Tauck River Cruise
 

We will be going on a river cruise with Tauck next year from Budapest to Amsterdam.
Has anyone been on a Tauck River Cruise recently and, if so, general impressions.
Looking at overall satisfaction...to include food!
Thank you in advance.

We always use Tauck and have been on two of their river cruises....one year Amsterdam-Budapest and the next year Bucharest-Budapest.........I would go again in a minute, superb all the way around with no complaints. Because there were three tour guides aboard, all tips were included and I doubt we would have spent a cent extra. We always go in a day early, no matter where we travel. On both river cruises, we chose a bottom portside room at the front of the boat. The river traffic was really interesting and the front of the boat seemed to be quieter than the rear(according to others at the rear of the boat)

Thank you deserduds...we are very much looking forward to the trip and you have further validated our choice!

We have been on Tauck land tours and had a wonderful experience so, I guess, we should not be surprised that the Tauck approach to river cruising would be outstanding as well.

Take care,

Unfortunately, I just had a major problem on a cruise. My letter to Tauck sent over 3 weeks ago has yet to be answered. Also, my travel agent's head office, as far as I know, has contacted Tauck with no response. I will post if I ever hear anything.

Louise,
Did you just post this same message on cruisecritic?

Yes, I did. When I wrote the letter I said I had selected Tauck because I had never read anything negative about them on either Fodors or Cruisecritic websites. So in a sense I was preparing Tauck for some negativity if they didn't respond. Funny because in a general get-together on the boat, we were told Tauck is one company which always answers complaints.

Louise,

I hope you were more clear on your "major complaint" to Tauck than you are in your post!

Based on the different boards and comments re: Tauck, YOU ARE IN THE VAST MINORITY when it comes to Tauck and their responsiveness.

Why are you playing "I've got a secret" with your complaint?

If you take the time to post about your having a "major complaint" then say what it is...don't just slam the tour company.

I will post my complaint but it is rather lengthly that is why I didn't post it before.

I have done a lot of traveling on small ship expedition ships around the world and honestly I have never had a complaint. I am extremely easy going unless someone treats me rudely.

Last year I selected my cabin on the boat and picked a Category 1 which was $500 cheaper and being a single traveler what I thought was a smaller cabin would be fine. The staff and crew had the cabins to the rear of mine and Category 2 was forward of mine.

The first night moving I did not sleep at all because of the noise particularly going through locks. In the morning I spoke to the cruise director who showed me the deck plans and said I should have known the 3 cheaper cabins were noisy. I asked her how I was supposed to know and that I just thought they were smaller?

For $500 she would move me to a Category 2 which were exactly the same size but not noisy. By the way, the ship was only two thirds full. I could not afford the extra money so with a smile she told me to get some ear plugs. Then she told me if when I booked I had known the cheaper cabins were noisy I would have paid the $500 to upgrade.

I went back to bed that morning and missed the tour and the same thing happened another morning - I was just too tired after not sleeping all night.

What was rather annoying also was that 4 Tauck trainees each had a cabin in Category 2 and two arrived several days after the cruise departed.

I did really enjoy most of the trip but having a portion of a $9000 trip partially ruined is a "major problem" to me. I do think I deserve an apology for what I consider the rudeness of a Tauck representative.

I'm probably living in a fog thinking that in a service industry the customer should come first. By the way, there was a couple who joined me who I had cruised with previously so I did bring them more business.

Sounds to me like this "major problem" boils down to being ticked off at not getting a free cabin upgrade. Why else would it matter that the Tauck trainees were in a higher cabin category and that Louise brought them more business.

Sad...

I guess I come from the "old school" where a customers' satisfaction comes first over being treated rudely. The cabins as I said before were not an upgrade in anything other than the noise problem. All were exactly the same as the 3 noisy cabins and many cabins remained empty the whole trip.

I did receive a call yesterday and an apology for the rudeness of the cruise director. The gal told me if they would have known in the office I would have been changed immediately.

This mag is primarily for Louise
We were thinking of taking the MS Treasures THE BLACK SEA TO BUDAPEST - WESTBOUND
However, now that I have read your review I am apprehensive to book Cat #1, Cat 2 has only one cabin and that is on the same level as the Cat #1. Cat #3 has only two cabins and they are next to the Engines . That leaves Cat #4 which when starting from Cat#1's price is substantially more than what you start off with.
So all I see is a total of three cabins that are available from Cat #1 before you have to jump up to Cat#4.
.has anyone else experienced Cat#1 cabins or Cat #3 or Cat #2?

We had a smilar problem on AMAWaterways and were upgraded for half of what the price difference charged would have been at booking. We were treated so well and they couldn't do enough to improve our time on their ship.