familymum

8 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

 Last point from me: autumn foliage. That is more pronounced at the later date.

 

Have fun planning.

 

notamermaid

 

 Yes, I hope so! That is what we have selected.🍁🍂

Thank you @pontac.   I was simply looking for information that might help  tip the balance one way or the other. I feel reassured that either would be fine, but I have asked my TA to put a hold on the Viking sailing and I suspect that we will finalize that choice. Your comments spoke to me and tipped the balance towards Viking.   I appreciate a good wine list. lol. and the ability to bring some wine on board is a nice feature.  I also think that in the unfortunate situation that the river level is troublesome I would prefer to switch boats than find myself on a bus. Ultimately it is the timing that works the best for us for adding before and after stays. Some friends of mine took a Rhine Viking cruise last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, which is what prompted us to look at a river cruise. Thanks again for your insight.

1 hour ago, Roz said:

Let me simplify your decision for you.  You've never been on a river cruise.  Based on the responses so far,  I'm not seeing significant differences between your 2 choices.  Just pick one and go with it. 😀

 

After your return, evaluate what you liked and didn't like about the line and ship you chose.  Use this information when booking your 2nd river cruise. 

Mmm, true. However these boards would be awfully quiet without people asking and answering questions.

21 minutes ago, sharkster77 said:

The flip side of your friend's displeasure with ship swaps is that many complain if their river cruise becomes a bus trip if they are removed from a ship and never put back on one, being shuttled from hotel to hotel.  Six of one, half dozen of the other, as my MIL used to say.

 This is my main hesitation with the Emerald sailing.  On ocean sailings, the captain can adapt the ships course if conditions are not great, not so on the Rhine.  At least with switching boats we are still on the river. If I want a land tour there are better and less costly ways to do so.

1 hour ago, Coral said:

I haven't been on either - just wanted to let you know that Viking will most likely make you pay the entire cost when you book and Emerald is most likely 90 days out (outside of deposit). Viking's final payment terms is different than most cruise lines.

 

I know Viking will move you from boat to boat with low river levels. They tout this has a benefit. I have a friend who switched ships 3x over an 8 night cruise and absolutely hated the trip as they felt like they spend too much time packing and unpacking. For some reason, this also reduced time in port and I don't remember why. So while they tout this as a benefit - not everyone considers this a benefit.

Thank you for answering.

We are Canadian.  Currently Emerald requires full payment within 7 days and Viking requires full payment by March 31.  That's only a couple of weeks different so not a big determinant here.

Concerning Moving boat to boat. I can imagine that if the water level is problematic that it will likely be problematic at several points along the river. I do think that I would rather transfer boats then end up on a bus. perhaps, I wouldn't completely unpack after we have already transferred once.

1 hour ago, pontac said:

It's not clear if you're asking about the merits of the two boats, or the cruise lines. 

Hi, thanks for answering. I am happy for any insight that someone is willing to share.😀

If there is a reason why one of the boats is superior than the other then I would love to know that, however I think  the cruise line has more impact on the experience than the particular boat.

 I wis break down what I am wavering between the two options.

Weather/timing

 I know that weather is always a big mystery.  The dawn sailing is 10 days earlier than the Freya- so perhaps that increases the probability of warmer weather.

The Freya is Tuesday to Tuesday while the Dawn is Saturday to Saturday. As we wish to add a few days before in Amsterdam and  about 5 days after in Switzerland, the mid week sailing makes it easier to accomplish this as we can take a straight  2 calendar weeks off as vacation leave. 

Cruise line experience

Does one line have better excursions (or more choices)?

Better food and wine quality?

overall experience between the two lines?

Preference over where the boats dock along the way?

Better handling of low or high water levels?

I too hope that I will be lucky like you, and that the river gods will smile on us.☺️ It is nice to read that you have had 13 river cruises without experiencing water level problems, it gives me hope. Also, if you  are about to do this route for the third time then I assume that you have enjoyed these stops.

Thanks for  your input!

3 hours ago, Nippy Sweetie said:

We've always found that Viking really looks after passengers really well if something goes wrong. We greatly appreciated Viking's wraparound care when diagnosed with COVID on a French river cruise. Happy to pay more for such  quality.

