ljandgb

Thank you for your report.  We are doing this itinerary next November.  Hopefully they'll have it figured out better by then?  It really is surprising it was handled this way.

Definitely read the sticky notes at the top of the forum regarding "new to river cruising" and "what to know."

There are no big shows at night.  There might be something small in the lounge after dinner.  There is very little to do on the ship, and most folks leave for the excursions during the day.  You can stay back, and relax.  You may go to sleep with a nice view of the river out your window, and wake up with a scantily clad German looking at you from his state room.

It is a very different experience than big ship ocean cruising.  I really prefer it, but managing expectations will prevent unpleasant surprises.

I will beg to differ only regarding public transportation.  There is no effective public transport for tourists outside of Reykjavik.  It is, however, very easy to self drive or take any number of tours from big bus to small jeep.

Wow, so sorry this happened.  It must be so frustrating.  

We had friends that biked in Belgrade and said never again.  Rough streets, few bike lanes.  They did not like it.  Having been there, I can see how they felt that way, but maybe they just had a bad guide?  I biked in Budapest, FWIW, and had a wonderful ride with good streets and bike lanes and trails.

Vidin Bulgaria was kind of boring so wine is probably a good option.  If you have the chance to see Belogradchik in Bulgaria, do it.  It's beautiful.

Have you done a river cruise before?  It can be challenging to arrange DIY tours because the times and docking locations are somewhat fluid, no pun intended.

Anything in the 101 postal code is convenient to walking around downtown.  We've stayed at the Reykjavik Residence Hotel twice and quite like it.  It's just off the main drag (so quieter on a weekend) but very close to everything.  They have a breakfast basket you can have delivered to your room that is enough for a hearty breakfast plus light lunch.

IcelandAir owns the Natura and the Marina hotels.  I've not stayed in either, though walked past the Marina.  It felt a bit out of the way for me, but is right next to the water. NOT the cruise ship port though.  It is near a smaller fishing port.

Another vote for Iceland by land. We did a 3 day stopover on our way to a Baltic cruise, 4 kids in tow, and my parents, with us.

It is easy to drive, as there are few roads.  There are also multi-day tours that will take you along the south coast and include lodging and food, and day tours you could easily take from Reykjavik.  Reykjavik Residence Hotel has multi-room suites that are great for larger families.

Beware. That 3 day trip to Iceland has turned into a near obsession for me.  I'm going back for trip #3 in May after a pandemic hiatus.

We did the Baltic the first week of June.  It was cool on deck and the lifeguards wore what looked like north sea fisherman gear. That did not stop my 10yo son from swimming at all.

We enjoyed Helsinki, due to the excursions we did. A few of us went to feed reindeer at a sanctuary.  The rest did a high speed boat ride out to a nearby island.  The boat riders had some wild stories, and I thoroughly enjoyed the reindeer.

I agree Stockholm could easily use 2 days.  It's a beautiful city, easy to navigate, and has plenty to see that even a young boy would enjoy.  My son likes to try new food and we went to the food hall downtown.  The vendors were incredibly nice, and we came away with a true smorgasbord of goodies to sample.

FWIW, when I was in the military, they'd give you anything and everything you needed at the same time.  I think I got 4-5 vaccinations that first time.

We did that stretch of the Danube with Avalon, and I agree about the ports mostly.  I think the tourist infrastructure is just not fully developed in most of those countries.  Our Bulgarian guide told us that there were many interesting things to see, but that most of the sites did not have restrooms, sidewalks, etc, to make it easy for tourists.  The Dalmation coast of Croatia is for sure more developed for tourists than the stretch along the river.  

I did LOVE Romania, but mostly because we did a 2 day extension to Transylvania.  Bucharest was a very pretty big city, but at this point in my life, I'm much happier in the smaller towns and countryside.

My husband made friends with the bartender and kept a couple of bottles of some wine bought during an onboard wine tasting at the bar so he could share with friends later.

Definitely no issue with doing whatever you want in your stateroom, and I honestly can't see them policing you if you pour it then leave the room with glass in hand.  How would they even know what it was or who gave it to you without more effort than it would be worth?

That part of the world gains/loses about 13 minutes of daylight per day. That can make a huge difference for how much daylight you'd have to see ports, etc, on the November cruise.  I think it would be VERY cold sitting out on a balcony in the dark.

I've not done a NL cruise, but I've heard to also consider that ambient ship lighting will sometimes make it harder to see the lights.

Are you flying directly to CDG? If so, then yes, you will follow the signs to passport control.  Go to the line that says "non EU" passports.  Then get your bags, then customs.  Customs will quite likely be empty or without any real activity.  The days of dogs or security people going thru your bags are mostly over.  Once you exit customs, you will see people standing around holding signs.  One will surely be "Viking."

If you are connecting thru another airport in Europe, you may go thru passport control there instead.

Yes the ship lights will make it harder.  You do not need to be on land to see the NL's. Land based tours, where the local guides communicate on which areas have less cloud cover, have better chances in general than a ship with a set location.  It is harder to photograph NL's when on a ship, as timed exposures are best and the ship movement interferes with that.  The later in the year you go, the better due to longer true dark night,  to increase your chance of seeing them.  At best, your chances are slim in August or September anyways because the dark sky window is just shorter and it's random chance anyways.

