River boat cruise

A couple of hours on the Rhine between Bingen and Boppard

I am a Rick Steves fan because I like his philosophy of traveling light, interacting with local people, and staying in small hotels and hostels. I've traveled independently and also have thoroughly enjoyed the several Rick Steves tours I've been on. A few years ago I took a river cruise with my sister. People didn't have to pack and unpack so most of them packed heavy. We spent most of our time looking at Germany through the large picture window of the lounge or the fancy dining room, or going on shore excursions where our group was led around by a guide with rare opportunities to interact with locals. One couldn't go off on one's own to explore, or choose one's own places to eat or picnic, because the boat would be moving to the next place. It wasn't which river which was the issue, but rather that going on a river cruise seemed to me the antithesis of what I like about the Rick Steves travel philosophy..

jgeraci, you might get more input at the cruisecritic.com website, which has a section on river cruises, including reviews and comments by people who've been on particular cruises and specific ships. Its a bit hard to navigate, but a good source of info. Not a lot of river cruise fans hang out here at RS. I would say you just have to pick the one with the itinerary that interests you the most.

I am a HUGE Rick Steve's fan. I also have done a river cruise. Last year to change things up a bit we did the Rhine from Basel to Amsterdam. On our own (so not their expensive add ons) we stayed an extra day in Basel and two in Amsterdam. We loved the cruise and some day we'll do another. I felt like it was an "efficient" way to cover a lot of cities on our bucket list. It definitely was more stress free as we weren't driving around ourselves in unknown territory and we didn't have to pack and unpack so much. It also was delightful to meet other people. I worried about hanging around folks much older than ourselves and we found most people active and delightful. Only a few times did I feel like yelling to put the anchor down because I wanted to see a couple more things! If I had been on my own in Koblenz, I really would have liked to go up (down?) the Mosel a bit and visit some of the wine villages. We will do that on our own some day. We did not take any optional tours and used that time to wander cities on our own. There are a few river cruises I'd like to do yet and one of them would be the Danube. I also could see doing the river cruises when we are older and have more difficulty moving around. For now, we are very able to handle our own bags on trains and public transportation and we can cover a lot of area on foot. One hint that I can think of right now would be to thoroughly research all port cities so that when you arrive you have a plan and you will be able to so more of the cities.

Just off the top of my head because I have visited some of the cities on the Danube, I think those cities are bigger and grander--Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna. So instead of castles you see these lovely cities. I will also say that a lot of the cities on the Danube cruise are easily done on your own, and I could see really feeling sad if I were leaving a place like Budapest or Vienna after only one day. For me, I've been to those cities so I've spent adequate time, but they are so wonderful that I wouldn't mind going back. On the Rhine tour we visited Strasbourg which is lovely, especially the cathedral, but I have already been to many of the lovely little wine villages of the Alsace so I felt like I had enough time. We were in Cologne on the Rhine tour and while the cathedral is lovely, the town is almost completely rebuilt after WWII so it wasn't that appealing to us as to require more time. Heidelburg was nice, we loved the tour, but again we had enough time and feel no need to go back. There was some cute villages on the middle rhine I would have liked to stop at but we plan to spend time on the Mosel on our own so if we like, we can easily make a day trip to see some of those. Hope this helps

We have done BOTH the DANUBE & the RHINE on Tauck River Cruises and LOVED them both. They were both Christmas Market river cruises (pricing is best then). We are actually doing another one this December on Uniworld (another Danube, but this one starts in Budapest and does some places we haven't been). I really don't think you can go wrong with either one - I say look at the itinerary and go with the one that looks best for what interests you. We equally enJOYed them both.