CPT Trips

Was that your first UK port? We were required to do that in St. Thomas, USVI on a repo NY to San Juan, it was our reentry into the US after numerous foreign ports.

St. Petersburg, Gibraltar, and Tangiers immediately come to mind. On a river cruise we had to take our passports on an excursion from Trier to Luxembourg as there was a “ possibility” of a document check.

Watch “Midnight Express.”

Prove it without a passport 🐑

That is true for most lines and particularly the large ones most frequently discussed here. But, Grand Circle (GCT) does go one way on the Seine. Paris to Honfleur or the reverse. They are one of the few lines that do overnights (3) in Honfleur. I do not know which other lines overnight there or whether they are one way or round trip Paris.

I didn’t know where else to put this . . . https://apnews.com/article/france-paris-whales-climate-and-environment-e2d1df424e71645fe1967798faf66de3 It’s a whale of a tale.

Two thumbs up to Trier! On the Rhein, Köln has a Roman Museum and Mainz has a Roman Ship Museum. On the Rhône, the are rather extensive Roman ruins. All are relatively easy to access and well worth a DIY visit.

That’s the way we approach river cruises. We DIY our free time, and obtain advance tickets our selves. We have not used a third party organized tour.

I just saw this article - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/italy-drought-ww2-bomb-water-river-po-rcna41965 . It made me wonder if this year’s low water on the Rhein and Danube has revealed similar “surprises.” If a ship on the Rhein runs aground and stops or impedes river traffic does the owner face fines or other penalties?

Yes, that was a cruise on a river. But if the cruise went out through the Gulf of St. Lawrence into the Atlantic your cruise wasn’t on the type of ship used on a river cruise. Representative river cruise ship

I am a great fan of river cruising. And I also enjoy ocean cruising on the big mass market boats. The two experiences have, almost, nothing in common. I don’t view one as a substitute for the other.

Surge protectors are a big no-no on cruise ships. Ships have an different type electrical system (floating ground) and surge protectors can really mess it up. While I understand why, I don’t know the science well enough to explain it in detail.

No, although it is by an industrial area, it’s not nearly as far away as Erlangen. Search a map app for “river cruise dock Nuremberg”

I’m not certain that a river cruise is that much more regimented than an ocean cruise when it comes to time off the ship. On board, your schedule will be less flexible as there are briefer time windows for meals and there may not be food availability outside those times. Docking times and boarding times are constraints on any type of cruise. While you probably need to pull back on your planning reins, you don’t need to come to a complete stop. There is time to explore on you own in many of the stops; more time if you stay in town for lunch and for as long as you can before the port talk. And that assumes you do the included activity that is typically in the morning. With a research and planning there are possibilities to visit museums and other tourist sites as well as travel to nearby towns or even just get off the beaten path and explore.

Add Nuremberg to the list of inconvenient docking locations.

The Strasbourg tram that we used did not cross the river. We were near the end of the line stop where it went back the other way. However, I was mistaken about exactly where we were located. It was not on the Rhein. I picked the wrong bridge on the map. After looking around for the tram line I discovered that we were docked at Quai de Belges, lower right on map.

We docked in Strasbourg on three cruises. Each time it was on the Rhein, within an easy walk to a tram terminus for a simple, no connection needed, trip to the city center. The dock was just south of the Pont de l’Europe (lower right, near the arrow).

Couldn’t resist

There have been a few threads that touched on visits to the US Cemetery in Luxembourg. Those visiting might be interested in this -https://www.military.com/off-duty/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-patton-movie-not-general.html?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d - as it addresses the most well known soldier buried there.

Some are free, many are not. Best to have coins, 5 or 10. Apparently, there is a new initiative for free pee. Look for this sign -

Your much more likely to get a phenergan shot from a ship’s doc than a scopolamine patch.

True! On the other hand, all the medication could leak out before you put the cut patch on. In that case you’ll get little or none into your system.

OK, color me confused. I think you two are referring to the same stretch of the river yet using conflicting terms. It is the lower Rhein, correct?

Chances.are it’s a charter on the week prior to yours . . . and the group wanted only five days. That week no longer shows on NCL’s website.