The Avid Cruiser

I checked into my hotel in Budapest, Hungary, and checked out a week later in Passau, Germany. Each evening, sometimes after I had fallen asleep, my hotel moved, from Budapest, to Bratislava, to Vienna, to Durnstein and Melk on the same day, to Linz and finally Passau. If you’re scratching your head, I’ll let you in on a secret: My hotel was a river cruiser.

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My river cruise has turned into a cycling tour. Each day during this journey up the Danube on Uniworld’s River Empress, I have had the opportunity to straddle a saddle and pedal along the river — or out into the picturesque countryside  —  with the River Empress serving as my comfortable floating hotel. Continue Reading »

Make no mistake. River cruises and barge cruises are completely different beasts.

Designed specifically to transit locks along the way, modern river cruisers are long and narrow, as are the locks themselves, which measure more than 600 feet long but are only about 40 feet wide.

Barges typically are smaller and with fewer frills and amenities than river cruisers. Whereas river cruisers may carry more than 100 passengers, barges range from a few passengers to few dozen.

What River Cruises Offer

The opening of the Main-Danube Canal in 1992 not only spawned the birth of river cruising as we know it today but also spawned the birth of the contemporary river cruise vessel. There are more than 100 river cruisers operating on Europe’s rivers. A “building boom” since 2000 has seen the introduction of more than 50 new ships.

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Europe has more navigable rivers than any other region in the world — and arguably more diverse cultures along its river banks than any place else. Continue Reading »