pontac

It seems you did! 😁 The food on Viking suits me, though recently there has been too many dishes with cheese in them but you're obviously happy with AMA so why change?

We all have different tastes, luckily there are (now) many different cruise lines that can satisfy those tastes.

Oh do!! I like a good discussion. And I do sometime get things wrong.😁 According to Viking's website the Longships are 443 feet long, and have a max of 190 passengers, i.e. 95 couples. Scenic 'Space Ships' in Central Europe and Southern France are 135 metres long and have a max of 163/149 passengers. 135m = 443 ft. So the boats are the same length but Scenic have fewer passenger, But standard cabins are the same size, the space freed up by not having passenger cabins is taken with a hair salon, gym, and Salt Therapy Room (?). It gets complicated because both operate shorter boats on the Seine and Douro. I haven't looked at dimensions of other cruise lines boats, but on a non-scientific look while rafting the major players are all the same size. I have cruised with both Viking and Scenic and I am cruising twice more this year with Scenic, but my impression after one cruise with Scenic was that Viking's boats give more impression of room.

Some river cruises welcome children, others don't, so check the rules of any cruise line you are considering. Viking has a minimum passenger age of 18. What I like is flying to a country, being taken directly to the boat, unpacking once and at the end, packing and being taken directly to the airport for the journey home. I don't want a land element, and it sounds you are the same. Viking call them Long Ships - a Viking Long Ship is their logo. The Vikings of old roamed the oceans in their long ships bringing rape & pillage (or if you're Scandinavian - culture). Boats from the major cruise lines have different names but tend to have the same sized boats on a river, made as large as will fit in a lock and go under bridges.

You were cruising in Europe. What happens in the USA where people in service industries basically work for tips does not happen here. And I am amazed that you thought you'd get better service than other passengers because you prepaid gratuities.

As @Host Jazzbeau says, once you have the river cruising bug then you'll discover there aren't enough rivers. But, to answer your question, assuming the on-board experience is just what you want, then what do you want off the boat? In other words, what is important to you that you want to see or experience? Is it historic sites, ancient towns, art, food, beer, wine? Or attractive scenery observed from the boat? How long do you want to spend? Do you want to spend all the time on the cruise, or have hotel time at before or/and after the cruise? If you have no strong preferences, than pick any cruise as you'll enjoy it.

Same here, especially when they are heading into a cathedral (ABC) and at the end when they announce 'free time' we'll head back to the boat (when in walking distance).

Which cruise line?

It's a chore and takes much longer than expected, so I really appreciate your detailed report, @Australia08

If you're fit enough to get on and off a boat and turn a windlass you could rent a canal boat in England and drive yourself. We used to do this in our younger days, but in 2022 we got our son and his partner to crew a longer narrow boat that would take four in some comfort. I've just reread my report and it bought back good memories.

You won't get envelopes because gratuities are included on UK bookings.

There are included excursions on some extensions, but we've never booked an extension because - as you say - one can book a hotel cheaper ones-self. And anyway, we've either been to these cities, worked in them, and they're only a short inexpensive flight if we did want to visit them. Fair enough. You've tried Viking and don't like the experience. Different folks, different tastes. I'll be interested in reading your reports on these other lines.

OK, this is for an ocean cruise. I don't know about them because Mrs P. flatly refuses to consider cruising on the ocean. Getting a quote is more of a chore than for a river cruise, anyway I went through the rigmarole and got a price for two of £7980 which includes economy class flights to/from London Heathrow and on-board gratuities. Same date, same cabin, same cruise (West Indies to Iberia - San Juan to Barcelona)

I've not seen any trips to Asia where it's a long cruise that you can fly in, go straight to the boat, cruise for a couple of weeks and fly home. We don't want a lot of travelling - whether by air or road - connected with a relatively short cruise.

That, but also competition. Scenic include gratuities for everything - i.e. for coach drivers and guides as well. Why doesn't Viking? I'm assuming - and it's only an assumption - that the majority of their customers are from the USA who are used to and happy to pay tips. While it's easy to not deliver tip envelopes to UK cruisers its not so easy to manage driver/guide tips. Viking - and I expect the others - have different offerings in different markets. Our host has said he won't book Viking while they require full payment so long before travel. But plenty of Americans do, so I'm assuming Viking won't see the necessity to change until their US payment policy becomes a serious obstacle to them getting bookings.

Name a cruise and I'll tell you the UK price; but UK prices also include travel (air with option of trains when possible)

Reference to UK, as per start of my post. Gratuities & SSDP included in UK prices since pandemic, SSDP not included as standard in 2025 Cruises. The SSDP is still available to buy.

Excellent informative review, @reeves35, thanks

Presumably the land-based trips go close to the site of interest. With a river cruise if the site is not on a river bank then a coach is needed to get to it. Further away the site, longer the coach trip - which will be true for all river cruise lines. On Day 3 there's an included excursion the Strasbourg in the morning, but you could stay there longer and return in the afternoon as there were shuttle busses in the afternoon. To cover the long distance from Basel to Amsterdam in 7 days and to allow off-ship excursions a lot of cruising is done of necessity at night. On Day 5 -tomorrow if your cruise ends on 22 May - you'll cruise along the middle-Rhine in day time and see lots of castles and the Lorely rock. Grab a seat at the front of the bow for a good view, or the sun-deck. You want to see both sides of the river.

UK didn't use to include gratuities. We used to get the envelopes on our bed at the end of a cruise with option to pay recommended amount by card at reception, which we did. Much prefer gratuities included but aware that it may be withdrawn, as they have withdrawn Silver Sprits Drink Package from the 2025 cruises. Offerings by the different companies change from year to year.

Trouble is, one soon runs out of European rivers. We're doing rivers we've done before, either different cruises or different cruise lines, both with the intention of having different excursions. I really enjoyed our cruise two years ago along the Mosel(le) which was uncrowded, had pretty villages and great scenery. Unfortunately the Mosel stretch was quite short and the cruise started in Basel and went down the Rhine. All the same we saw things we hadn't before and felt no guilt about missing excursions to places we'd been before. If you're interested in wine then try Bordeaux; if you're interested in wine, history and scenery try the Rhone Lyon>Avignon. We've done that twice now, both directions, attractive scenery, ancient towns. We've not been on the Asian cruises, looking at the brochures there seems to be a lot of flying when you get there. Toying with the idea of cruising on the USA rivers.

That was my point. Scenic annoy me with their hyperbole. The only time we asked our cabin attendant to get us anything is was a coffee after we'd seen the very long queue at the only customer coffee machine. We thought the cabin attendant would be able to get us a coffee quicker. Alas not. Encouraged by @Canal archive though, I will be asking the cabin attendant for several things at the start of the cruise I take next month and will relate my experience back in my trip report.

River cruise line boats in Europe are not made or equipped in North America, though. Different countries have different sizes which is what, regrettably, I didn't make clear.

As a wine drinker, I'd say it's a trifle uninformative 😁

Well, it depends on what your definition of a butler is. Scenic advertises butler service to guests, but I don't think Lord Grantham would recognise it as butler service. It's a member of staff who supplies a limited range of services to every cabin on that deck. This picture of what the 'butler' does is in @1of4 s trip report Going Live on Scenic "Chef's Culinary Adventure of Belgium and the Netherlands with Lynn Crawford and Lora Kirk" And there was an advertisement for a deeply discounted cruise with APT that said some cabins had the services of a 'Private Butler', though it didn't say what cabins or what the butler would de.