Definitely go with managed expectations and enjoy the cruise for what it is.

I'm a firm believer that Iceland needs a land trip.  One thing to consider is that IcelandAir will let you do up to 7 days as a stopover in Iceland either inbound or outbound.

As far as the itinerary, it looks a bit like a taste of each country, which some people prefer.

Much of Scandinavia is going cashless, and even years ago there were places that were CC only. That was pre-pandemic, and I suspect the "germiness" of paper money has pushed more into that category.  We needed a few coins for a toilet in Copenhagen, and one hot dog street vendor.  Everyone else, including the other street vendors, took, and preferred, CC's.  I can't imagine they want hard currency that isn't even their own.

We looked at several companies and chose Avalon primarily for their smaller ship.  I much prefer excursions with smaller groups.   We did have a very good experience with Avalon on our Danube cruise, but am not going to assume that automatically translates to the Mekong given different type of ship, different ports, etc.  We sailed Sept 2021, in that sweet spot of Covid quiet and before a lot of tourism started up.  Our Danube cruise had 30 some people on the Prague to Budapest leg, and 50 on the Budapest to Bucharest section.  We found we really liked the smaller crowds.

Thank you for the very detailed write up.  I've not sailed Viking or Scenic, so it's nice to hear the comparisons.  My few thoughts are that if you are a serious oenophile, you might not like wine centered cruises - if only because most people aren't THAT knowledgable and so would be quite happy just dipping their toes in the regional wine and the cruise line knows that.  I'd be the second group.  I wouldn't know a Bordeaux from a Burgundy until I read the label, even after I've tasted it.  Have you done a wine centered cruise that you felt lived up to your expectations?  If so, which one?

Also, the items you didn't like regarding no paper agendas or endless plastic water bottles are the same things that I do appreciate.  I think that's a generational thing.  I see plastic water bottles sitting out for everyone to take daily, do the math for the whole trip, then multiply that by the number of cruises each ship does, then multiply that by the number of lines on each river, and well, I get a LOT of plastic waste.  Most younger-than-me people (like my 20yo kids) just assume you will have several reusable water bottles that go places with you.  There's a whole economy out there of water bottles and their accoutrements.  I'm in the transition group and have learned to make sure I carry my bottle.  Avalon provided a nice metal bottle, and had a plumbed dispenser by the dining hall.   Finding using an app to read the agenda and the menu preferable to generating hundreds of pieces of paper daily per ship is also surely a generational thing.  I suspect lines that skew "more mature" will hold on to paper and plastic for their customer base longer than some other lines.

Maybe things are better now, but 6-12 months ago, we had flights canceled without any notification.  With everything going on with the airlines, we got into the habit of checking on our flights weekly, just to keep tabs on them.  Good thing we did.

We had friends show up at the airport for a trip to Iceland, who obviously had not been checking, who found out their flight no longer existed.  They had to reschedule their entire trip, and were luck that was even an option for them.

There's 3 of them total.  Thank you, I will forward that information to them as well.  

I don't know the region, as it's not our relatives  (the friends know the towns they need,) but once they confirm they want to start planning, I'll let them work on it.  Not my trip, so I'm just helping point them in the right-ish direction. 🙂

If it pans out, I'll report back on the results.

Given that clarification, I'll pass on that the company's name is Distinctly Deutschland.  They advertise "luxury" custom tours, which isn't exactly what they need but it's as good a place as any to start.

I received a recommendation on the Germany TripAdvisor forum that I've forwarded to my husband.  We'll see how it works out.

Our French agency was so good, I'm not sure anyone could compare. LOL. Our first trip with them was a leap of faith, since I booked with them based on their website and the communications we had with them.  

Thank you.  I knew it might be a long shot.  I will tell my husband to look thru the Rick Steves forum and perhaps someone there might recommend a company.

Yes, sooo much German around here.  In general, Texas has a robust extracurricular academic competition system, but in several regions, ours included, there's a whole second German influenced one.  German dance, story telling, music, language, even a gingerbread house competition.  German Club is "the" fun club at the local high school.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.  They do know who and where the relatives are.  What they are not confident with is arranging lodging, trips, car vs train, etc. All of that information is findable on the internet, but collating it into one trip can be a big undertaking.  None of the interested parties are experienced or confident in crafting an entire trip on their own, but neither do they want to do a "package" tour with a group.  Said German relatives are not close enough to expect them to make the arrangements, and meeting the relatives part of the trip will be more of a highlight than the center of the trip from what I can gather.  It would be my husband (no relatives involved but the more experienced traveler who has benefited from ME doing all the travel research) and two close childhood friends with German relatives (and who are not experienced travelers.) 

We recently did our second trip to France with a French company that will work with you to find your preferences in types of lodging, arranging tour guides, etc, to create a customized personal, self guided trip.  It takes away a good bit of the "did I make the right choices" stress in the planning.  They could not offer any advice for a similar company in Germany however.

We live in a very German/Czech part of the US.  I even did a report on the German immigration to this part of Texas in college, and we have the ruins of a German brewery in my hometown.