Just Back From the MS Sound of Music (Smartours)

My husband and I are a young 60ish who just returned from Smartours "Alps and Danube" trip. This was a one week land tour in Switzerland, Austria and Germany (bus and hotels) followed by a one week river cruise on the Danube aboard the MS Sound of Music. I had trouble finding recent reviews of this boat, so I would be happy to answer any questions.

The ship was built in 2006 but is clean and comfortable. I must admit that my first impression was that it was smaller and older than all the others on the river. But we soon grew to really like the great crew, spacious cabins and overall experience on this boat.

We had a category B cabin on the second deck. It had a large window that could be opened. It was a pleasure to actually be able to lean out and see everything from swans to fishermen on the banks of the Danube. We are ocean cruising balcony people, but I would not book a balcony on a river cruise.

The cabin had a safe, hair dryer, standard bed (two twins together) and a desk and chair. Bathroom was typically small but adequate with decent storage.

I would say that 75% of the people aboard were Gate 1 and the rest of us were Smartours. We had our own local tour guides in each city and our own tour manager stayed with us the entire time.

I had heard that river cruising was for old people. Our group ranged from 12 to 80, with most in their 60s. The ship has stairs everywhere and is not handicap accessible. The tours include daily were certainly full of walking. So we were glad we took this trip sooner than later.

My only slight disappointment was in the food. We knew that the choices would be much fewer than on ocean cruises. Breakfast and lunch were buffets with one special that could be ordered from the kitchen. Good salad bar, but often the buffet had weird leftovers and a few too many "carbs" for me-- rice, potatoes, etc. Dinner had three choices of entrees-- the soup, appetizer and dessert were fixed. Desserts were too often the creamy "Cool Whip" style blobs that were artfully presented. There was a cheese plate option each night. Beer and wine included at dinner only. So.. we ate a lot, did not go hungry, but sometimes had a chuckle over the choices. Open seating at the tables at all times and people usually moved around. No tables for two.

We felt we had an excellent time and paid a very reasonable price for our trip and would go on another Smartours land or river tour.

Going on the MS Sound of Music and want some details? Just ask!

Kat in CA - can I assume the CA is for California and not Canada???? If you could fix your profile it would be helpful.

Your trip sounds wonderful and I'm going to look up the tour company! Sounds like the kind of combo my sister and I would love to do.

PS I checked your profile because I wanted to look up your tour company and figured it was a Canadian or British Holiday TA of sorts.... But living next door in Oregon I should have realized you must mean California????

Yes, I live in California.

Some things to know about Smartours and their trips (including the Alps and Danube combo):

Their $300 pp deposit is never refundable, so be sure before you pay.

Their customer service on the phone is a bit brusque. I just hung up and called another agent.

They bundle airfare from JFK in their tour prices. Everyone goes on the same plane on the same day. So if you are on the west coast, you will need to get to NY. They do offer land only price, but for us traveling in summer from CA, the air deal was the best for us.

Hotels on land were good-- Holiday Inn, Sheraton, etc. All luggage was handled.

On the ship-- good value for good service. Nice included city tours. So much fun to be able to walk off the ship to stroll around Budapest and other cities. Vienna docking was far from city center but they ran multiple shuttles per day.

Thanks very interesting. Was thinking about putting together a Rick Steve's and a river cruise :) this is another option.

Yes, I live in California.

Some things to know about Smartours and their trips (including the Alps and Danube combo):

Their $300 pp deposit is never refundable, so be sure before you pay.

Their customer service on the phone is a bit brusque. I just hung up and called another agent.

They bundle airfare from JFK in their tour prices. Everyone goes on the same plane on the same day. So if you are on the west coast, you will need to get to NY. They do offer land only price, but for us traveling in summer from CA, the air deal was the best for us.

Hotels on land were good-- Holiday Inn, Sheraton, etc. All luggage was handled.

On the ship-- good value for good service. Nice included city tours. So much fun to be able to walk off the ship to stroll around Budapest and other cities. Vienna docking was far from city center but they ran multiple shuttles per day.

What was the size of your tour group?

Thank you for posting such a nice review. We are going on the Gate 1 River Cruise August 2 out of Budapest! So Excited! Can I ask if there was Wiifii on the boat and if your cell phone worked (hoping to stay in touch with family at home) Also did you take a tour to Salzburg ? Were there any other tour highlights that you would recommend?

Thanks!! from another Californian and friends!

Greetings Kat in CA,

We also are going on the MS Sound of Music for a Danube River Cruise this summer.

Questions:

Do you happen to remember the name of the Dock/Pier in Vienna?

