Now that we are home and have had a few days to try (not too successfully) to get our bodies back on Eastern U.S. time, I decided one more entry in this blog is needed. Our trip home was fairly uneventful, despite the fact that the Budapest to Frankfurt flight left late and cut our connecting time to under an hour. One interesting thing to note - at Frankfurt airport they now have one terminal just for arrivals and all the other terminals are used for departures. I don't know if all incoming flights are handled the same way, but we had to disembark down stairs from the aircraft and board a bus to the arrivals terminal instead of exiting via a jetway. Once in the terminal we had to make our way to the correct gate for our connecting flight, as normal. I don't know why they have this arrangement and am curious as to how it helps airport traffic flow.
The main thing I'd like to talk about in this post is our observations of the differences between ocean cruising and river cruising. We have done a lot of ocean cruises and this is our first river cruise, so there may be things that are different on other river cruises.
Upon boarding the ship, our first note was that no one took our picture for security. There was actually much less security on this cruise than on any ocean cruise. There was no bag or person xray machine and our room key was similar to a hotel key. It was actually, better than a hotel key because it had an RFID chip. We only had to hold it up to the door to unlock it.
The safety drill was a bit different too. Instead of gathering in a lounge and being escorted to a life-boat station, everyone was told to gather on the top sun deck. The captain commended us in being able to all get there in under 10 minutes and explained that, if the ship sank the sun deck would still be above the river water level. Since the ship would be either docked or close to shore all the time, if there were a problem we might be instructed to just walk off the ship to the shore.
One great advantage to a river cruise is that you never have to take a tender to get to shore. The ship can dock anywhere. While we were on this cruise and the lock masters were on strike, the captain proved this by docking in some unorthodox places so we could get on a bus to the next city we were scheduled to tour.
Another advantage is, you don't have to worry about sea sickness. River water is much calmer than oceans. The only jostling occurred when we went through the locks.
The state rooms on this river cruise were a little smaller than those on ocean vessels, but still very nice. There are no regular balconies, but our room had a French balcony. This consists of a sliding glass door with railings across. This was nice enough to allow us to get a breeze or take unobstructed photos.
Since river cruise ships are smaller, it is easier to get to know other passengers and the crew. The ship we were on was at capacity with 168 passengers and about 40 crew members. We got to meet quite a few of our fellow passengers and got to know all the restaurant staff by name. We also got to have a more personal relationship with the cruise director. With such a small number of passengers, I think they got to know most of us too.
On the down side, dinners were always later than Ray & I prefer. The daily routine was happy hour in the lounge from 6-6:45PM, a briefing on the next day's activities at 6:45PM, and the restaurant opening for dinner at 7PM. This schedule was sometimes adjusted if the day's tours got in late or a night tour was planned, but for most days dinner didn't end until 9PM. Entertainment was usually scheduled to begin after dinner and the next day's tours would begin at 8:30AM. That meant that either you went to dance or hear a band and skimped on sleep, or skipped the entertainment in favor of some sleep. Guess which we chose. There were a few times when the entertainment was scheduled before or during happy hour, and we got to go.
We really enjoyed this cruise, but the one thing we missed above all was sea days. On an ocean cruise there are always days in between ports when you can rest up from the activities of touring. On a river cruise there are no days off. You dock every morning in a new city. Two straight weeks of walking tours every day can be exhausting for people like us. We are just not that young anymore.
One thing we learned is that we really didn't have to book the extra tours before the cruise. On an ocean cruise, this is essential. With a large number of passengers you need to book tours in advance in order to make sure you get the ones you want. On a river cruise with only 168 passengers, there is always room to accommodate another person on any of the tours. Although, we probably would have done just as many tours if we hadn't booked ahead. Despite the exhaustion, we really didn't want to miss anything.
It was a great trip. The ship, crew, and itinerary were all excellent. I would recommend an Avalon European river cruise to anyone who can do it.
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