Danube River cruise help needed
 

I've already searched the boards, and found some interesting comparisions... that being said here's my dilema.
We are wanting to go on a Christmas market cruise on the Danube,however I am finding it hard to pick between the Viking line and the Grand Circle Travel line. Does anyone have a personal recomendation? I figured, who else to ask but Fodorites?

Underwood, time for you to jump in here with all the great things to say about the GCT Danube cruise you did last Dec.!

I went on that cruise with GCT last December and had a fabulous time. The ship's staff and tour directors were excellent, and the food...I still think of those breakfasts, not to mention the lunches, dinners, and snacks. Somewhere on this site is my post after the trip; if you can't find it, let me know and I'll re-post it from my Word file.

GCT is less expensive, a real bonus, and I like the way the town tours are structured toward history and culture, not just sightseeing.

Thanks Underhill! I'll see if I can find those posts.

Grand Circle Travel has been bounced out of the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Massachusetts, Maine & Vermont because of a slew of complaints regards the company's cancellation policy - first the BBB gave the company an "unsatifactory rating" and later in Oct 2005 outright terminated their membership and has yet to reinstate it. The action was based on 57 complaints the BBB received in 2004 complaining about "credit or billing" "refund or exchange" or "customer service" issues.

The problem stemmed from GCT's Cancellation Policy where if they cancelled or altered a trip you were not entitled to a full refund but offered another trip. Customers apparently were not kept informed of changes made in itineraries till days before departure and in some case such changes were made during the trip.

To GCT's credit they are trying to resolve the problem but as yet the BBB is taking a wait and see attitude.

Caveat Emptor!

Oh - the above info comes from TravelWeekly magazine, an in-house rag for Travel Agents (10-23-06; www.travelweekly.com)

As someone who has personally had big trouble with GCT, I would not recomend them. But if you go, put it on your Visa or AMEX. They try to discourage you from doing so, with tempting discounts, et., but when things go wrong, you have some discourse. We disputed and challenged their charges and business practices, and were refunded to our credit card account.

You'll find assorted posts about GCT on the cruises board. The few negative posts are from the same people, but there are a number of posivive posts from different persons.

Read them all and make up your mind. I'm planning on another GCT Christmas cruise in 2007.

I tried reading the article from the link, but I couldn't do so without registering...which I don't like to do. Is it new news or a rehash of the problems GCT had with the Massachusetts BBB a few years back?

We had a nice river cruise on GCT awhile back. But two weeks ago we did a Seine Cruise with Peter Deilmann. If they offer a similar cruise I'd look into it.
GCT was very good but Deilmann was excellent.

In what ways was Peter Deilmann better? I'm curious because I'm still looking for a ship that has wifi, although that's not as important as other things.

After doing some searching, we have narrowed it down to cruising on the Amadagio. We really wanted to do the whole Prague to Budapest tour.. that being said, it seems a lot of operators sell this cruise. Brendan will book direct, but Affordable Tours offers a 5% discount. Not enough to sway the deal, but if anyone has experience with either I'd love to know. Thanks!

My wife and I went from Budapest to the Black Sea on the Danube with Grand Circle. We had a wonderful trip in the spring of 2006. Marvelous food, interesting ports of call, good guides. An immaculate ship, very comfortable cabin. Then we took the end-of-voyage extension into the mountains of central Romania, to Transylvania. Five stars. Can't comment on the reported BBB problems because we have never had any problems with Grand Circle or OAT, their small-group subsidiary -- and we have traveled with them many times.

We have taken 6 trips with Grand Circle, in the past 4 years; 3 of them were river cruises, including one on the Danube. All of the trips were excellent, as are the Grand Circle river boats on the Danube and the Rhine. The food was excellent as was the service. Grand Circle places great emphasis on the local culture and people. The pacing is excellent and the program directors are all natives of the countries visited and have all been excellent.

As Underhill said, there is a small group of people posting negative comments about Grand Circle, but Grand Circle does most of it's business with repeat customers, and this is the best testimony to there quality and value. We would be glad to correspond with you either in this forum or via Email.