At the various docks, are you allowed to leave the riverboat after dinner and revisit the cities?

Did you take foreign currencies that matched the locations?

From California, did you find the weather pleasant or cold? Any packing suggestions?

I truly appreciate your taking the time to write such a comprehensive review. Also thank you in advance for your responses to my questions!

The name of the pier in Vienna I think was Nussdorf (or something like that). It was one of the few docking places that was far from city center. I was pleased, however, that there were a couple of shuttles that were run back and forth to town if you wanted to stay after the morning tour or go back to the boat for lunch and then return to town.

If the boat is docked and tied up, you can go ashore. After dinner a couple of times we got off for a bit of a walk. It is so easy to go ashore-- just exchange your room card for a boarding pass. Never a line. Of course you had to observe sailing "all aboard" times.

No restrictions on bringing alcohol or local wine onboard.

Ahead of time we did get euros, forints and swiss francs. But not everyone did this. We did a lot of casual shopping at outdoor markets and it was good to have local currency. We ended up not using all of the foreign currency and tipped the crew and guides with some of it.

It is kind of hard to know what to pack. We were lucky and had beautiful weather the entire two weeks we were gone on our land tour and cruise. We had one rainy day in Vienna and it was kind of uncomfortable on the walking tour. We had umbrellas, just neglected to take them out that day! I took a Lands End packable rain jacket that I always carried in my bag. I took two pairs of athletic shoes and alternated them, and wore some plain black Keen maryjanes on the plane. I did not wear the skirts I packed. I did often change for dinner, but casually. There was no formality in dress. I splurged on some Smartwool lightweight socks and they were lifesavers-- I washed them out a lot as I changed socks frequently. Women mostly wore capris. Men were in shorts and long pants depending on weather. Bring something easy to carry for excursions like a small backpack or crossbody but don't weigh yourself down. We wore hats in the sun on the deck. No one really tried to "blend in"-- Europe is full of tourists anyway. Our weather during the weeks of June 5-22 was pleasant, warm days about 70 degrees. I took a fleece lightweight jacket and wore it on deck cruising in Wauchau Valley. Most people who went to the Vienna concert wore slightly nicer clothes but no dresses or sport coats. I brought an immersion coil to make in room tea but there was a machine nearby. Bring your own toiletries as most hotels had generic dispensers of body wash/shampoo. The walls of the ship cabin are metal and I brought very strong magnetic hooks for my purse and backpack and smaller magnets for the daily program.

There was Wifi in our cabin that worked. Some people said they had problems in their cabin. One available computer in reception area for passenger use. Sorry, I don't know about the phone question...we did not bring one.

The size of our Smartours tour group was 19! We were on a bus that easily seated 40. On the boat I think we had about 104 passengers- most were Gate 1 folks.

As part of the land portion, we did go to Salzburg and it was my favorite place. We had a wonderful local guide there and the weather was great--it usually rains. Some Gate 1 people went to Salzburg on the cruise week but it was a long drive and they missed Passau (organ concert) and some scenic cruising. We picked them up on down the river.

It is probably not for everyone, but one free afternoon in Munich, we broke away from the group and visited Dachau concentration camp memorial with In Munich Tours. Our guide Adam was incredible and I learned a lot.

Other optionals we took: Schonbrunn palace, Eagle's Nest, and Mt. Pilatus. I regret we did not go to the musical Vienna excursion (I had read reviews that it was held in a crowded stuffy room, but people seemed to like it. We liked all the excursions. We skipped the Tyrolean evening music- only 4 people signed up and they still took them.

In short, it was a great trip. I really enjoyed the land tour first (Lucerne, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Munich) because the cruise then seemed more relaxing with no early morning suitcase packing!

I hope I have answered all the questions presented.

Just to confirm: it is called Nussdorf, sometimes spelled Nußdorf and a suburb of Vienna. It is on the same river bank as the town centre, On google maps slightly above on the screen, a little upstream. It is about seven or eight minutes walk to the tram station, I think the tram took about 20 minutes into town. There is also a railway station close by. That is what I recall from my trip in 2013.

A lot of ships dock in Nussdorf these days. When I was there the Belvedere was rafted to another ship and at the other docking stations there were another three ships. Those ships had shuttles as well. We were picked up for our guided coach tour but took the tram into town during our free time.

notamermaid

Yes, the tram station is close by the Nussdorf docking area. We did not use it but walked to it easily. Our guide said it was about 2.5 euros each way. Taxi from Nussdorf to Vienna city center was quoted at about 17 euros each way.

