Uniworld river cruise 2005

[aneckc]

If anyone has taken a Uniworld river cruise this year I would appreciate your thoughts. I would like to take a Prague to Black Sea cruise next June and I am trying to choose between Viking, Grand Circle Travel, Uniworld, and Avalon tours. Any thoughts and feedback greatly appreciated. Thanks. :)

[Carhut]

Can't really help much, but we are taking that itinery next month with GCT. We wanted to book last year with Vantage, but they were booked up for the dates we wanted, so we opted to go with GCT. We had absolutely no complaints and I thought it was just about the best trip I've ever taken so far. Then because we went with them we get a discount on future trips, so therefore, we booked with them again. I saved $310. on this years trip. Money talks! I'm sure all the companies you mentioned are very good. The scenery and cities along the way are going to be the same no matter which line you are traveling on. I liked the fact that GCT caters to the American people. Some of the other lines have a mixture of people from different countries. Depends what you like. We had one couple from a foreign country that didn't speak English, and they just stayed by themselves. There wasn't any way anybody could talk to them. I tried one day, but they just looked at me and said something in their language that I didn't understand, so I smiled and walked away.

[Byairorsea]

Hi,

We're planning to take this cruise in August, so I will try to reply/post after my return. We are actually doing the cruise in opposite direction, i.e. Bucharest/Black Sea to Nuremberg (we aren't taking the last 3 days "optional" extension by bus to Prague) and are greatly looking forward to it. We've been on approx. 15 sea/ocean cruises and this will be our first river cruise. I think and hope we are aware of the differences, i.e. no casino, no theatre or "resident entertainment group," only one dining room, no pool, and the like, but this still seems like another interesting and leisurely way to "see the world."

I did read somewhere recently in my research, that the cities, towns, villages are more interesting (culturally) the farther East you are on the Danube. The scenery along the river gets more interesting the farther West you are. I guess that includes vineyards, castles, mountains and the like. I have a hunch that a Rhine or perhaps Vienna to Amsterdam cruise would be a nice follow-up to this itin. another time.

[brisbane]

Travelled Uniworld/Trafalgar in Sept from Basle to Amsterdam on River Queen.

Can only say it was superb - boat, crew, meals, probably eveything. Maybe breakfast got a bit boring but lunch and dinner were always great.

 

A member of the crew told me that since Trafalgar had taken over Uniworld early in2005 that the company was setting written standards for all of its cruises and all crew were being provided with manuals.

 

I heard a couple of comments and observed a few things on other cruise lines but these may have been isolated instances. I can only say that the Uniworld standard exceeded what I expected and I would be reluctant to choose another company next time in case I was disappointed.

 

But then who knows what the future will hold!