Rhine River - whicih direction and several other questions.

Is there any advantage to cruising from one city (Amsterdam or Basel) over the other on a Rhine River cruise?

Will river cruise lines ever give you an adjustment if you notice the category of cabin you have already booked drops in price?

Is the noise from someone flushing a toilet in the cabin above your's really disruptingly loud during the middle of the night? Also, is there much noise from splashing or "gurgling" water when you are in an aquarium class cabin?

Can we expect to find taxis or other people offering guided tours of a port city at the dock or river banks when we disembark in the port cities? (For when we don't want to go on a tour that is being offered through the ship?

Hoping for some replies from experienced river cruisers!

"Can we expect to find taxis or other people offering guided tours of a port city at the dock or river banks when we disembark in the port cities? (For when we don't want to go on a tour that is being offered through the ship?"

No. But the ship will call a taxi fr you.

I don't recall hearing toilets or at least it doesn't stick in my mind as being an issue.

As to price adjustments, this is not like regular cruising. It is highly unlikely you will get a price adjustment. There are on 60 to 80 cabins to a boat. Many times trips are sold out or the prime cabins and cheapest cabins are gone 1st 12 to 18 months ahead of time.

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mlbcruiser,

just to answer your first question. For me - using a fast train train to get to either city - it would make no difference as regards arrival times or overnight stay. Having to fly into the cities (potentially Lucerne in the case of Basel) you might find that one direction will turn out more favorably over the other.

As regards direction concerning the cruise experience, that depends on the itinerary and cruise line. Due to the slower pace upstream you can have changes in port stay times and a couple of ports might even be different. However, all cruise lines will sail the famous castle stretch in daylight. Again the pace is slower upstream but a cruise company might have allowed time for slower sailing downstream than the ship can, i.e. 8 knots than the usual ten to twelve knots to make the sightseeing last longer. Past cruiser can possibly help you there with an exact numbers of hours. As regards overall scenery it does not make a difference which direction you go in.

notamermaid

We did Basel to Amsterdam and thought it was a great direction. We did an extra day in both cities. The benefit of starting in Basel is the size of the city (very doable great free transportation a great first day to recover from the flight). Amsterdam was interesting, but very crowded, way too busy for the first day of the trip. Consider flying into Munich, great connection to Basel and not the mess of Paris, London, or Frankfort.

We had a group on AMA and were receiving the group discount of $250 per person and then the cruise went on "sale" and we were able to get an additional $750 per person deducted from the cruise fare. So, it is possible to get your price adjusted. However if you are booking in the most popular times there will not be any cabins for them to get rid of so you will not see a sale. If you plan to cruise at the beginning of the season, or late in the season this could very well happen.

Thanks for the helpful information, everyone.

It's good to know that IF there is a fare decrease or sale one can sometimes get an adjustment in price. We aren't likely to get that lucky, though, as we are not cruising very early or very late in the year. Still, I wanted to know as it's the worst to suddenly see a lower price AFTER you have booked!

I think we'll likely rent a car from the city we fly into if we depart from Basel. Trains aren't a good idea for us since my spouse has a bit of a mobility issue and having to drag suitcases along a city street and/or into a train station doesn't work for us. A taxi is best but a bus works as long as once on it we don't have to change to another.

Happy to get the information regarding going up or down river, too!

Thanks again.

If mobility is an issue, remember that you can fly into Basel for probably the same price as flying into Zurich for example. It will mean changing planes, but that is within an airport in Europe somewhere.

Hi mlb,

>you can fly into Basel for probably the same price as flying into Zurich

You can fly into Basel via AMS on KLM.

Arrange ahead for courtesy transport within the airport.

Ira

We did Basel to Amsterdam and thought it was a great direction. We did an extra day in both cities. The benefit of starting in Basel is the size of the city (very doable great free transportation a great first day to recover from the flight). Amsterdam was interesting, but very crowded, way too busy for the first day of the trip. Consider flying into Munich, great connection to Basel and not the mess of Paris, London, or Frankfort.

Public transport in Basel is not free. But hotel guests get special passes.

https://www.basel.com/en/Getting-there-exploring-the-City/Exploring-the-City/Public-Transport-in-Basel

Hi mlb,

 

>you can fly into Basel for probably the same price as flying into Zurich

 

You can fly into Basel via AMS on KLM.

Arrange ahead for courtesy transport within the airport.

 

Ira

Courtesy transport in AMS? Can you elaborate?

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Thank you for the clarification and help. Actually, my dh actually walks without a cane, and he can walk up or down stairs, but his speed is a bit slower than normal. Getting airport assistance, for instance, just makes things go that much smoother. He can do steps as long as there is a railing, and even pull a rolling suitcase. So we could likely manage a bus or train if we HAD to, but would prefer not to. (It would take it's toll, I fear!) I'm not sure if we'd be allowed to get a rental car in one country but drop it off in a neighboring country. (???)

We hope to be able to use FF miles for our flights, so can only fly on the carriers who are partners (which will limit our choices of airlines and likely have an effect on which airport we fly into.) Also, I am still not quite sure which direction we'll be cruising in. I need to do a bit more research plus study a map of that part of Europe and decide how many days early we'll fly in (probably 2 or 3), what areas we want to spend a bit of time in after the cruise and for how long, and which will be easiest to access from our .

I use a program called hipmunk.com to look at what routes are available to get from point A to point B. It let's you filter by frequent flyer groups (although it doesn't seem to limit to ONLY those airlines that are part of your group) or by airline. That is how I discovered that my best connection to Hanoi was with Eva Air through Taipei. I also used it to to figure out all of my options to fly to South Africa a few years ago. I don't book with them (I have mostly used FF miles) but I get information I might not have known about.

Courtesy transport in AMS? Can you elaborate?

 

 

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We are staying at the Ramada Apollo in AMS, they have a shuttle that will pick us up at the airport. I have read of other people on these boards getting shuttles as well.

In Amsterdam? Well our hotel would send a car but it certainly was not free. But it was lovely to have someone waiting as you exited

Immigration control in Ams.

Shuttle is free from the airport, €7.5/person back to the airport. We will be staying 2x, so will only be paying for our final trip back to the airport. We have points for there, so a great discount. It's a bit out of centre town, about 4km, but no problem for us, we don't have transportation here so traveling by bus and tram will be an experience.

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Thanks for the additional info regarding transportation, everyone.

Gnome12, very helpful tip! No doubt a lot of CC members besides myself will find your suggestion helpful. Actually, I recall reading about Hipmunk (Conde' Nast or Airfarewatchdog or someplace?) quite a while back but forgot all about it! (Another take on the term "use it or lose it", lol!)

FYI, to add another answer to one of my own questions in this thread (re: price adjustments), at least in the case of Emerald Waterways (which is one of the lines we are considering for our first river cruise), if there are any price drops or promo perks offered for your cruise after you have paid the deposit, you will be out of luck. I received that information directly from them in response to an inquiry I sent. Prompt response, but not the answer I was hoping for.