We’ve been to Europe many times and now wondering if a river cruise would be for us.

Have you taken any? If so, which river do you think has the best ports and scenery?

Have you been on sea cruises?
I am just wondering why you choose river cruises.

We have not been on a river cruise but we have friends who have gone quite frequently, and they love them! They use Uniworld. I know Viking is very popular. Our friends prefer river cruises to ocean cruises because the ships are smaller and more intimate.

River cruises are wonderful for many reasons but one size does not fit all. After six cruises with four very different cruise companies on the rivers throughout Austria, Bratislava, Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands I highly recommend Tauck for its excellent staff of three directors on each cruise, superior itineraries and personal attention as well as five star hotels it favors when there is a land stay on either end of the cruise. The ships are not fancy like the Four Seasons style Uniworld ships are but the staff is really what makes the voyage outstanding.

Food service can vary from just average breakfast and lunch to quite sumptuous dinners. Any time I’m not cooking or serving whatever’s on hand makes me happy. And there’s always plenty of choice to please a variety of palates with cocktails and wine included.

As a senior lady in her eighth decade I was tired of hoofing it on my own during many years of travel and the River cruise was the perfect fit with a built in group of like minded people, many of whom were single. Tauck was one of the first companies to offer single cabins with no single supplement charge, a boon to we singles. .

Daily schedule is active with an early rise for breakfast, morning tour on foot or coach depending where ship docks. Return ship for lunch then off again for an afternoon tour. There’s always the option of staying back and sitting on the top open deck for some relaxing time which many serial River cruisers do, having done repeat trips.

Three coaches are usually available to spread the group out so it’s never crowded. One bus/group is designated for those that are slower walkers. Ship travels from port to port during the night for the most part exception being the Wachau Valley. Just being on any of rivers in Europe and seeing the quaint homes, going through the locks, swans swimming alongside at times as you glide along, no matter the country, it’s all charming and mesmerizing,

Meals are buffet breakfast and lunch with open seating for dinner, cocktail hour before dinner in the Lounge when directors go over the next day’s plan. There is also printed itinerary for the next day placed in cabins during dinner along with turn down service.

I’ve also done a week in Spain with Tauck on a land tour which covered an amazing amount of that country with transportation ranging from coach to train to a short flight jaunt, staying in the most magnificent five star hotels. That was an incredible trip that required stamina but it was so much fun and very luxurious.

Hope the above has provided some background and food for thought.

Friends took a Danube cruise (Uniworld I think) this fall. Due to low water levels much of of the trip could not in fact be completed on the river, and they spent a lot of time on buses to get to the excursions that were on the original schedule, even if those made less sense than exploring the substitute cities.

Not an expert because my total cruise experience = two. One Inside Passage Alaska (LOVED it!), and one river cruise. The river cruise was over Christmas on the Rhein and Main and I'd not hesitate to take another one. My next would probably be either the Loire or Brittany in France or something in the Low Countries. I loved the winter cruise but I'd probably do late spring/early summer next time. The food was not as varied as on an ocean liner but there were plenty of options and all was very good, Enjoyed every excursion (one town I didn't do the boat's excursion but explored on my own. (Unfortunately I can't recommend the cruise company because it folded up shop earlier this year ) I plan on checknig out a lot of companies -- but probably would not consider Viking.

Why not?? Seems a strange question. Hundreds of thousands of people take river cruises in Europe every year.

I have nothing against river cruises 😂
I didn't put the question right. I meant to ask, if they compared sea cruises to river cruises.

Thanks for the responses.
I asked the question because the river ships with small amount of passengers appealed.

We’ve done 3 cruises on The Windsurf and 2 on Starclipper .

I did see a river port where the ships were docked right next to each other, had to walk over next ship to get ashore, and your balcony was right next to balcony of other ship.
Now that did not appeal at all.

Still thinking about it and will check out the companies listed above.