Glad to hear that you  Viking looked after you well when you fell ill. I agree that sometimes the lowest price can be a false savings. Price is important, as I can spend the saved funds on the next vacation😄 but I do want a quality experience. New to this type of cruising, I find it hard to evaluate the offers,  to an untrained eye, there seems to be more similarities than differences. That is why I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

8 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

In the event of extreme low water, Viking does seem to have the best options [because they have so many ships everywhere on the river] – but in moderate low water Viking has the most problems because for whatever reason they stop sailing before the other lines.  And they aren't so good in high water either.

 

Emerald (and Scenic, its owner) has had troubling reports about how they handle sudden problems.  But I can report from two Scenic river cruises that when things go well they are terrific.  Make sure you buy good third-party travel insurance, and if things go pear shape you will be able to make lemonade and your insurance will reimburse the costs.

Thank you, this is helpful.   In the case of  problematic river levels, I can see  how switching boats is less of a headache than being bused farther up the coast.

3 hours ago, Michelle McLean said:

we are doing this cruise In August and chose Emerald cruises as it seems more active (viking doesn't have any ebikes) also has a pool to cool off in.  We have done a viking ocean cruise and it was fantastic so it as a hard call to make.

Thanks for answering. I'm not sure that the pool will be a big draw for an October sailing. I think that the demographic is younger on the Emerald, but honestly not too fussed about the ages of our fellow passengers. The Emerald is 500$ pp lower than the Viking ( 1000$ lower if I compare it with the Viking Oct 5th sailing) , plus it includes gratuities. However, my TA had a client who had a bad experience on an Emerald  sailing, and is now hesitant to recommend  them. Apparently the river level was low, as it sometimes is, but there was mishandling of the passengers were transferred to the next leg of their journey.  Based on that, she is recommending Viking (or Avalon, but price is even higher). Part of me  thinks I  am using a TA to avoid problems but another part of me thinks one incident isn't enough to write Emerald off as a possibility.  Both companies seems to have both good and bad(ish) reviews.

We are an active couple in our mid fifties. This will be our first river cruise. We have cruised on Celebrity, NCL, Carnival and Princess.

We are looking at a Rhine river cruise, Amsterdam to Basel.( We plan to add additional time at both ends of the cruise.) I have it narrowed to two options. Oct 5th Emerald Dawn or October 15th  Viking Freya? 

 Thoughts?

Your insights are much appreciated!

This is the worst cruise port. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere so you need to travel 45 minutes plus to get to most attractions. Be careful if you are shopping at the stores at the terminal, especially jewellery. I bought a Larimar stone pendant and supposedly a 9.25sterling silver 24 inch necklace. The clasp broke on the chain the second time I wore it. I went to have it repaired when I got home only to be told that the chain is stainless steel. I should have known better than to buy jewellery in a cruise port!

There is no minimum time you must hold the stock. As long as you have the required proof of ownership, you are good.

Thanks.Good to know, then there is still time to decide if I'll buy it. We are not loyal to one cruise line, and we we don't neccessarily cruise every year, although this year we do have two booked, but only the one with Princess, the second it with Celebrity. While the dividend is nice, it isn't particulary high. There does seem to be some better buying opportunities out there. Still, I 'll keep following it, I might be able to pick it up at a bargain and gain the 100$ OBC as well.:D:D

Hi, Does anyone know if you must have owned the shares a minimum number of days in order to get the OBC? I understand that you must ask for the credit at least 3 weeks before sailing but can you have bought them the week or month before? It seems to me that I read somewhere that you need to own the shares a least 90 days prior, but I can't find it now. Final payment for my upcoming cruise is Monday and I was wondering if I could still benefit if I buy the shares after that. The share price has been dropping everyday this week so I wasn't too keen on buying it, but if it continues to drop I might decide to them pick up...

I went with them, and it was quite nice. They have of course your usual Circle Island Tour, but if you have something special in mind, you can tell the guide/Driver and he will take you there as well.

For me it was the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in the Punchbowl Crater above Honolulu.

And if you don't like a stopp, you don't need to stopp, for example I didn't care for the coffee or pineapple plantation, so we just drove past them...

