What Europe river cruise company is the best bang for the buck? My wife and I are in our mid 50s.
Reply to this River Cruises sound great but I do not think that they will appeal to everyone, my review is here: http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Rhineland-Palatinate/blog-371783.html
We like to do things in an evening other than sit in the dining room for a very slow meal to be served. Unlimited wine was served with the meal and honestly many of the passengers could not handle it, in no time at all they most were shouting at the top of their voices and with the acoustics of the metal ceiling it was most unpleasant. The food was very good but it took them such a long time to serve it, honestly we would have preferred more buffets so that we could get on with other things.
We expected the boats to be pulling up near the centre of towns and cities, the did happen a bit but most of the time we were on the outskirts and then taken by bus to any points of interest. We found that the guides had very poor English and most of the time we just left the guided tour part early.
Along with around 50% of the passengers we had picked up very bad colds by about half way through the cruise, others have told us that this is very common; we should have anticipated the problem because most of the waiters were coughing when we arrived.
If you plan on using the Internet it is incredibly expensive on the boat, 3 to send a text only e-mail without attachments, most of the time the Internet and the TV was not available. We would suggest getting a 3G Wifi USB with a local sim, it will be very much cheaper and far more reliable.
If we really had to travel by riverboat again we would probably pick Viking River Cruises, they seemed to have the best moorings and the better boats. We went with another company.
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