river cruises what do you love
 

What do you love about river cruises? is it the smallness, the slowness, the ports, excursions? several people I know go but not sure it is for us. What would change our minds? we have gone on some cruises on ships that have fewer than 800 people which we like.

We liked the relaxed pace of the ships and the fact that most of the time the ships dock in the center of the town so you can walk to everything. You are also visiting more small towns rather than bigger cities.

It's a much difference experience that typical ocean/sea cruises.

We just got back from our first river boat cruise and loved it. As a matter of fact I just finished writing about our day in Budapest in my trip report. We had a combination of small towns and cities so that depends on the itinerary. I liked the mix!

We liked interacting with the captain on a regular basis and getting to know the crew. So much more personal than a big ship!

Not all river boats will go through locks, but those were fascinating for us newbies! The scenery was so serene and the captain's comment of ABC ("another bloody castle") made us laugh!

There isn't much entertainment on a river boat if you like that sort of thing. a couple of musicians for the most part, but we enjoyed that aspect as well.

Didn't hurt that our boat had an open bar!!! We also liked how our boat offered some local specialties of each port for lunch and dinner.

I like the smallness and the lack of glitz. The environment on our Viking cruises has been more like being in someone's tasteful home than a Las Vegas casino.

Agree with most of the above comments. We like the river cruises for where they dock, the included tours, and low key attitude on the ship. The big drawback that you have to be flexible about is that the difficulty of maintaining schedule because of water levels. We tend to go in the Fall so that you are not having to deal with spring run off but heavy rains and low water can cause problems and you wind up in a bus tour. If you can go with flow, river cruises are great.

Love the slowness of the river.

I hate big cruise ships. Was on MSC (Orchestra ?) once and can not stand the crowds the noise etc.

We went in n several small cruises like under 100 people and we loved it. We befriended people on each of those occasions the excursions are well organised and fast - 1-2 buses max and you avoid some tourist traps which are the only ones accepting disgorged hordes from big ships.

My way ;-)