What We Wish We Knew Before Taking Our First River Cruise

What We Wish We Knew Before Taking Our First River Cruise

we just got off a European river cruise and while we were on that river cruise we realized most of the people on this River Cruise it was the first time they had ever been on one in our case this was our fifth river cruise but actually our first Viking river cruise when we first started doing River Cruises we really didn’t know anything so we put together this video to share with you what you really need to know hey I’m Mark I’m Monica and we’re currently traveling the world full-time we’ve been doing this for almost two years we just had an amazing European christas Market river cruise and we’re ready to share with you what we learn and what we really think you need to know before you make that booking we’ve cruised on now Viking amama Avalon unor and T these are some of the bigger ones especially for people coming from the us when you’re talking about European river cruising you’re talking mostly about two large rivers the danu and the Ry there are other smaller Rivers like the S and the Ron in France the joro and Portugal is another big one but mostly will be Dan you barine that you’ll be considering yeah especially if you’re taking your first river cruise we we would think probably one of these two is going to be your best bet or also River Cruises you can take in Asia in Egypt and other locations as well even in the US along the Mississippi River in most cases about a week is what most people do there may be a pre- Excursion or a post Excursion to add some days but a week uh is a great mix of time and you’re going to mix your destinations your maybe start in a larger City and then you’re going to go to a lot of really quaint small towns uh along the way and one of the beauties of river cruising is most of the time when you arrive you can just literally step off the boat and you’re right into the town there are times where you may have to hop on a bus which is arranged by the River Cruise Company all the logistics are taken care of but it’s really cool to be able to walk right off there are quite a few river cruise lines to choose from Viking Alo waterways Avalon and even Uniworld those are also big lines you might consider and they’re all at different price points maybe slightly different sizes as we’ll see that we want to outline here these are the major ones Viking has the largest Fleet 8090 ships by now I’m not really sure how many they have amama and alalon of course are smaller but still pretty good siiz fleets overall most of the time you’ll find that the ships across each line are virtually identical there’s not going to be big differences between them un world might be the exception they really try each ship to make it a very distinct and unique design very eclectic very colorful as far as some differences you can see that Viking has a little higher passenger count than all the others you will find the rooms are small they’re comfortable they’re laid out extremely well you do have heated floors in the bathroom which is nice uh we did a river cruise was on Avalon and they have what they call their Panorama Suites they’re about almost 200 square fet which for a river cruise is big and the bed faces towards the river it’s very spacious so it depends but if you want the biggest cabins I say Avalon’s going to give you the biggest cabins and then you can see amama and emerald are right behind that Viking is going to give you a small cabin and there’s just some very particular things they do so just understand that River Cruises are virtually always going to be more expensive than an ocean cruise but there’s a lot included pretty much close to all inclusive experiences so it’s easy to look at a river cruise and say wow it’s so much more money than an ocean cruise but when you consider things that are included such as beer and wine your Wi-Fi is virtually always included Transportation really all your excursions it will be more money typically than an ocean cruise just because you’re only selling with 150 to 200 people but you have a range from $500 per person per day on up I wanted to put together for you a week on the Rind which would be very similar to a week on the danu this gives you an idea of the range per person for those seven8 days and you can see Vikings going to be in that 2500 to $3,700 range so Avalon is going to be a bit more they’re going to have the biggest cabins Amma touch more Emerald back in the Viking price point maybe even a touch less unior will definitely be your most expensive or Viking has the most on the rivers in addition that they’re trying to fill up every single week plus they do things exactly the same every single ship so they’re able to make a little bit more affordable price points there’s some big differences since we talked to so many people this was their first River Cruise they were really curious about the our other experiences a lot of people are like oh who’s your favorite what was am like what was Avalon like Viking does Logistics incredibly well the food is really good everything is just like a well oiled machine there are some things you need to know if you’re interested at all in any kind of gym you’re not going to find it on Viking if you’re interested in having bikes you’re not going to find those on Viking if you’re interested in more active excursions you won’t find that on Viking they do what they do and they do it really well but it’s very specific missing some things if you want that we found on Alma and Avalon for example we would have a fitness person on board who would take people out on Hikes a kayak a bike ride sometimes we would stop at one town we would hop on our bikes and we would bike to the next stop that the ship would meet us in a few hours that was really awesome have activities on the top deck as well just little yoga or something like that yeah so that’s going to be a big difference if you’re a little bit