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Best "first" River Cruise

BarbmC

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Looking for something in the summer of 2021. Has to be summer vacation as my formerly retired husband went back to teaching full time (I still work, so he figured he needed to be busy without me) What's a good choice if we choose our first river cruise?
 

Passepartout

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Looking for something in the summer of 2021. Has to be summer vacation as my formerly retired husband went back to teaching full time (I still work, so he figured he needed to be busy without me) What's a good choice if we choose our first river cruise?
I'm going to assume you're thinking Europe? What do you want to see? How experienced are you in Europe? What level of luxury are you wanting? Are you experienced ocean cruisers? I see you own Marriott, so I'll assume you want higher end accommodations. We have cruised on AMAWaterways, and found them more than exceptional. Gourmet food, wine and beer with meals, (usually 3) shore excursions in every port, geared to the guest's ability or desires. I would suggest either some stretch of the Danube perhaps to/from Budapest- either N. or S. Or since AMA is from Basel Switzerland, between there and Amsterdam might be a good first river cruise too. Here's their website. https://www.amawaterways.com/?ra_re...1400&msclkid=5fd07b190410152dfbc625174addb82a

I have no skin in the game, and am simply a satisfied customer.

Jim
 

clifffaith

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Our first and only River cruise was a Danube cruise with Viking. We loved it, and hope to take another!
 

Luanne

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Younger dd and I are taking our first river cruise in May 2021. We'll be going down the Rhine with Viking. We picked Viking based on recommendations from several friends.
 

beejaybee

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We recently returned from an Avalon Waterways Danube cruise. I highly recommend that line or AMA per friends who've sailed both.. Viking has very restrictive payment policies, e.g. full payment at time of booking, so we did not even consider them.

I would suggest that the Rhine be your 1st river cruise. We had previously spent time as land travelers along that river and loved it. The start/ending ports of Amsterdam and Basel (or reverse) give you a wonderful sense of Europe. Our Danube cruise began in Nuermberg, which was great for us since we'd not been there, and ended in Budapest, which we enjoyed again.
 

Luanne

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We recently returned from an Avalon Waterways Danube cruise. I highly recommend that line or AMA per friends who've sailed both.. Viking has very restrictive payment policies, e.g. full payment at time of booking, so we did not even consider them.

I would suggest that the Rhine be your 1st river cruise. We had previously spent time as land travelers along that river and loved it. The start/ending ports of Amsterdam and Basel (or reverse) give you a wonderful sense of Europe. Our Danube cruise began in Nuermberg, which was great for us since we'd not been there, and ended in Budapest, which we enjoyed again.
We did not have to make full payment at time of booking with Viking.
 

pedro47

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I want to suggest Cruise Critics Web site and search under river cruise for information. Enjoy I have read the service, the food and the accommodation are excellent on river cruises.

I would also suggest Costco Vacation website for river cruises information.
 

beejaybee

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I want to suggest Cruise Critics Web site and search under river cruise for information. Enjoy I have read the service, the food and the accommodation are excellent on river cruises.

I would also suggest Costco Vacation website for river cruises information.

I agree about Cruise Critic- we learned a lot prior to our cruise from both the River Cruising and River Cruise Ports forums.
As far as I know, Costco only represents Viking and Uniworld for river cruises:(.......
 

Bodie

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Younger dd and I are taking our first river cruise in May 2021. We'll be going down the Rhine with Viking. We picked Viking based on recommendations from several friends.
Have a friend who just returned from the same trip and loved it. Lots of food, beware.
 

"Roger"

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As long as you are looking at everything, you might look at the Tauck river cruises. Here is a link to their Seine river cruise. Tauck is always more expensive, but they also always do special things that the other tour companies do not. In the case of the Seine tour, it includes among other things an after hours tour of the Louvre after the crowds are gone. (Haven't done this particular thing, but on a Tauck tour, we did an after hours tour of the Sistine Chapel. Instead of shoulder to shoulder viewing of the chapel, there were only about ninety of us in the room with three separate tour guides.)

I linked to the Seine trip because of the video. We ourselves will be doing a Duoro river tour, the new hot spot river tour, but it is pretty much booked up over a year in advance. Not saying this is for you, but if you don't know about it you won't consider it.
 

Rjbeach2003

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My experience with river cruising in Europe is bike and barge. Small, 24 passengers, bicycling everyday on pretty flat terrain. I had regular bike, my wife and others e-bikes. Not for everyone, but we have done it twice with another planned in 2021. All times will be with cousins, all of us in our 60's and 70's.

Not at all like the bigger river cruises, which sound like fun too.
 

BarbmC

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Passepartout

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My experience with river cruising in Europe is bike and barge. Small, 24 passengers, bicycling everyday on pretty flat terrain. I had regular bike, my wife and others e-bikes. Not for everyone, but we have done it twice with another planned in 2021. All times will be with cousins, all of us in our 60's and 70's.

Not at all like the bigger river cruises, which sound like fun too.
I would do this through Bordeaux or Holland/Benelux. But don't tell my wife. She already has us booked for over a month in 2020 on Celebrity. I GOTTA use some of these timeshare weeks/points.
 

beejaybee

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I would do this through Bordeaux or Holland/Benelux. But don't tell my wife. She already has us booked for over a month in 2020 on Celebrity. I GOTTA use some of these timeshare weeks/points.

Hi Jim-
A match to Royal Regency drove us to extend our plans for Europe later this year. So I booked a Copenhagen to Tarragona RCCL 13 night cruise but still had a week to fill between. Alas no timeshares worked....

But Bordeaux did! Not a river cruise @4k each, but an Easy Jet flight from Barcelona for 22GBP each, and a VRBO at less than $100 per night.
Our car rental with drop off near the Royal Regency will run @$350.

Bordeaux is very close to the Dordogne region, an area of France we'd not previously considered although Rick Steves has touted it in his France guidebook. And just on Friday we received a brochure from National Trust tours about their trip at 4.5k pp for a week in the region.

Alas no Celeb cruises for us, but did you notice the 9/9/21 Pacific Coastal on the Millennium?

Barb
 
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