In this video you're going to discover nine reasons to do a European river
cruise. Hi, I'm Gary Bembridge and this is another of my Tips For Travellers.
Please subscribe to the channel and then every single week you'll be alerted when
there's a brand new video packed full of more travel tips and advice. One of the
best reasons for taking European river cruise is simple: it removes all the
hassles and stress and strains of planning a trip around Europe. Once
you've chosen your itinerary and booked, the river cruise line takes care of
everything. Some will even go as far as arranging transportation and picking up
from your home and taking you to the airport and seeing you all the way
through to the ship and back. But the great news is once you've booked,
pretty much everything's included - so you know the total cost of your vacation.
Most cruise lines are pretty all-inclusive including your food, your
drink, excursions and things like Wi-Fi. So you'll find largely you know the
whole price of your trip once you've booked it.
So once you've paid for that holiday there's going to be very few extras. All
your meals are taken care of, the place is to go and see, your excursions
are taken care of and so your whole time is just going with the flow knowing that
they have sorted out everything. Another great reason is that it really gives you
a great immersion into a region. River Cruises tend to travel relatively
shorter distances, and as you call at lots of different ports of call and see
lots of sites within that stretch of the region, so it really does give you a chance to
immerse yourself and understand that region in great detail. You'll go and
see lots of places. Also the Cruise Line will tend to tailor
the food and drink based on the region you're going through, the tour's will
be with local guides who really live and know the region, the other great thing is
you'll often find that you will stay overnight or certainly way into the
evening in many of the places you call on ,so you have a chance to go out and
yourself explore the culture or the food or the restaurants or the nightlife. Also
River cruise ships will tend to dock right in the heart of the town and the
cities. So you're right there in the center of things. You can just roll off
and feel and see all around you the culture and what's happening in a
particular region. So you are right in the heart of things. Most river cruise
lines will also bring onboard local speakers or local entertainers so you'll
get a sense of some of the local culture whether its musicians singers or actors, and
they will also give you port talks and give you some background and detail on
the places that you're visiting. So it's really great for immersing yourself into
a region. Of course another great reason for going on a river cruise through
Europe is you get to explore and see the iconic and the really important parts of
Europe and its history. The magnificent and big rivers like
the Rhine, the Danube, the Seine the Douro, Loire these run through really
important parts of Europe and lots of history has happened along the rivers,
and many of the really important cities and towns are right there on the river.
Because this is of course the way that many cultures and countries developed
and grew and all of the history happened close to the rivers, so you get to see
and explore the really important parts of Europe. Another consideration for
taking a river cruise is it's a great safe and secure way of traveling. So if
you want to go and explore Europe, of course there's lots of different
languages, lots of different cultures, lots of different things that you might
need to navigate. The benefit of going on a river cruise is you have a tour manager,
you have lots of guests around you, so you always have people that you can turn
to and rely on if you need help or guidance - and they are with you and to
help guide and support you as you travel these foreign countries. Also really
really important is what happens is most of the river cruise lines, during the
season, will do the same itinerary back-to-back so they really know the
rivers and the towns incredibly well. So if you have any issues or problems they
know how to solve all of those in each of the places you go to. Also because
you're on a river, you're always near towns and near land so you always have
the security of knowing that if you have any issues of problems or queries as you're
right there near to land and support if you need it. And of course, related to
that, is there's no chance of getting seasick
because there's no real motion onboard. River cruises really is a really safe
and secure way of traveling because these cruise lines and the tour managers
know these stretches of the river so so well. The fact that you only have
to pack and unpack once but actually see big parts of Europe, in fact
often many different countries of Europe, is a real plus. So you basically once
you're on board and you've unpacked and settled in, you move between
countries, you can move between places without losing down time because actually
the cruising experience and the traveling time becomes part of the vacation.
Whereas if you're traveling in other ways by bus or you're
traveling by plane, there's a lot of downtime because you know on a bus you're
on often on motorways, planes you of course get caught up in airports - but
here you actually are able to travelling a nice calm, sedate, civilized way with
great scenery. So actually your travel time becomes
part of your vacation time. It's a very efficient way of seeing it because
you don't have a lot of downtime. So actually if you want to see Europe, river
cruising through Europe is a very efficient way of using your vacation
time. Another great reason for going on a river cruise around Europe is the
accommodation. You get to have a really comfortable cabin. Obviously the
grade of cabin depends a lot based on whether you've gone very premium or you're
going more value. But you have your beautiful cabin which has comfortable
beds, your own bathroom and you don't have to worry about having different hotels
which may vary in quality. You can have one beautiful room that you travel for
your whole time on a cruise, and the accommodation onboard river cruise ships
although they're relatively small because of the size of ships, they are
very comfortable even on the value lines. You're gonna find a great comfortable
room that can travel with you the whole way through your European experience.
Food is another really important reason for taking European River cruise. You
have five-star dining, no matter which cruise line you go on. Many of them have
relationships with Michelin or other famous celebrity chefs. Food is a
really important part of river cruising, and they will often and then link the
food to the region you're traveling through. But you're guaranteed to have
great food, so you don't have to worry about finding restaurants and navigating
all of that. You're going to have three meals a day and often you also going
to have afternoon tea - and you're going to have multiple courses with great
local wines and great food and because the way that River Cruises work. And they
don't lots of storage, so they also pick up fresh ingredients as they constantly
travel- so you're always going to have great fresh local produce often bought
from local markets and then served that night. But great dining is really
important. So through European River cruise you are guaranteed to have great
dining without him to worry about finding a
great restaurant. Another great reason for doing a european river cruise,
unlike if you're going ocean cruising where you can have really great big
ships, it's a quite an intimate experience because of the nature of the
rivers. These ships are limited in size and width so you normally have around
about 100 - 120 passengers at most onboard your ship. So it's a pretty
intimate experience and it's very easy to get to know people. Also you likely to
have quite an adult experience, some cruise lines only will have adults of
example Viking is adults only while other cruise lines are starting to try to
attract more families (and that tends to be more in this is the key summer
vacation months). But you're likely to have a very adult experience. If you're
looking for a very adult vacation you could find that onboard a european river
cruise. So you can actually have a small intimate adult experience. River
cruising in Europe is not a big family activity at this point in time. So
whichever cruise you go on your likely to find it a very adult experience. One of
the great things about going on a European river cruise, and I think one of
the really important reasons for choosing to see Europe on a European
river cruise is that it's so easy and so much less stressful than arranging a
land-based trip. You're going to cover a lot of territory, you're going to see lots
of places and you can do it without any of the hassle and strain and stress of a
land-based trip. If you're on land-based trip you have to constantly worry about
how you going to move between places, you have to worry about the language, making
sure that you find great places to eat. On European river cruise that's all
sorted. You get on board the ship and they have sorted out the right things to see,
they've sorted out the fact you can have Wi-Fi, you don't worry about having
currency, you don't have to worry about language. You going to have a comfortable room
and great food. I hope you found that helpful and that's given you 9 good reasons
why you should do a European river cruise. It's a great experience and i
strongly recommend that you do it. If you enjoyed this video, I have many more
other videos about river cruising in Europe which I'd love you to take a look
at - because you'll find many more ideas and tips and inspiration to help you
have a great time traveling and River cruising.