European River Cruises

[JourneyOfLife]

Looking for comments about river cruises in Europe.

Anyone familiar with these companies or others?

Viking River Cruises
Avalon Waterways
Tauck River Cruises

[Matzy]

I like Viking very much, it was a wonderful trip to cruise down the Danube to Vienna. I heard that Avalon has very good recommendations and it might slightly cheaper than Viking (I never used Avalon).

[784caroline]

They are all great companies. I like Viking the best, just a personal choice. Stay away from Grand Circle. I do not book with them anymore due to complaints from clients.

You dont book with them....I didnt think Grand Circle booked with/ or through Travel Agents. everything I have heard about Grand Circle has been top notch.

[JourneyOfLife]

I found this on the Travel and Leisure Web Site. A survey of readers for 2013. There are a bunch of categories. Here is the link for River Cruise Companies for 2013. It also shows the 2012 rank.

Travel and Leisure looks like it is a travel magazine published by American Express Publishing Corporation. Looks like they also publish Food & Wine Magazine and a few others.

2013 World's Best Cruises + more | Travel + Leisure (http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/2013/air-cruise-more/river-cruise/472)

Here is the Conde Nast Travel survey results for 2013

Condé Nast Traveler // Gold List // Cruise Lines // River Cruises (http://www.cntraveler.com/gold-list/2013/cruise-lines/river-cruises)

[NJblue]

They are all great companies. I like Viking the best, just a personal choice. Stay away from Grand Circle. I do not book with them anymore due to complaints from clients.

This is nonsense. We cruised Grand Circle and recommend them highly. You can usually tell a lot about a company by the number of repeat cruisers. Just about everyone on our cruise was a repeat customer - many with dozens of cruises. It was probably one of the best vacations we have ever taken. They are very highly rated by Conde Nast - higher than Viking. I spoke with one of the couples on our cruise who had previosly sailed Viking but were trying GC for the first time. They said they preferred Grand Circle to Viking.

Here is one example of why I think Grand Circle is great: We were cruising in Germany and were scheduled to make a half-day stop at a town along the way. When the tour directors were preparing their excursions for that town, they discovered that they were having an annual one-week Oktoberfest-type festival while we were there - starting at noon. Seeing it as a great opportunity to get more out of local culture, they petitioned the captain and corporat HQ to modify the sailing schedule so that we could spend more time there. This meant additional costs for the shuttle buses that ran between the river and the town center and also a revision to the sailing/lock schedules but we were given permission to stay for what turned out to be a great day. Viking, Tauck and the other boats that were also there for the morning took off on schedule and their passengers missed the festival.

I do agree that they are all great companies and that you should choose based on the itinerary and price.

You can PM me if you want more information.

[RayMan]

Went Munich to Vienna via the Danube on UniWorld back in May of this year....great trip all around, and known to have better food than most.

[janeg]

Avalon Waterways is a wonderful company. PavlusTravel.com is one of the few discounters for this company. We have another one booked for April 2014

Happy travels!

[784caroline]

I can book with them thru a third party company.

You dont book with Grand Circle anymore because there is no incentive to do so...you get no commission since they do not deal with travel agents!

Grand Circle is a great company that caters primarily to americans travelling in foreign countries. We just booked a 23 day trip to Southern Africa with their land based operation Overseas Adventure Travel. All great reviews. Company relies on repeat business and word of mouth and it works!

[ahockeynut]

we took vantage from germany to budapest starting in late sept. started at octoberfest.
can't say enough about vantage. didn't come across a crew member who wasn't pleasant and profession. about 175 people on board. all from US. You could go all day with their excursions or make up some of your own. The ship was new in March 2013.

[deano_hoosier]

Ditto for Vantage. Just returned from our 2nd Vantage cruise on the Douro River in Portugal. A great company to work with.

[jblum315]

Are people allowed to smoke on those river cruises?

[Fourpar]

Highly Recommend Uniworld. We have taken two of their cruises: Rhine & Danube, and have just booked one for Burgundy & Provance with add-on in Paris for Aug 2014. Looking forward to another great time with Uniworld!

[swrinfla]

IMHO any river cruise line is excellent. Viking is almost certainly the largest, with almost an entire fleet of gorgeous new ships, and dozens of itineraries, all over the world.

Tauck is "world-class" in whatever they do. Vantage emulates them to a great extent.

To me, there are fewer differences between river cruise companies than there are between ocean-going cruise ships.

It probably boils down to a very careful analysis of pricing!

SWR
:beer3:

[another Linda]

We just returned from Viking's Portraits of Southern France. It was a joy.

[Fourpar]

Uniworld does not allow smoking on their ships.

[designerko]

A bit more about Avalon: they give a military discount, you don't have to pay in full until 90 days prior to departure (deposit when booking) unlike others requiring payment in full; the company is headquartered in Colorado; they are part of Globus, so if something does happen (like high waters making it impossible to go under bridges or drought causing low water) they have a ready source for buses and tours to make changes. Went with group of 25 on a new ship on the Rhine River in 2012.
The ship was non-smoking.
Hope this helps. Have heard great comments on other river cruise lines as well.

[senior citizen]

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