Help, first timer! Considering Deilmann River Cruises

[herb]

This is what we're sure of....

After countless Caribbean cruises on the mainline U.S. "megaships" my wife and I have decided that we'd like to try something a little different. (after awhile the Caribbean cruises all seem the same :) )

We are both early 50's and although we're not party poopers we no longer live to stay out all night long in the discos and we don't care all that much for casinos and gambling. Our daytime activities and sightseeing are most important to us.

Our plans for 2008 are binding, so we are now looking at 2009 Fall for a RHEIN RIVER CRUISE.

We've checked out all the possibilities of European river cruises operators and have narrowed it down to the Rhein River with Deilmann cruises. Since we are both fluent in English and German we thought it would be nice to immerse ourselves not only in Germany's sights but travel along with guests from German speaking countries. (An added plus to Deilmann, which should appeal to the American market, is that at the start of the new cruising season --> March 2008 all Deilmann River Cruises are SMOKE FREE throughout the ship other than the outdoor areas)

The ship we are considering is the MV Heidelberg due to its itinerary along the Rhein/Moselle and it is also close to relatives we'd like to visit after we are done with cruise (Pirmasens-Rheinland/Pfalz)

This is what we need help with regarding Deilmann...

1. At what point in time does Deilmann release the following years itinerary?
2. Since you cannot book directly through Deilmann any suggestions on where to find the best deals? Are there any RELIABLE online agencies that deal specifically with European river cruises? Are they all pretty similar?
3. DRESS CODE!! Don't worry, we realize we are not on a Caribbean cruise and t-shirts and shorts are not appropriate :D
For breakfast, sightseeing and lunch are comfortable clothes ok? Unfortunately my view of comfortable might be very different than a Europeans view of comfortable... that's why I'm asking ;)
FOR DINNER... we have nothing against getting dressed up for dinner but it's really a matter of baggage limits due to an international flight. We do not want to pack items we didn't really need to bring, just because it says so in the brochures. I read the guidelines on Deilmann's site for dress code at dinner and formal night... Is that really how guests dress in the evening????
4. Shore Excursions ... is it best to purchase shore excursions on board or ahead of time? Can you buy excursions for one city and not the other or is it a package deal?

Any other hints or advice on Deilmann would be appreciated.
Thank you

[pacmom]

We have a "resident" guru for all things Deilmann. Her name is Steamboats and she lives in Munich. She reads these boards regularly and will be able to help. You are so fortunate to be fluent in two languages. Good luck. Pat

[nyfeds]

Hi Herb,

Steamboats is, indeed, the resident Deilmann expert.

My husband and I cruised with Deilmann last year on Cezanne, Paris to Paris. Here is the link to my review. While it is not the itinerary you mentioned, I do hope it provides some useful information.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=363072

[steamboats]

Hi Herb,

Yes, we made two cruises with Deilmann and you will find my reviews linked in my signature.

To answer your questions:

1. The new itineraries are coming out late (compared to the US companies). I think the 2008 came out about 4 weeks ago (we´re featured in the German brochure on the MS Dresden page :D ).
2. Sorry, but as we are German we are booking directly with Deilmann.
3. Casual/country casual is o.k. during the day (jeans are o.k. for breakfast and lunch, I won´t wear shorts but shorts aren´t quite popular in Europe anyway). Dinner is more formal. You don´t need an evening gown or tuxedo. A dark suit is o.k. for formal nights. But on many other nights the dress code said "jacket and tie". Read my reviews. I´ve mentioned the nightly dress code there.
4. I think Deilmann is offering packages for US customers (not for Germans). On the first evening there is a shore tour talk (German and English). You can pick the tours you´re interested in. Forms have to be turned in that evening. On some cruises there are different tours for the US passengers (like on the Elbe river cruise the US passengers were able to go to Berlin, a tour which wasn´t offered for the German passengers). As we are travelling with our 7 y DD we prefer doing tours on our own. Those tours we´ve been on were very well organized with experienced guides. Even if the English speaking group is small they have their own guide (the group going to Berlin were 4 passengers). Deilmann is working together with a bus company where the busses accompany the boats and are always available.

steamboats

[herb]

thank you to all for your advice regarding Deilmann :)

steamboats: I have a question for you.
Since Deilmann cruises markets to a majority of German speaking tourists I was wondering if there is a German cruise message board similar to cruise critic where I could look up information.
BTW>>> I did check the German Deilmann site and went to the brochure section of the Dresden. Would that be you and your family standing at the reception desk where the woman is giving your daughter something?