Jack and Ann

Underhill... I'm not a techy.. so can't answer the wi-fi question. I forget... does GCT have CNN, CNBC and all that? For my husband that was a big plus to be able to follow the market.
Otherwise... we had assigned tables on Deilmann... no crush at the DR door. Also, I found GCT food very, very good but Deilmann was better. Also, cabin and bathrooms were much bigger. Since Deilmann caters to a European base , our English tour groups were quite small. I'm not "dissing" GCT.. we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise. But Deilmann pampered us a little bit more. (My husband's had health problems and Deilmann has a doctor on each boat which was a selling point to me.)

Sorry to have to dispute you, once again, Underhill, but there it is not just the same few that are unhappy with GCT...their trips, when they come off well, are pretty good, but their business practices are under severe scrutiny...not just a few, but many folks, enough for a class action suit, and they didn't even contest with us over disputed charges. They are renown for their 'bait and switch' fees, 'mistakes', rebates, etc.

samting,

Since the names of the people who keep reporting about their unhappy experiences with GCT seem to number about four, and they keep coming back with the same information, I'd say it was a fairly small group.

Grandma,

Was English the primary language on the Deilmann cruise? The larger cabins sound very tempting.

The ship was bilingual. (sp?) .....German and English. Most of the crew were equally fluent in German, English and French. We were on the Cezanne. I trust rooms are of equal size on their other ships.

We've had two very good experiences with Viking, in Russia and on the Danube from Nurmberg to Budapest. I believe we had CNN International on the TV on the Danube.

Do the Deilmann cruise prices include shore excursions? The web site seems to indicate that those cost extra.

Underhill...just went thru my old brochure. The ships' cabins range in size from 130 sq. feet to 200 !! Ours was 160. Excursions were extra as were wine and gratuities.. I received an e-mail last week from Deilmann advertising their ocean liner and the excursions were included.

Hmmm...GCT's price includes shore excursions and wine with meals. Decisions, decisions! Vikign looks promising too, but the food on the ships gets only 3 out of 5 stars on a cruise site.

If you're in sturdy health and vigorous I'd go with GCT.
The little luxuries of Deilmann helped us deal better with our infirmities.

Underhill, Viking charged extra for a couple of its shore excursions and you won't get your wine free with dinner. The main negative I saw with regards to their food was that they offered few entree choices most evenings, although all of these observations apply only to my experience on the Russian river cruise which you and I have previously discussed elsewhere on this forum. Viking also had a physician onboard and I understand that the fee charged was something like $5 US plus meds, although I had no personal experience with these services. The mooring restrictions were a result of the lack of tie-down space available, something that was out of Viking's control, although it was fun to go exploring through the common areas on the other river boats (Yes, I was very surprised at the lack of security on these vessels and that we were able to actually do this in Russia in May of 2005!) No wifi on the Volga, but that's sort of the no brainer in that part of the world....

Viking's China cruise was exceptional and I would travel with this company again....

My question is are these cruise suitable for a family with older children or are they primarly older people on board.

kr,

We don't know what you mean by 'older', but, on the three Grand Circle river cruises that we have taken, there have been multiple generations travelling together. In Egypt, there were two sisters, one of there daughters and a grand daughter of 13. There was also a woman in her 30's with her parents and a friend of about the same age as her. On the Danube, there were two college age sisters travelling with their parents and grandparents, and two sisters in their thirties travelling with their parents. In Russia there were two college age girls travelling with their grandmothers, as will as a 40ish couple travelling with her parents. In all cases they fit in well and enjoyed the trips very much. The younger people may have participated in different activities at times, such as going running, nightclubbing, etc., as they may had had more energy. We were very surprised how well the 13 year old fit in.

Jack and Ann

Kr, my kids are in their thirties and these cruises would be appropriate for them. High school and college aged students would find the pace too slow, but would be independent enough to explore on their own when docked at the various ports. I believe that younger children might not be too happy in a setting where they lacked a peer group and there are no guarantees that the trip you book will have other families onboard. Of course you could bring along your own playgroup by traveling with another family if you can all agree upon the destination.....

Try Uniworld ... my wife and I have used it twice and were very pleased. Kids on trip? Have yet to see any younger than early 20's and they were probably bored sick. BUT- great way to go for those 40 and above who like to settle in and be served on board and who want to find some info at each docking through shore tours.