Anyone have experiences with river cruises?
 

I'm interested in doing one - either through Russia or Germany, or possibly even more far north.

I've discovered Brendan Vacations and they appear to be a good company, but am unsure of any more.

Any experience on these ... and are they worth the money? I think I'd rather do that than take a coach tour and repeatedly haul luggage and unpack/pack each night.

Look at the "special interest cruises" on the message boards at www.cruisecritic.com.

Hi Spunk, I took an 11 day river cruise from Basel to Amsterdam. It was fun. Not the kind of vacation I usually take but certainly I'd consider doing it again. It was extremely restful. It was nice not having to pack and unpack all the time. The crew was great and the other passengers were mostly fun. We stopped at many places along the way; Strausburg, Heideberg, Coblense, Rudeshime, Koln, Ghent, Antwerp (with bus trips to Brussels and Brugge) and finally Amsterdam. It was an 11 day trip.

We have taken the K-D Line Rhine day cruise from Cologne and Bonn, and enjoyed them immensely. This is good if you don't care about an extended tour. You can go up as far as you like, do some sightseeing and catch the next boat up (or back). No packing and unpacking.

http://www.k-d.com/engl/schiffstoure...ffstouren.html

I had never seen that section of CruiseCritic, thank you Gardyloo.

I'm looking at the Princess Grand Princess European cruise through northern Europe, on to St. Petersburgh and Tallin, Estonia. P&O has one as well that looks nice.