[jgnova]

Herb:

My DH wrote a very extensive review of our cruise on Mozart (same username, in this forum). It was the Mozart cruise just after Steamboats' cruise. You might enjoy reading through his notes after you read her reviews and the one posted by nyfeds.

Clothes: I took very packable clothes. A dressy skirt with two different dressy tops would work fine for two formal nights. Full length or cocktail length, either way. I found some jersey dresses with a bit of spandex -- no wrinkles -- worked great. My DH took one dark suit, a pair of khaki slacks, another pair of gray slacks, two different sport coats to go with both of them. This isn't a highly formal formal night, but yes, you'll wear jacket and tie every evening for dinner (maybe not the last one -- he doesn't recall). For sightseeing, he wore those slacks. I wore a pair of LL Bean cotton slacks with a bit of spandex in them and a top. Could be dressed up with a different top/jewelry or down for relaxing or sightseeing. Those were much more comfortable than jeans for that long flight, too. No wrinkles, either, and pack smaller than jeans. I think they were about $30. I had black and navy with me. We went in early April and both of us used the sweater we brought as well -- layers worked well. I took a coat with zip out lining as well -- he just relied on his sport coats.

We took a classical music cruise that included all the excursions.

Seating at dinner: It's fixed seating. They tend to seat people with others whose first language is the same as your first language. We found that all the staff spoke really good English. So did most of the passengers. Embarrassing for us -- I tried to learn some German before we went but didn't have dedicated time and less quickness in learning language than I used to have. It was sort of unfortunate that so many pax on our sailing were Americans and we didn't get much chance to talk with the Germans.

We made our reservation directly with Deilmann in Alexandria VA. Maybe they don't do that any longer?

We'd go again, any time!

S

[steamboats]

herb,

Yes, that´s us! When I received the brochure it wasn´t online yet.

There is a German cruise message board. It´s a sub board of an English one. And river cruises aren´t the main topic of this German board. There are some others which aren´t very busy. Unfortunately there´s nothing like cruisecritic in German.

steamboats

[herb]

Herb:
My DH wrote a very extensive review of our cruise on Mozart (same username, in this forum). It was the Mozart cruise just after Steamboats' cruise. You might enjoy reading through his notes after you read her reviews and the one posted by nyfeds.
We'd go again, any time!
S


DW and I enjoyed reading the review. Thanks for all the information :)

herb,

Yes, that´s us! When I received the brochure it wasn´t online yet.
There is a German cruise message board. It´s a sub board of an English one. And river cruises aren´t the main topic of this German board. There are some others which aren´t very busy. Unfortunately there´s nothing like cruisecritic in German.
steamboats

Too bad there's nothing similar to cruisecritic for those in Germany who want info on cruising... It would be nice to read about their point of view regarding Deilmann. I guess they rely on "brochures" when booking :D

[steamboats]

Herb,

I´d say the average Deilmann passenger might not be as computer savy as we are :D . In fact the 60+ generation in Germany is still not very interested in the internet or computers. And the other reason might be that Deilmann has an extremely good reputation here in Germany. The German version of the "Love Boat" is made aboard the MS Deutschland, Deilmann´s ocean going ship. That´s the best advertisement you can get.

steamboats

[Hambagahle]

Hi there
I just got back from a Deilmann cruise (and really appreciated Steamboats advice before I went) I posted my review last week. We were on the Katerina von Bora, Prague to Potsdam.
To answer a few of your questions -
On our cruise there were only 6 Germans oiut of a full complement of 79 passengers. Apparently, according to the Hotel Manager/Tour Director since Deilmann started marketing "packages" in the US, this is pretty normal for them. Of the rest of the passengers we were divided into a large group of English, travelling with Great Train Journeys, and independent travellers, a mix of US, English, Australian etc. So I wouldn't count on sprucing up your German while on the cruise! We had all English speaking guides, and the 6 German speakers had their own guides.
Dress - They say "dark suit" for the 2 formal nights. In fact my husband packed and wore his dark suit the first night. At the second formal night we were really tired from sightseeing and the last thing he wanted to do was wear a suit. Also I had to pack since we disembarked early the next morning! So he wore a blazer, dress shirt (by which I mean long sleeved, button down collar, not black tie shirt!) and tie with grey flannel trousers. He did not feel at all out of place and there were others more casual than he. For the other evenings he wore blazer and tie etc three times and then said the hell with the tie, and still wore the blazer! During the day he wore khaki trousers and a polo shirt and sweater. (and windbreaker). I took one cocktail type dress with me, and wore that to both formal nights. Daytimes I wore skirts or long trousers with sweaters and a windbreaker. It depended on the weather. The only people we see in towns here (we live in Europe) wearing shorts are, I am afraid, Americans. Also wearing those big sneakers that look as though they are about to play basetball!! My husband wears docksiders, which are really comfortable and I alternate between ordinary flat shoes and Keds sneakers which are also comfortuable! Hope this helps.
I think you can book Deilmann's packages off their US website. They are certainly a good company and you will have a great time. Be prepared however for a very small cabin. There was roughly 20cm between the bed and the wall to move around in! We did have full length window that opened and that was great. Their staff are very good too and their food is over-the-top. How they can prepare 9 course meals in their small galley, I know not!

have a great time.

