We are planning to do a European Christmas market river cruise in December, 2014. We have narrowed it down to four possibilities, but it is so hard to tell from web sites or brochures what to look for. We would be going with another couple; both he and I are into photography but that is a secondary reason for this trip (very strong secondary though!). River cruises we are considering are:
Tauck: river cruise, Basel to Cologne (inc. Breisach/Colmar/Riquewihr, Strasbourg, Baden-Baden, Heidelberg, Rudesheim, Koblenz and Aachen). 8 day. Basel pre-cruise extension option.
Uniworld: Nuremberg to Frankfurt (inc. Nuremberg, Bamberg, Rothenburg/Wurzburg and Wertheim). 8 days. Prague pre-cruise extension option.
It also depends on your expectations, and $$, Tauck in my look at the cruises was the most $$. You might also look at Viking cruises, it also caters for the US,CAN,UK,AUS,NZ demographic. Also use Utube as there are a few postings.
I've never seen a posting on a cruise here though...
send a PM if you want, we are going May this year Vienna to Amstrdam 13days with Avalon
Carrg1954, thanks for the response. We were actually looking there. It is somewhat helpful, and in part helped us narrow our choices to these four. It gets challenging when it comes down to the final decisions in that some of the companies are all-inclusive and some aren't, and they are all very good at wording the descriptions of their excursions such that it is hard to know just how much you actually see/do (or even if it is only a 'drive by').
I have found FM to be a fantastic place to get input into making these kind of trip decisions, key places to go/see, etc. So I thought, what the heck, I would ask about this, even though a search of FM revealed no previous threads.
So if anybody out there has done a European river cruise, or even has thoughts on which cities listed above are 'must see' for winter/Christmas timeframe, I would appreciate your input.
We did a river cruise in spring 2011 with Uniworld (25 anniversary, first trip outside of North America). We loved it! Food was wonderful, a nice easy pace, time for photography.
Can't comment on the other cruise lines, we were very happy with Uniworld.
We'd do it again, in a heartbeat (when we can afford it).
