Uniworld Teams Up with Land Partners for Seamless Trips to Europe

[Host Jazzbeau]

News Item on Cruise Critic:

Uniworld Teams Up with Land Partners for Seamless Trips to Europe

 

Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection has teamed up with Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold -- two other companies within its parent company, The Travel Corporation -- to offer European itineraries that dovetail land tours with cruises. The eight itineraries include two new trips for 2017 that combine a trip to England with a France sailing on the line's new ship Joie de Vivre, as well as one that takes travelers to the Dalmatian Coast after a cruise on the Danube River. Other choices include Switzerland and the Rhine; Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Rhine; Bohemia and the Danube; Portugal and the Douro; and Italy and the Po.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=7308

[Roz]

Host Jazzbeau,

 

Earlier this year I attended a Uniworld/Insight cruise night sponsored by my TA's agency. There were reps from both companies, and they presented the information in the CC article. I had never heard of Insight. Their vacations look wonderful, but are pricey (not that Uniworld is cheap :D). Thanks for posting.

 

Roz

[notamermaid]

That sounds good, hostjazzbeau. I have had a look at the website for this, embedded into the Uniworld site: https://www.uniworld.com/sg/europesfinest/

 

The land part for Belgium, etc. to go with the Rhine cruise sounds really nice. I guess it is something you can book without the land part as well, though. If I had planned this - assuming it was without guests just joining for the river cruise - I would have gone a different route. Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Belgium - Luxembourg and starting the cruise in Nijmegen or even in Germany would have been my choice.

 

For a longer and more in-depth holiday in Europe those land and cruise combinations look all really well-planned and I am sure will find many friends.

 

notamermaid

[Ozjohnno]

Did a number of land tours with Insight and wasn't impressed. Far too many "optional extra's", TG's that were not of the standard I expected and the hotels they used were not of a very high standard. I will say their coaches were quite roomy. I haven't used Insight for a few years now and they might have improved but they'll never be in the same class as a Tauck land tour.

[tully07]

I've done a number {7} of Insight tours and have enjoyed them all. The tour guides have been excellent. On the other hand I have never done a river cruise -- and I am looking at a combined land tour/river cruise of Italy for May 2018. I am finding it a bit puzzling that the 2018 river cruises are already available for booking, but the combo tours are not. Given the limited number of cabins available on the ships, it seems to me that the cabin availability could be very limited or non-existent by the time the combo tours are available for booking. How quickly do the river cruises sell out?

[Host Jazzbeau]

I've done a number {7} of Insight tours and have enjoyed them all. The tour guides have been excellent. On the other hand I have never done a river cruise -- and I am looking at a combined land tour/river cruise of Italy for May 2018. I am finding it a bit puzzling that the 2018 river cruises are already available for booking, but the combo tours are not. Given the limited number of cabins available on the ships, it seems to me that the cabin availability could be very limited or non-existent by the time the combo tours are available for booking. How quickly do the river cruises sell out?

 

There are two answers to this question: (1)Going back just a few years, river cruises tended to sell out quickly. But the combination of lots of new boats, terror attacks, and water level issues several years running has changed the supply-demand equation so that boats seem to be sailing with empty cabins much more frequently now. This also leads to steep last-minute discounts [but my experience in Alaska was that even when the cruises were selling at a discount, the combo tours always stayed at full price]

(2) In this case, since Uniworld is partnering with these land tours to make a seamless combination, I would assume they are setting aside some cabins for the combo tours.