 

https://www.oahuprivatetours.com/

Thanks for the information. This would be fantastic for a small group, for 2 people I find it a little steep. However it has given me the idea that we will rent a car and do it on our own. That solves the luggage issue and it puts us in control of our schedule, and gets us to the airport without needing a cab or shuttle. We won't get the commentary that one gets with a tour, but It still works best for us.

As others wrote you have to leave your room, but you don't need to leave the ressort or if you do, you can easy store your bags there. Everything depends what you did already on the days before....Pearl Harbor, Beachtime, even a Circle Island Tour can all be done within that day (I for my side have a flight at 7 pm and will do a private Circle Island Tour with an (early) drop off at the Airport... another idea if you have not done that yet, is the hike up to Diamond Head (it takes round-trip about 2 hours)

Could you share which company you used and whether you would reccomend them? This is exactly the type of thing I was looking for. Thanks.

Yes, that is the one, sorry about the lack of precision. Glad to see the positive comments. We're boked now.😉

Thanks for the response. Not shopping so much, she likes history and cultural diversity. There is an added difficulty in that she isn't fluid in English. She speaks french. Are there private tours that can be booked to go to the historical site? Maybe we could combine it with a few other stops. In a private tour we could translate for her and we could control how long and how detailed for the different spots.

We will be in Caymen Island in June looking for something to do on Caymen Island that doesn't involve water, or any physical exertion beyond walking.

Hi, title says it all. Looking to book 2 rooms 1 night pre-cruise. Traveling with my 84 year old MIL. Thanks

Thanks, both these ideas are very helpful! I arranged for the daily info sheet in her cabin to be in french but hadn't considered that there may be french speaking wait staff available, nor menus. I don't think meals will be the issue as she will be with us and she does have a basic understanding of english, but it might make her a little more confortable. I'll look into these.

I was mostly wondering about activities and entertainment we could do on the ship (excursion too, now that I think about it) that doesn't have a huge language component. She loves trivia but she wouldn't be able to follow in english. Likewise, comedy acts, or very wordy entertainment productions are not great options. A piano bar would be great. Is afternoon tea free? Is it something you do once on the voyage, or does it change up a bit form day to day?

She has been on a cruise once before but it was with a francophone group so there were special activities arranged for them.

Hi I just booked the June 2 2018 sailing on the Caribbean Princess, 2 balconies on caribe deck. We are traveling with my 84 year old mother-in-law. She is in great health and can walk faster than most 50 year olds, lol. She understands english but her first language in french. Is there anything I should know or think of before we sail? We have cruised serval times, this is a first time on Princess and first with my MIL. thanks

You will almost always spend more than you think, as everything has an extra cost. Ice bar, wine tasting, fitness courses, photos, specialty meals, drinks, coffee, bowling, casino, duty free purchases.... For every $100 USD OBC I was charged $107.50. I could have bought double what I had, an I still would have had a bill to pay... They will refund was you don't spend back to your CC, call customer service to confirm.

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Forget about finding chairs on deck during sea days unless you are a chair hog and went at 7:00am.

Yes, we found that to be a problem too. A crew member told us that chairs cannot be reserved for more than an hour and that we should remove towels from chairs that are left empty. I did exactly that on the last sea day, asking people who were sitting in near by chairs if they had seen anyone in a group of 4 chairs. They assured me that one of the chairs had been occupied early in the morning but had been vacant for well over an hour and that the other three hadn't been used at all. We sat down in those three and 20-30 minutes later a girl came up and put her stuff on the remaining chair and started complaining to her companions that we had taken "her chairs" which she had come out and reserved at 7 am. My husband was very quick to point out that you can't reserve chairs like that and she should check with the staff if she had any doubts. Her friends walked away to go eat and she stretched out on the available chair turning her phone on to play music out loud which simply created noise against the backdrop of the musicians playing on the pool deck. I ignored it. Her friends never even came back to the chairs in he time we were sitting there, about 90 minutes.

My son came up on deck in and I pointed some chairs in the shade to him that had been vacant with only towels, no belongings, for as long as we were sitting there so he sat down. Almost two hours later this guy comes up to him and says it is his chair and that then he pretended that he was right there on deck and only been away a few minutes.