more active and you want those kind of experiences Viking is not going to offer that we did a European Christmas Market River Cru so we didn’t really care we weren’t looking for workouts especially considering how much we ate we weren’t using the the deck on top all these ships have a beautiful Sund deck but we didn’t use it in the winter but typically most people go at other Seasons which we’ll talk about but that’s one of the big things I did want to point out food quality is really good across the board we did find Viking had a few less choices in the meals they don’t do a buffet launch they do a full sit down launch which has its pros and cons it means a lot less choices and it takes a lot longer you may like that that is another difference we noticed between them and everybody else so a little different more structured experience that way yeah understand too that River Cruises do tend to skew a bit older in age so I would say if you do average age range probably 50s to 70s could even be older Viking might skew a bit older than some of the other ones because they don’t focus on activities or active excursions as much but keep that in mind on our Christmas markets it was a wide range of Ages because that’s such a different type of experience uh for people we had people quite a bit younger than us and a little bit older we were probably somewhere in the middle definitely plan on being social if you don’t like that it’s probably not the best experience for you what I would say is this on an ocean cruise if you’re a couple you can typically get a table for two if you want for River Cruises if you’re a couple you are probably going to be sharing a table with somebody else if you’re shy or you don’t really want to feel very social then you are going to have trouble because everybody shares the tables there’s four tops in generally bigger tables sometimes there’s bigger parties but most people know this everybody’s super friendly once you get out of your comfort zone you will find that you really enjoy talking to other fellow passengers yeah I think we found Four Tops a lot on abalon in fact when we were traveling with three of us most of the time we would just have table to oursel course we might be by other people but on Viking I noticed I think six was about the smallest table I saw now if you travel with four people five people six people you can pretty much take a table at that point just realize that you’re going to be talking with other people the great news is people are super nice super friendly you’ll end up talking to some really amazing people along the way you’re really not going to be anonymous on a river cruise going to it knowing that you’ll probably get to know the crew a little bit better and you’ll be seeing the same faces over and over and even getting to know the ship when you first get there if you’re used to an ocean cruise with a river cruise you can walk around it in a few minutes and get the lay the land very easily you won’t get lost everyone typically has a main dining room then it has a lounge which will have a bar a lot of the activities entertainment take place some of them might have an optional dining place like on bking they have what they call their aqua and it’s like a Terrace it’s indoor outdoor some of them will use like a specialty restaurant they’ll turn that into or more casual dining almost always you’ll have coffee machines all have treats coffees that’s all included so you have little areas for that as well small Lobby is pretty typical depending upon the ship you could have a very small gym a very small Spa area maybe even a little hair salon you won’t find that on Viking and then the Sund deck on top where yeah don’t miss the Sund deck you’ve seen the picture here just watch Europe go by yeah it’s really beautiful it’s one of the true experiences of a river cruise you typically cannot get on an ocean cruise some things that are different realize you’re going to start earlier many mornings it is not uncommon for an early wake up call to get going on the included excursions many times they’ll try to get you back for lunch and is for dinner not always but they do try to make sure that you get all of your meals or at least have an opportunity the scenery is amazing you’ll have some hours during the day where you’re just cruising and that’s incredible and then you can add pre- and post extensions we’ve never done that we always just do our own thing we find it’s more affordable and flexible but you can do that if you want the river cruise line to take care of that yeah and I’ll say River Cruises are typically one way like you will start in one city and end in another so that’s a built-in extra few days into other destinations that you can take advantage of as well few things to bear in mind water levels you have to be aware of that there can be flooding sometimes uh on these rivers and we did have one of our sailings I think it was an aalong did get impacted by low Rivers actually in this case sometimes it’s high Rivers there’s flooding one of ours got affected by low Rivers they literally couldn’t cross a certain point so when we got to the airport they took us to the hotel and then to a different place to pick up the ship you got to prepare for a little bit of flexibility obviously an ocean crew is typically way larger like a small ocean ship is 600 to 700 people a large river cruise is 190 a large ocean cruise is 6,000 passengers so big difference the experience is quite a bit different it’s really special when you take a river cruise and get into the differences the ability to go right into a town pretty much and get off the ship grab a bike and through that town you just typically cannot do that on an ocean cruise Ocean Cruise can be very different onboard amenities going to be different right you’re going to be more limited on a river cruise a lounge a restaurant or two maybe a small fitness center the amazing deck is incredible a little walking area