The all-inclusive European river cruise along the Rhine or the Danube is fast becoming the top travel hit of 2008.
My own cruise of the Rhine this spring, starting in Amsterdam (at the Rhine Canal) and going to the German cities Cologne, Cochem, Rudesheim, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, and ending in Basel, Switzerland, was sold out, with American travelers convinced they have overcome the poor present value of the U.S. dollar.
All the river cruise lines -- Amadeus Waterways, Peter Deilmann, Uniworld and others -- are reporting equally high sales.
Although we passengers all had to change some dollars into euros for tips to the riverboat staff, we otherwise spent very little beyond the basic cost of the cruise and airfare.
Our lodgings were in comfortable cabins aboard the ship, and two of our daily meals were a giant buffet breakfast and an equally massive sit-down dinner of near-gourmet level prepared by a surprisingly accomplished ship chef and his staff. Some of us did not even have the appetite to buy a light lunch on shore.
I will not pretend that seeing Europe in this fashion is a fully satisfying alternative to the kind of trips we used to enjoy when the dollar was king. But the European river cruise has some plus points.
You stop every day, usually for the entire day, in a historic European city in which the riverboat ties up very near to the center of town, and not -- as in some ocean cruises -- far out to sea or miles from the city. Although the riverboat tries hard to sell you optional land excursions by motorcoach, and many passengers buy them, I had no difficulty simply wandering into the center of town just a short walk away. And there I passed the day in more or less the same way as in earlier years.
Unlike an ocean cruise aboard one of those new, 3,000-passenger sea monsters, the river cruise ships do not inundate the cities at which they stop. The typical river ship carries 140 passengers -- rarely more than that -- and its presence in town is scarcely noticed by inhabitants.
Except for perhaps the starting or ending port, the cities themselves are never the major capitals, but, in the case of my own Rhine cruise, historic and well-preserved examples of traditional, midsize European life. Few of us used to visit Cologne, Heidelberg or Rudesheim in past years.
There are no casinos on board the European river ships -- and passengers aren't the kind who crave casino life. There are no lip-synched, Las Vegas-style evening shows on the river ships. On my ship, entertainment was by a pianist and singer, and most passengers never heard them, remaining on shore to sample the local nightlife.
There are no bingo games, art auctions, wet T-shirt contests, rock-climbing walls, bowling alleys. There are no children's games (and no children). There are a bar, two computer monitors for e-mail, a tiny shop, an equally tiny fitness room with one treadmill, a beauty parlor. That's it. The ship does not cater to people who rely on outside distractions for their entertainment. Most passengers look forward to the port visits and attend late-evening talks on the next day's stop in the ship's lounge (of which there is one).
On board the river ships, the staff is international -- French, German or Dutch officers, usually younger people from Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria in the middle positions -- as on my ship. And although the passenger complement on my cruise wasmassively middle-age, a quarter of them were young people interested in the life and history of Europe.
I share your own sorrow over the drastic drop in the value of the dollar and the group-oriented travels to which we've all been condemned by that decline. And I prefer to overcome the problem by dramatically lowering the category of the accommodations I use for a European visit -- and thus offsetting the poor value of the dollar.
But if you're determined to enjoy all the creature comforts on your travels in Europe, you couldn't do better than on a European river cruise.
Discounted River Cruises