Truthfully, after walking all day in the city and then taking the Palace excursion which involves more walking, after dinner we just relaxed on the boat, getting off just for riverside strolls.

You Ladies are the BEST!

Thank you so much for all the information, travel tips, and follow-up information regarding the Vienna dock. It is so appreciated.

Four of us on are taking the MS Sound of Music with Gate 1 starting in Budapest and ending with 3 nights in Prague. We have made reservations for the Salzburg excursion and the Vienna Classical Concert.

We are very excited about the entire journey!

Again, many thanks and happy travels!

Hi All.....I just booked our third cruise on the Sound of Music through Gate 1. Next April we do a river cruise round trip from Amsterdam. The other two Gate one cruises I have done were Christmas market cruises. Last Wednesday TravelZoo ran a $500 off each person.... the cheaper 3 categories booked up immediately. By the time I called.... 22 hrs after receiving the email offer...I had to take the top category but it was still a bargain. I agree that the Sound of Music is older and smaller than most of the river boats but for the money you can't beat it.

Smartours sounds a lot like Gate One.... $300 non refundable deposit. I found the agents to be kind and helpful.

Thanks for the mention that the walls are metal...I am taking magnets also....

Linda from California

Hi all,

We are going on the same ship in November from Nuremberg to Vienna.

Questions:

1) Do you know where the ship docked in Nuremberg? We are not taking their transfer.

2) Can you wear jeans to dinner? We are doing a 1 1/2 weeks land trip in Germany & Czech Republic on our own before getting on the ship and don't want to bring too much luggage.

3) In Vienna, did the ship dock at Donaustationen Nr. 29 on Heiligenstädter Strasse or Donaustationen Nr. 34 on Relegasse in Nussdorf?

4) In Passau, do you remember when the ship moved later to pick up the rest of the passengers who did the Salzburg tours? We are planning to take a side trip to Landshut, Germany (1hr away from Passau) while everyone is visiting Salzburg (we've been there before). We're hoping that the ship moved from Passau later in the afternoon so as to give us time to return to the ship before it moves.

5) Do you remember where the ship docked after it moved from Passau?

Thanks for helping to answer my questions.

Twee

Glad I saved the Daily Programs because I needed to refer to them to answer your questions.

1. The Nuremberg docking location is listed as "Hafenstrasse". Not much around there, as I remember.

2. Jeans for dinner are okay. I only saw a few people wearing them but I know no one would object or kick you out of the dining room. Casual atmosphere.

3. In Vienna we docked at "Brandner 29, Nussdorf.

4. In Passau the all aboard time was at 12:45 with sailing time at 1:00pm sharp. I looked this up and also remember this because we were the last people onboard. We were in the organ concert and left early to walk back to the ship.

At 5:30 we stopped in Aschbach to pick up the passengers who went on the bus to Salzburg. We did not go on this excursion but were allowed to get off the boat for a walk. We were there about an hour in this port. The ship sailed at 7pm to go to Melk.

Melk docking location: Brandner31.

Hope this helps.

Thanks KAT for taking time out to assist. Your answers helped me out a lot.

Twee

My husband and I are doing a Gate 1 tour in September that includes 7 nights on the Sound of Music. The information sent to us with our documents indicates that shorts are not allowed in the dining room on the ship. Do you know if this is the case for breakfast and lunch or just for dinner? My husband prefers shorts for daily excursions and it would be nice for him to not have to change several times. He definitely would NOT wear shorts to dinner!!

Also, could you tell me what toiletry items are provided and whether or not wash cloths (or face cloths as the Europeans call them) are provided on the ship. I know they are not provided in many European hotels so we plan to take some "disposable" ones and are just trying to figure how many we need?

Thanks!

I could not remember about the washcloth situation so I went back to look at a few pictures I took of the cabin. I see bath towels (and they will provide you with extra ones for your hair if you ask) and face towels. I see no washcloths in my pictures and I am pretty sure they were not provided. The face cloths were fairly small and you could use them as washcloths. Cabins were serviced twice a day so no problems with towels.

On the ship there was bar soap, shower gel, lotion, shampoo, cotton balls, Q tips and shower caps and sewing kit provided on ample sized shelves in the bathroom- and these were replenished. I liked the soap but did not care for the highly scented lotion and hair products. My husband would not touch them-- too flowery smelling. Oh, in case you are interested, the ship provides two bottles of water per day- nice for excursions. I did hide some away and they were replenished without a problem.