We have no interest in the big,ocean going ships. But we had an opportunity to take a Rhine river cruise with Avalon through my husband's work. We liked it very much and would consider it again.

We had walking tours from the boat at each stop; afternoons were generally free. That was fine with me, because I enjoy just wandering and sitting in a cafe for people watching. There were at least a couple of different level walking tours to accomodate different abilities. There was one excursion to Heidelberg that required a bus; however, we missed the bus because we were tracking down my husband's lost wallet. (We got the wallet back at the police station and stayed on the boat doe the trip down river to meet the busload of fellow passengers.)

The food was fine, although I did appreciate the time off the boat to experience something more local. Room size was fine and the opportunity to have laundry done for us was great.

My cousin got back from a Rhine cruise with Viking. She was not crazy about it. It seemed she had more time on the bus than we did, although I am not sure if that was due to water levels or itinerary. (She has bad motion sickness, so that may have colored her views.)

I would check out the lines mentioned positively above for itineraries that peak your interests. Some cruise lines now offer more "activie" vacations that include biking or paddling opportunities.

River cruises in europe above a certain size (virtually anything we might go on) plumb into the local waste water system when they dock and so do not pollute the general enviroment.

Sea cruises, basically either part treat the waste before it gets dumped over board or fail to treat it at all, so polluting our planet

Hence taking a European river cruise is one of the best ways to not destroy our ecosystem.

I've only taken river cruises and friends have taken sea cruises. The great thing about the river is you get to stop in a different town every night and those towns tend to have wineries nearby.

Wineries…..definitely caught my interest with that. 🍷

if wineries interest you then avoid the Elbe (the only AC there is undrinkable) but Mosel, Rhine, Danube, Canal du Midi, Rhone and various Burgundy rivers and canals are all popular for a reason.

Many also have cyclable towpaths and often local bikes for hire

We've done the Viking Grand European river cruise twice--once from Amsterdam to Budapest, the second in the opposite direction, just this past October. Viking is easily the largest river cruise company, with a large fleet of ships. Their service and ship quality are the reasons; I do hear that AMA and Avalon are good as well, but we've not tried them.

Unfortunately, water levels have become a real challenge for river cruising; we had to swap ships halfway along our cruise, and we also lost a day in Budapest because river levels there were so low that ships had to leave early.

Viking cruises are adult-only, so if you have children under 18, they're not going to be the company for you.

Would I recommend it? Well... not in October, but perhaps in May or June when snow melt helps river levels.

Other than that, I recommend a Viking river cruise without hesitation; we've done 4 trips with Viking, with a 5th next July and a 6th in 2026. The service is first-rate and we always enjoy our time on their ships, and the river ships are no exception.

You are never out of sight of land on a river cruise. There is always scenery to look at which is not so on a big ocean going ship.

We've taken a self-drive on the Burgundy canal, 50 locks in 7 days. I chose the route because it has relatively more "old stones? than other itineraries. The pictures begin with this one and end with the group picture:



I am not sure that there is a rental company that still offers the same itinerary from/to Saint Florentin to/from Montbard. My impression is that it is better to go up river than down river for the simple reason that the down river lock is often left open (to minimize algae growth?), thus speeding up the process of going through the locks.

I've never taken one but I visited friends in Ruedesheim when they were taking a Mosel/Rhein cruise, and the bedrooms are arranged so you just lie there and watch through your panoramic balcony as everything goes by. No reason to get out of bed in the morning. The view in the pic below, while docked, isn't great shakes, but the views up and down the rivers are fairly intimate (way different than being out in the middle of the ocean):

view from the bed

not much turbulence on the "seas"

consistently panoramic

Talking about turbulence….we did Windsurf from Dublin to Lisbon. On the Irish seas… 18 ft. seas kept most people from dinner that night. Not us, we loved it. We were always told that on a sailboat choose a cabin low and in the middle of the ship.
worked for us.