up top some coffee some cakes because you’re going to spend most of your time off the ship on a river cruise they keep them Immaculate the Viking Cruise that we were on this ship was one of their oldest in the fleet honestly you wouldn’t really know it the way it was taken care of they take them out of service every year for a few months so they’re constantly worked on and updated some of the people we spoke to on this River Cruise had done land tours where they did 10 to 14 nights going around places in Europe a lot of them really like the river cruise experience better just because you unpack once the ship is your transportation your food Your Entertainment and all your planning and Logistics I’d rather be personally on a river cruise on the deck than sitting in a bus for five six eight hours going to a different city combination it’s going to be a little different right the river cruise unpack once you got your room you have everything set up with a Land Tour you’re going to be changing hotels every night it’s a bit of an adventure but logistically it’s a bit of a hassle pace of travel of a river cruise is much more relaxed it’s hectic that first day then you unpack and then you just are hanging out and waiting for your next Port so lour more frenetic you’ve got all the logistics to think about and to try to get through flexibility if that matters to you look a river Cru is not that flexible I think the flexibility that we had was we were able to choose our included Excursion sometimes there was only one choice some of the ones with more active excursions you might have two or three you can choose from which is nice so I think depends upon which one you choose like Avalon Emerald you have a few more choices maybe on the included excursions than Viking we were able to do some independent stuff as well cost wise I think we covered it river cruise is going to be way more inclusive overall but it’s certainly not an inexpensive vacation even at $2,500 per person at the low end you’re talking $5,000 for the week it’s really hard to do it for much less you can sometimes catch some amazing sales sometimes they include airfare because you do need to get there and get back so that could be included or use Point some miles or put some links down below to help you out with that we use points and almost always travel business class for pretty much nothing when we go to Europe but there’s some flexibility there as well when is the best time to do a river cruise it depends on what you want to do if you’re looking at Europe when it’s warm it’s also very busy but the peak season will be in the summertime June to August we and many people prefer the shter season so a little bit before June a little bit after August that’s when the weather is nice but not hot and there fewer crowds and you can actually maybe save a little money and then you might want to consider offseason completely like the Christmas Market tour that we did once it gets to the harsh winter in Europe most of the ships don’t sell at all they’re not going to be cruising so when the Christmas markets are over typically for you know January February maybe into March you’re not going to find many shoulder season is the best if you can swing that plus it’s going to be less expensive we did a Christmas Market at the very last week of the cruise season it was actually quite a bit cheaper than a month before consider that as well if you want to save some money another thing to save money is try to maybe consider going through a river cruise only agency some of the cruise agencies do a great job as well but at least go through a cruise only agent but maybe even one that specialized in river cruises we got some extra perks and discounts as a result of doing that so if you have any interest maybe leave a comment down below and we can share who we used all right the key here is pretty simple if you decide you want to do one of these we’d highly recommend it it’s an amazing experience maybe it might be bucket list for a lot of of you first thing to do is definitely choose which river you might want to be on then choose the river cruise line company there are some real differences I hope we did a good job outlining the differences if you have any questions about that leave it down below in the comments we’ll be happy to answer we’ve been on five different lines now we understand the pros and cons between all of them and we’re happy to help you uh make the decision definitely understand the cost there are ways to save money but this is not going to be under $100 per person per day type of experience like you can get sometimes on an ocean cruise pack smart Pack Light and really embrace the experience we hope you will consider a river cruise for example the rine you may start an Amsterdam and go down to Switzerland so that will cover maybe parts of France parts of Germany danu would also cover Germany you can go from Budapest West towards like Munich and hit beautiful countries like Austria or you can go toward the Black Sea and hit countries like Hungary Romania and Bulgaria so there’s a lot of options with just these two rivers yeah will be an amazing experience and with that we hope we see you out there maybe on a river cruise yeah see

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Discover the truth about European river cruising! From our fifth river cruise (and first Viking cruise!), we reveal everything you need to know about this unique travel experience. Compare top cruise lines like Viking, Avalon, and Uniworld, uncover hidden costs, and learn why river cruises are worth the splurge. Whether it’s a bucket-list journey on the Rhine or Danube or exploring quieter rivers like the Douro, this video will guide you through making the best choice. Plus, find out how to save money on your next river cruise!

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European Christmas Markets River Cruise:
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