If people didn't try to hold chairs for hours when they weren't using them there would be plenty of chairs available for the time people actually wanted to be on deck.

We had pre-booked the Cirque Dreams before sailing. For the other 2 specialty restaurants we called for reservations the morning we wanted to go. We ate late once by choice and once as it was all that they could offer us. We were a big group, it might be easier last minute if you are just 2 or 4 people. One evening 4 of our friends went to Moderno without advance reservations and it was fine.

We hadn't booked the shows before sailing this time but we did plan them all on the first day when we saw that they were starting to "sell out" for some of the shows. I would suggest planning as much of it as you can before you go to avoid timing conflicts. That is what we did on the 2012 sailing and it was less stressful. Keep in mind that there is some sort of dance party in H2O most nights starting around 10.30 if you like that sort of thing. We usually do but this time we only made it to the White Hot Party on deck.

Thank you for asking, my son's knee seems to be healing nicely. We will see our family doctor later this week to see about having the 15+ stitches removed.

We were on the March 1st-March 8th sailing on the Epic. This won’t be a full review but I will share a few observations. This was our second time on the Epic with mostly the same group of travelling companions. We were a number of families, with our children ranging from ages 15 to 20.

Cirque Dreams – We did this our first night onboard and chose premium seating. This was our second time seeing this show and I’m glad to say it was not exactly the same show. We really enjoyed both the show and the food. The surf and turf dinner was possibly the best meal we ate on the ship. The beef was tender and perfectly cooked to a medium rare. Some of our party sat upstairs and really enjoyed the different view. We had two tables on the floor and my eldest son and my friend’s daughter were both chosen to participate in the show which made it all the more entertaining for us.

Cagney’s - This was the worst value of our cruise experience. I made reservations for two tables, side by side, one for 8 people and another for 9. The only time they could accommodate us was 9.15. When we arrived they had tables of 10 and 7 which didn’t work for us as we wanted to eat the 8 adults together and the 9 teens together. I wasn’t impressed at all with the hostess when she shrugged and said that it would have to do. I insisted and she said okay but the table of 8 will be squishy as they would simply add another setting to the table they had set for 7. (A table, by the way, which as clearly intended for 6). At $30 a person I expected better service and a better meal. I ordered shrimp cocktail – 3 small-medium sized shrimp in a shrimp cocktail glass; rare filet mignon which was cooked to medium and not nearly as tasty as what we had at Cirque, and Cagney Fries as a side which were frozen French fries with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on top, and apple crisp which was just okay. Two of our friends ordered the seafood pasta with lobster tails, but it was actually scampi tails. The misnaming (over stating) of items on the menu happened again in the Manhattan room where linguini and prawns turned out to be shrimp. Save your money and eat somewhere else, even the Garden café would have been an improvement.

Teppanyaki – We chose to do this on our last night on the cruise. We had late reservations (9.15) following Blue Man. I was hesitant to spend money on another specialty restaurant after the poor experience in Cagney’s but I am glad that we did. Our entire party of 17 sat down together at two facing grills. It was a fun and interactive meal. The hibachi chefs were very personable. Each of the 4 families added a tip to the bills which I hope went to them specifically but I suspect might be shared amongst the wait staff there. I wish we had brought cash to tip them directly. The food was good but as it was late not everyone had an appetite, none of us stayed for dessert. It was a very enjoyable way to close our vacation.

Blue Man – We’ve sailed the Epic before and enjoyed Blue Man on the first sailing. What makes Blue man fun is its novelty, as this was an identical show to what we saw in 2012 there was no novelty so it was only okay for us. We planned our dinner reservations around this show but we might have been better to eat earlier and go to Howl at the Moon which we missed on this sailing.

The Ice Bar was an experience to try once. We did both the wine tasting events and really enjoyed those.