[CanadianCruiser07]

Hi Herb:
We just returned October 13th from a 2 week Peter Deilmann cruise - Amsterdam to Budapest on the MV Cassanova. We had a wonderful time. Mostly Canadian passengers with 6 or 8 American passengers. Aside from the 2 formal nights the rest of the time the dress code was pretty relaxed--casual--we saw very few jackets & ties for men. The women wore mostly slacks and dressy tops. The food was excellent. The service great--the crew worked very hard. It was our Canadian Thanksgiving and they presented us with turkey and all the trimmings. The chef had never cooked a turkey before; they put on an excellent presentation.
We have cruised with Princess to Alaska before and you just can't compare the two kinds of cruises. All of our shore excursions were included. The one complaint I did hear was that there wasn't enough time given for shopping before we had to move on to another port.

[CanadianCruiser07]

Hi Herb:

[gef112]

Hi Steamboats,

My good friend from Pennsylvania recently transferred to Munich for an 18 month work assignment. My husband and I (28 and 34 years old) would like to combine a trip in the warmer months to visit her, tour Munich, and take a river cruise for a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 14 days.

Another friend is working in Athens for 3 years. Ideally, we would visit her also.

Though we are in our 20s-30s, we get along well with older people. Some of our best cruise friends from large US ship cruises were in their 50s and 80s. Therefore, average passenger age will only play a minor factor in picking a river cruise.

Would you kindly recommed the best cruise that would allow the easiest access to primarily Munich and secondarliy Athens before or after the cruise?

In your expertise, what are the main differences between Uniworld, Peter Deilmann, and Viking River cruises?

Thank you for your advice!

Gef112

[steamboats]

gef112,

I don´t there´s really a way to combine Munich with Athens through a river cruise :) . As you have to fly anyway I´d suggest a river cruise out of Nuremberg or Passau (which are both about a 1 hour car drive from Munich). Deilmann is offering a Passau round-trip cruise down to Budapest. This kind of cruise is not offered by any of the US river cruise companies. But anyway it doesn´t matter where your cruise is ending as you have to fly to Athens (assuming you start in Munich and end up in Athens).

What´s the difference between Uniworld/Viking/Deilmann? Price, concept, service! Uniworld and Viking are offering a product focused on the US market (English speaking market, Viking has separate ships for the German speaking market). Most of the cruises try to combine as much as possible (like Prague - Budapest with a 5 hour bus drive from Prague to Nuremberg to board the ship; or Paris - Prague where you have two 5 hour bus rides). On a regular 5 star scale: Uniworld/Viking are offering a solid and good 3+ star product. Deilmann is offering a 5 star product (excellent entertainers, up to 9 course dinner, excellent service). Deilmann is a German company. So the passengers are a mix of German and English speaking guests (depending on how much a special cruise is marketed in the US there might be more US passengers than Germans). Uniworld/Viking are English speaking passengers only. Uniworld/Viking do include shore tours. Deilmann does not include shore tours (you book them on board or on some promoted cruises the tours are included/they offer a package).

For a Passau roundtrip there are a couple of German cruise companies offering those cruises like A´Rosa and Nicko Tours. Both are not as expensive as Deilmann (they also do not include the tours). A´Rosa is offering buffet style food even for dinner and is tending more to younger passengers. I´m not sure whether you can book any of those two companies out of the US but if you´re interested I can post their websites.

steamboats

[herb]

For a Passau roundtrip there are a couple of German cruise companies offering those cruises like A´Rosa and Nicko Tours. Both are not as expensive as Deilmann (they also do not include the tours). A´Rosa is offering buffet style food even for dinner and is tending more to younger passengers. I´m not sure whether you can book any of those two companies out of the US but if you´re interested I can post their websites.
steamboats

Guten Tag Steamboats: Once again, your information is so helpful.

