so we can adjust to jet lag on our own. A good guide book and the internet makes that easy to do pre and post cruise planning. Then we often stay a week or more afterwards. Our last cruise ended in Budapest but we had to came home from Vienna because we had difficulty getting a return flight from Budapest. (That was caused by our normal practice of not booking a return flight until about week or so before we plan to come home.) Again the planning for the extended stay is pretty light as we often are not sure exactly what we want to do after the cruise. We generally use the open jaw or multi-city when scheduling flights. Makes it easier for us. It is generally cheaper and we don't have to worry about getting back to the start point.

Finem Respice; you didnt say which Danube Cruise and there are a lot by AMA, I noticed that AMA doesnt do any time in the start or finish city. Your cruise package starts the day the ship sails and ends when you dock at the last port.

8 out of 10 either start or end in Budapest. So, since thats the only place in the world I know anything about .....

Arrive in Budapest 3 nights early. You dont need a booking company or a package deal.

Most arrivals are late afternoon, so this gives you 2 1/2 days in a 4 day town, but better than nothing.

Stay in PEST, and if being too far from the dock makes you nervous there are a few nice hotels within about a 5 minute walk of the docks.

If that works for you, post on the Hungary forum and you will get a lot of hotel recommendations and ideas on how to spend your time.

And if you finish in Budapest, and are going on someplace else, check Wizz and Ryan; Paris for instance is under $150.

Thanks all!

After having posted this, I received an email from VacationsToGo offering all kinds of AMA Waterways deals. I assume these are what any travel agent would be able to offer.
Will AMA offer these same deals if I call them directly?
Mitch

Mitch you need to call AMA and ask directly.

Keep in mind that Vacations to Go is a third party vendor. IT is a travel agency. The cruise company go to them when they have a batch of slow moving rooms. Personally I would book with the cruise company even if you don't get all of the "extra benefits." And the extra benefits may be provide by Vac to Go rather than the cruise line.