About shorts in the dining room... I am almost sure that some folks wore them at breakfast and lunch time. We were asked (at orientation meeting the first day) not to wear shorts at dinner. Have fun on your upcoming trip and feel free to ask additional questions.

Thank you so much. I'm sure I'll have more questions as we get further along. We are going to be gone 21 days, so have to be careful with the packing!

Thanks for all of the information! We took the Smartours Danube Discovery Cruise a couple of years ago. It goes from Austria to Bulgaria. 4 couples went and the trip was wonderful. We will have a little overlapping, but we enjoyed it so much that we are happy to see it again. I was very interested in the docking location for Vienna. Last time, we docked near downtown. Last trip we went to the Schonbrunn Palace on our own, very easily. We are planning to again, hope that we find our way back to the riverboat!

Outside of that we are planning to take the Smartours excursions; they are a good value and we have been pleased with them. They offered a folk dance excursion on the previous tour that was quite good. I see the excursions have changed.

Thanks again. You are a terrific person to so kindly answer so many questions.

To quote Rick Steves, "Keep on traveling".

I do have a question. We are hoping to go to Dachau from Munich. Can you remember how long the "morning's guided tour" lasted? Did anyone of your group visit Dachau?

Thanks! You are the best!

By the way, was this your first Smartour? Most of our last group had taken multiple tours. This will be our 3rd. with them.

I took the underground to St Stephensplatz then did my walking tour toward the palace and another UBahn stop That way you could take the train back to the ship

To answer the question about visiting Dachau from Munich on the river cruise--

The morning excursion with the group was scheduled from about 8:30 to 11am with a few hours of free time after that. Our original plan was to skip out on the morning tour. When we got to Munich, we booked our Dachau tour with InMunich tours. The tour is 20 euros each and leaves at 10:45 from the Marienplatz city center square. We did not think we would have time to take the morning tour and get there on time. We let our tour manager Susannah know that we would be missing from the morning tour. She then arranged things so we could take the morning tour and got the group to Marienplatz a little earlier than usual. Once we got there, we skipped out on the commentary in front of the opera house and walked a short distance to meet our tour guide Adam. It worked out well. So ask about this possibility if you want to do this. Once you meet your guide in the square, he will suggest picking up sandwiches and drinks to take with you and I am glad we did this. After returning to Marienplatz after our tour, Adam helped us navigate the subway to meet the Smartours people for our group dinner that night. He insisted on getting us to the door of that hard-to-find restaurant and we appreciated this.

We knew we could get to Dachau on our own on the train and debated about doing this. Dachau admission is free. However, I am so glad that we went with our small group from In Munich tours. Adam was an amazing storyteller and we got so much out of his commentary in this rather difficult emotional place. I was also very happy to have help navigating the correct train and bus-- plus we got a lot of background information while riding there on the train. Several people later commented that they would have liked to go with us to Dachau, so I regret not gathering together a group.

Yes, it was our first Smartours trip and it won't be our last. They were great to us and our tour leader could not have been better.

Great re-cap

Do you remember where the shuttles dropped you off and picked you up?

How long before the last shuttle came, was there enough time to walk around?

Had a fantastic time.

12 day blue Danube & 3 nights in Prague . Aug 2-12 extremely hot & humid. Get whatever socks to prevent blisters! The cobblestones are very hot! Ur weather may be different.

Docked in Vienna at Nussdorf @34. Could not get

Clarification from gate 1 on the particulars of the Vienna tour, so 4 of us hired private guide . The tour directors & local guides were wonderful everywhere we went however.

Due

To low water levels

On Danube we docked after Salzburg / Passau at a small town and shuttled to all other cities starting w regensberg.

We went to classical concert in Vienna & did Salzburg. So glad we did. Many loved cesky krumlov. Didn't go cuz had to be careful w heat and steep walking.its suppose to look like a village right out of a fairy tale.

2 men in our group wore shorts to every dinner. We had washcloths.

The boat was clean, staff fantastic, great fellow passengers.

Unfortunately with late connections, our luggage was lost by Alitalia on our outbound flights from LAX to Budapest for 3 days. We arrived 2 days in advance to get over jet lag. tDelta also lost luggage on our return for 3 days. Bring some clothes in carry on. Boat staff was extremely helpful. We did get luggage 15 minutes before we set sailed.

All 4 of us just loved this travel experience w gate (1.

Now I want to go to Croatia. Smart tours has an attractive promotion on travelzoo right now. Any advice or recommendations for smart tours?

Thank you!

2 men in our group wore shorts to every dinner. We had washcloths.

MUCH BETTER than the other way around! :D:D:D

Seriously, thanks for the report.