Thread: Rhein cruises
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Old September 21st, 2016, 06:59 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
tim...[_2_]
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Default Rhein cruises


"-hh" wrote in message
...
Erilar wrote:
-hh wrote:
Erilar wrote:
Martin wrote:
"Happy.Hobo" wrote:

While I still don't think cruises are worth the expense, I've never
heard anyone but you complain about the food.

Erilar complained about the food. I've never been on a cruise.

Odd. I don't recall complaining about the food. Eating arrangement
on the most recent one, definitely. The food itself was excellent.

Apologies for not reading rte for awhile. In breezing through, the
complaint I thought I read was on the level of quality of the wine.

In any event, I've DIY'ed and River Cruised the Rhine - both have their
advantages/disadvantages (unsurprisingly).

For EU river cruises, we used AMA Waterways on the Danube and
Uniworld on the Rhine (and Venice). Giving a quick broad brush,
I'd say that the table wine service was better on AMA than on Uni.

For the rivers themselves, we liked the Danube a bit better - - the
ports were more frequently "in town", requiring no bus transfer for
the included city walking tour routine. This freed us up a bit more
to strike out on our own (& at our own pace).

Uniworld did feature a "slow walkers" group which might be of some
interest here. Similarly, the Uniworld tour director also made
arrangements
at times for taxis for some of the slow walkers to get them back to the
boat.

FWIW, one thing with the river cruise companies - they often include a
complimentary pickup from the local airport on your day of arrival ...
*IF*
said arrival day is the same as the boat's departure day. Arrive early
and
you're on your own. We've done this both ways and one trick that did
work out pretty well was to fly to some city in EU that you want to
visit
and spend a couple of days (jetlag recovery, etc). Then take a morning
flight ("puddle jumper") to whatever the arrival city is for the cruise
and
they'll pick you up.

For DIYing, the last time that we did so were for a December Christmas
market tour for my parents (Dad was 80 at the time). Rented a car for
this and for the most part, arranged things to be able to drop them off
at the hotel, then go park the car ... found small places to stay down
near the Black Gate in Trier (Mosel River), in downtown Wursburg
(probably 2-3 blocks from the Residenze). A B&B in Bacharach on the
Rhine proper ... used the car to get around to see the various sights
on
daytrips/stopovers. Also stayed in Rothenburg ob der Tabor .. think it
was the Guesthouse Griffin? It was ~1 block downhill from the main
city
square & had parking inside their private courtyard.


I wonder whether my friend would like to drive in Germany? Cities don't
drive her into a blue funk as they do me. . . It's not something I'd
considered. Hmmmm


If it helps, here's a rough cut at what I recall our itinerary was,
from roughly a decade ago. I've used Google to try to fill in some
of the gaps.

Arrived - Frankfort. Rental company was probably AutoEurope. Was
an Audi A6 Avant with turbo diesel. Nice car; averaged a respectable
27mpg over ~1000km, with stuff about equally split into thirds
on time (not mileage): 25mph city/urban, 45mph countryside, and
95+0mph Autobahn. Only complaint was that with five adults & bags,
it was tail-heavy, so the nose got a bit uncomfortably light when
cruising above 120mph, especially in the rain.

I think our overall route was something like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Airp...50.0379326!3e0


Not exactly a trip down the Rhine though (even as in, a drive along the
banks) is it?

tim