Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

doglover3

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    408

  • Joined

 Content Type 

Posts posted by doglover3

    First-time river cruise coming up in June!

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    doglover3, love your handle, first off, :) That's the hardest part for us, leaving our pup behind. But she's in great hands as we have friends taking care of her! We arrive in Brussels on June 6th and sail on June 11th from Kinderdijk on the Viking Eir. We decided to do Salzburg on our own post-cruise. Was there on our last trip but basically drove through, so looking forward to spending the weekend there to soak up more.

     

    Thanks again!

     

    Mark

    Yes, it's hard to leave our furry family behind, but hopefully our patchwork of family and neighbor will take good care of our two.

    If you find your way over to the 2016 roll call, I think there is another couple on the Eir from AMS-BAS leaving on June 10. Here's the link, if that helps: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2230700&page=72

    That's the end of the thread, so you might have to work back a page or two to find the list of all the 2016 cruisers. Hope to see you over there.

     

    Lauri

    First-time river cruise coming up in June!

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    Hey folks,

    My wife and I are going on our first river cruise in June. We'll be sailing with Viking going up the Rhine after a few days in Brugge, Ghent and Amsterdam. After the cruise, we're spending the weekend in Salzburg after training there from Basel.

    This is not our first cruise, as we did an Alaska trip with Norwegian in 2013. Loved the service, the food, the entertainment and the shore excursions, but too many people and too much emphasis on keeping one on board for us. Looking forward to the smaller boat, fewer people and getting onshore in Europe.

    Any suggestions for a first-time river cruiser?

    Thanks!

    Good advice from the other posters. I wondered what date and which ship you're on in June? We are first time river cruisers on the Viking Alruna, leaving Amsterdam on June 11. I can highly recommend the rolls calls for the Rhine Getaway from 2015 and the one from 2016. You may even find someone who's on your cruise! I've discovered lots of helpful suggestions to help with our pre-cruise plans in Amsterdam and post-cruise in Lucerne.

    Newbies with questions!

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    Hello all.

     

    We are new to this cruising lark and are really looking forward to our first; Budapest to Amsterdam with Scenic (Amber) on 13th June. Booked it 15 months ago and less than 1 to go!

     

    I do have a couple of questions that I hope some of you 'veterans' might be able to help with.

     

    We arrive at Budapest airport at around noon on the 13th so I would hope we would be at the boat by 2pm latest. Any advice on what to do with the afternoon? I was thinking a tour of the Parliament building and perhaps one of the famous coffee houses. We have a city tour with Scenic the following day. Should we expect to have more free time to explore the city that day?

     

    Finally (for now!), my better half has M.E. so suffers with fatigue. Are there particular excursions we should avoid, i.e. long walks. We take in, from memory, Vienna, Passau, Melk, Salzburg, Bamburg, Wurzberg, Rudesheim, Cologne, Nuremberg and AmSterdam, but not necessarily in that order!

    I also am new to river cruising (we leave in June on the Rhine), so I won't be able tospecifically answer your questions. I would suggest you might consider trying to find a roll call for your itinerary on Scenic. I have found that the roll calls can be extremely helpful. You can find a link for the River Cruising Roll Calls just a little above your initial posting, towards the top of the page. I'll try to insert the link, if I can. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=685

    Hope it works. River cruising roll calls are not usually specific to your date and itinerary, so you might need to look for Scenic from Budapest to Amsterdam for all of 2016. Good luck and have a great time!

    Remaining on the boat

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    We just enjoyed a halfsies kind of day morning on the free excursion and then after lunch we just hung out..watched a movie in our room while looking out our window and taking a little rest (the ship did not move) and then went back into town via a tram for a hour or so t a local museum. We just skipped the optional excurisons and had a grand time. :)

    Glad to hear you're enjoying your trip. With a party of five, ranging in age from 57-88, that is sort of what I had in mind. We'll do the free excursions and can rest, as needed/desired, or walk into town during our free time. It will all be new, interesting, and exciting to us!:)

    Remaining on the boat

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    I think that river cruises are both full of activity AND quiet. They're quiet because there aren't activities or distractions on board (casino, spa, pool - mostly ;-), theaters) but you're usually touring on shore all day every day. So for people who are used to (and enjoy) a huge ocean cruise ship with all its attractions, a river cruise is indeed quiet. But at the same time - for someone who is used to cruising the Caribbean and spending most days on a beach or at the pool, a river cruise is FAR more active.

    I think you put that very well and is exactly what we are looking forward to on our first river cruise. It will be interesting to see if we have a preference for one style over the other or maybe there's a time for each approach. We have been on a number of ocean cruises and enjoyed all of them, but I sometimes find my favorite days are the ones at sea. I think we may just have to remember to give ourselves a "sea day" if we find we need one!

    Going to Amsterdam.........

    in British Isles/Western Europe

    Posted

    Flo and doglover, we were there June 2nd week and again August 1st week and noise really wasn't an issue. We did need to keep the windows open on our second visit and while you do hear people talking as they walk back home late evenings it wasn't anything which kept us awake.

     

    We loved the location and quirky old building, dates back to the 17th century, all rooms have a canal view. The owner Boegem is a super nice guy and makes one feel immediately at home. Breakfast is eggs, cheese, rolls and croissants with coffee/tea/juice, not a lot of variety but filling. Lots of small places to eat around, the tram stop is a couple of minutes away, though you can walk almost everywhere from the Brouwer.

     

    Doglover, they have a family suite above the living area, can't remember what the room was called but you can ask Boegem, I think it sleeps up to 5. This isn't accessible by the elevator though, you climb up one flight of spiral staircase, then again a few steps steps between the bathroom, bedroom and living area. The latter has a big bed and a smaller single, apart from a dining table and TV. We were a family group of eight and this was one of our rooms, great place to get-together for a drink in the evenings between outings:D

     

    Thanks for all the great information, prish. I'll have to talk it over with the rest of the family. My mom will be almost 88 and I don't think a spiral staircase will work for us. We also have a number of very light sleepers, so may need something a bit more quiet. We'll be sure to bring earplugs, regardless of where we end up!

    Going to Amsterdam.........

    in British Isles/Western Europe

    Posted

    Cyber Kat, you may want to check out Hotel Brouwer also, a lovely little B&B on the Singel Canal. Its 5 minutes form dam square and we walked everywhere, we stayed there in June and again earlier this month. BTW, they even have an elevator:D

     

    As with Floinnc, I was interested in your recommendation of Hotel Brouwer, but was concerned about the noise issue, especially if the weather is warm and we have to keep the windows open. We will be there in mid-June 2016 and know that the weather can be quite variable, so open windows may be a necessity. We are a party of 5 and would love a small hotel or a b&b, but have had difficulty finding a suitable place with availability. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Viking customer service impressive

    in River Cruising

    Posted

    I'd like to post an update to a recent problem I had with Viking. For many reasons my traveling companion and I wanted printed copies of our flight arrangements. Email info was sent but not the printed info as requested. I complained on here and in an email to Viking. Well, the paper copies arrived by Fedex today and while we would have been satisfied with snail mail, using Fedex is impressive. Furthermore, the flight arrangements are great. Specific requests on the flights were taken into consideration

    I am more than satisfied with Viking and their response to our request.

     

    For those who were following the original thread and might not see this one, it would be great if you copied this update there. I'm glad it all worked out and hope you have a great time.

×
×
  • Create New...