Travel
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
River Cruise in Europe
My MIL wants to take DH and I on a river cruise in Europe next year. I've never really been out of the country expect for Canada and the Bahamas. I was wondering if anyone has done a river cruise and where in Europe they loved being the most. Thanks.
Re: River Cruise in Europe
I did a river cruise with my mom and some of her friends. I was 31 years old and the youngest person on the ship. It truly was a senior citizen cruise and not much activity. They are small boats, small cabins (truly only beds and chair, no living space). After dinner, the ship would maybe bring in some local entertainment and basically the bar would stay open until 10-11.
Ok, so those were the negatives, the positives were that I loved the idea of a river cruise. It was a great way to see inside Europe as opposed to just ports on a med cruise. We went from Prague to Budapest. Here is the exact cruise we took, same company different ship. http://amawaterways.com/itinerary.asp?iticode=AB12. I loved it the tours, everything included except an optional side trip to Salzburg which I was go glad I did. I loved the evening out in Vienna too. Food was very good as well, can't complain there. But this is nothing like a ocean cruise. It's truly a hotel in the water at best.
One thing that was strange was the way the ships sometimes dock. They aren't real "ports" just a pier off the side of the river. Sometimes you have to walk across decks of other ships you rope up against. Very strange. The last port we had to get off the ship at 3:30am to get to our plane. We literally had to climb the wall, there was no way around given where they docked us and not much help.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
We did a European river cruise for Christmas last year on the Danube, sailing from Vienna to Nuremberg. It was absolutely amazing! We loved everything about it.
The particular cruise we chose was for the Christmas Markets, but there are a ton of location options through out the year. The ship we had was gorgeous, food on board was amazing, and they had a lot of activities while we were sailing (sometimes during the day).
There was a wide array of ages on the ship, and we didn't feel like the youngest. We made some good friends on the cruise that we spent the week with!
Also, it was super laid back - nothing was mandatory. You could choose to do as much or as little as you wanted. We had English speaking tour guides in every city, and plenty of time to roam around on our own.
What PP said about docking is true, but it was never a big deal to have to climb through another ship to get to port.
We used UniWorld, and I recommend them to everyone. We didn't get to go this year, but I'm hoping we can go again next year for Xmas. I've never been on a regular cruise, but I really enjoyed the river cruise!
Also, I blogged most of it, in case you want to read more details:
River Cruise Blog Posts
We really loved being in Austria and Germany (especially at Xmas time), but there is a cruise to Spain and Portugal also that sounds amazing. So many options!
Dave & Jennifer 10.18.08
My Doha Adventures
Dave & Jennifer 10.18.08
My Doha Adventures
I have had motion sickness on regular cruises and the river boat is nothing like it. I barely felt we were moving, no motion sickness issues at all.
Yes, it would be perfect for your MIL. Don't get me wrong, I did like the idea of a river cruise it's just I had no one else my age and it was a little hard for older people to go up to top decks, then back downstairs, then back up to get out of a ship. Just keep that in mind if mobility is an issue for some.