Medical center – My 19 year old had an accident in the wee hours of the second sea day, gashing his knee open. I used the phone to call Medical but it said it was closed so I call the emergency number instead. I explained our situation and they told me to bring him to medical services on Deck 10. When I told them that he wouldn’t be able to walk there they them offered to send a wheel chair to our room. The nurse assessed him then called to wake the doctor as my son clearly needed stitches. We were there quite a while. I was impressed by the quality of care he received. The doctor cleaned the wound, anesthetized the area, stitched him up, ex-rayed the knee, bandaged the knee, gave us replacement bandages and pain killers and instructions to come back after 24 hours to have it checked. We are Canadian and we have free health care at home, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of cost for these services. I had heard horror stories about the high cost of medical care in the US and abroad, while we do have travel insurance, we knew we had to pay it and then claim it back and I was a bit nervous about how large the bill might be. In all, it was a little over $500 for both visits to the medical center, which seemed quite reasonable to me. They gave me an itemized bill to submit to the insurance company.

Coffee - The coffee was completely undrinkable unless you purchased the specialty coffee. The coffee in the Garden Café ranged from thick sludge to very watery, one morning we tried 3 different coffee dispensers and we couldn’t drink any of them. We had breakfast, including coffee, delivered to our room 3 mornings and the coffee was extremely strong. We are used to strong coffee but this poorly made rather than being a bold blend. We found that poor quality of the coffee extended to the dining rooms as well. We started ordering cappuccinos etc. instead and they were good but at then you are paying $4.13 to $ 5.31 for each drink. We did have a coffee maker in our room and we tried that twice (a bit weak but drinkable). I realized when I went to make it a third time that our room steward and not replaced the packets of coffee that we had used so there were only the 2 decaf packets left.

Cabin Temperature - I had read some comments about the difficulty in regulating temperature before on CC before boarding. The first night on board I woke up because I was so cold. I got up and adjusted the temperature to the warmest setting and it stayed there for the duration of the trip. It was still unbearably cold to sleep and I often slept with my dressing gown and my son’s sweatshirt over my night gown. My boys were in an inside cabin and their cabin was fine. Our friends who were also in balcony cabins had l all used the extra comforter in the cabin in addition to adjusting their thermostat, which we couldn’t do because my daughter was sharing our room and she was using the extra bedding. I know we could have and should have spoken to our cabin steward about this but I kept forgetting about it during the day.

Bedding - The duvet that we had was completely matted down and lumpy is areas. It offered little more warmth than a thick sheet. I’m sure if I had asked we could have had it changed.

Cabin steward – Our cabin steward was friendly and accommodating. He greeted us when we saw him. We had a burnt out light in our cabin which he replaced. We requested a lounge chair for our balcony (as did each of our friends) and he got those for us. One afternoon we broke glass on our balcony and he happened to be in the hall, he came right away and vacuumed up the glass. We made several requests via the housekeeping line for towels to take off the ship on port days, and for ice packs which t were answered in a reasonable time. The cabin upkeep was a little more inconsistent. As mentioned above, he didn’t replace the coffee packets. He didn’t always clear away used glasses, coffee thermoses, plates etc. in the room and especially if they left on the balcony. On the last evening the 3 of us all showered and left the cabin to go to a show and dinner, when we returned at 11 he hadn’t turned down our room, our hamper and floor of our shower were full of wet towels and the garbage was over flowing. As a result, we had no fresh towels for our showers the morning of departure.

The last evening on the ship – We are not new to cruising, I am well aware that there is a shift on the last evening where the attention of the crew is more on reading the ship for the next sailing rather than caring for the current passengers but I found this to be so much more blatant than other trips we have taken. I used a public restroom on the 7th deck just before entering the Teppanyaki restaurant and there was no soap in any of the three dispensers and wads of wet toilet paper on the floor of two stalls. I used this same restroom two hours later after our meal and it still had not been cleaned and again around 2 AM and the condition was only deteriorating. This is quite different than other times when I used public washrooms there was almost always and attendant in the washroom.

Lost items – My other son lost his cell phone when getting food in the Garden Café on the second to last night. We went by guest services a few times to see if it had been turned in, which unfortunately it hadn’t. No one in guest services suggested we make a lost item report. If our cabin steward hadn’t suggested it we wouldn’t have known it was possible, not that filing a report does much of anything as they do nor proactively match found items with the lost reports. It is completely up to the guest to try to contact NCL customer service after the cruise to see if the item was located. I don’t hold too much hope that it will be found.