So far, we are leaning towards Deilmann's Mozart Danube cruise since they do the roundtrip from Passau, and that might help us a bit with the expensive air fare from New York City. I have not seen the 2 other tour companies you have mentioned, A'Rosa and Nicko anywhere on the internet. Could you post their websites, just so that I can compare? Are they even available for U.S. citizens to book?

Is getting to Passau from the Munich airport pretty easy? I know that the DB is very reliable, just wondering the easiest way to get from airport to Hauptbahnhof (with all our luggage). Not sure whether the trains that run from Munich to Passau are reserved seats only, therefore wondering if it is advisable to purchase train tickets in advance or if it is ok to show up at the ticket booth that day and buy them.

A question regarding time spent at each port. Do you feel that the time given at each port call is sufficient for sightseeing? I'm asking this only because I noticed that on some days more than one city is visited. I'm wondering if it's a rushed whirlwind tour.

Danke schoen!

[steamboats]

Hi herb,

Here are the websites

http://www.nicko-tours.de (there´s even an English version, so they might sell to US citizens too)

http://www.arosa.de/ (A´Rosa also has an English version)

I´d say Nicko is more the medium price segment. Fair product, fair price, 3 stars. I´m quite sure that the US companies (Avalon, Amadeus....) are offering a bit more upscale product. A´Rosa is different as they are doing that buffet style thing only and tend to a more younger crowd. They do offer more sports shore tours and I think they also have bikes aboard.

I don´t know if they accept bookings from the US but don´t hesitate to ask them.

Munich - Passau:
First of all, Munich airport is outside Munich into the direction of Passau. Anyway it´s about an 1:15 min drive from Munich.

Shortest way to get there by public transportation would be the bus connecting the airport with the city of Freising and then change on the train. But therefore you need two different tickets.

A bit easier with only one ticket: Take the suburban train from the airport to Munich Central Station (two lines running S1 and S8 app. every 10 min) and change on the regional train to Passau there.

Check the trains on www.bahn.de (http://www.bahn.de) for there are trains which are running directly and some where you have to change (and there´s not much time to change the trains especially when the first one is delayed).

Lufthansa is also offering a bus from the airport to the central station which is a bit more comfortable.

No, you don´t need any advance tickets or seat reservations for the regional trains. There is a ticket counter in the Zentralbereich and in Terminal 2 (but I´ve never seen that one, just the signs, and even a friend of mine who is working at the airport just recently discovered this counter in Terminal 2). If you´re arriving at Terminal 2 (all Star Alliance flights) leave the terminal building to the Munich Airport Center, cross this covered square like area and enter through the doors. Go straight ahead and you´ll find the large ticket counter with "DB" signs. You can also purchase tickets in advance on the internet (where you might get a cheaper ticket). But don´t make any seat reservations. In case you´re taking another train that money is lost.

Deilmann might offer a bus transportation from Munich aiport to Passau.

Sure the most comfortable (but also most expensive) way is to hire a private driver.

Time at ports: Our cruise was sort of messed up by the high water and we only had one real port stop which was Duernstein. And yes, we had plenty of time to explore that little town walking up to the ruin, making a stroll through the town, doing some shopping and visiting a playground. I think the other day where two stops are on the schedule is Melk monastery. As there is nothing else than the monastery you´ll have plenty of time.

steamboats

[The Golds]

It was great....you will not be sorry you went with them. We did the Danube and it was a highlight of our trips....

[steamboats]

herb,

A new German cruise board just opened up and we do have a river cruise board (and better don´t ask who´s got the job of editing this sepcial board). O.k., as it´s brand new there´s not much traffic right now. But feel free to step in. It´s www.kreuzfahrten-treff.de (http://www.kreuzfahrten-treff.de) .

steamboats

[herb]

herb,

A new German cruise board just opened up and we do have a river cruise board (and better don´t ask who´s got the job of editing this sepcial board). O.k., as it´s brand new there´s not much traffic right now. But feel free to step in. It´s www.kreuzfahrten-treff.de (http://www.kreuzfahrten-treff.de) .

steamboats

I registered, just waiting for the O.K to post. Thanks for the link, looking forward to reading and participating in that new forum... Danke vielmals!

[steamboats]

herb,

It might take some time. Registration is manually approved.

steamboats

[happycruizer]

Is there an English version of the boards?

[steamboats]

Is there an English version of the boards?

I´m sorry, that´s German only (herb has asked for a German board for river cruisers in a previous post).

steamboats

[jgnova]

Herb,

Deilmann's US web site is:

http://www.deilmann-************/

I think you can book direct - they're in Alexandria, VA, and their phone number is at the bottom of the page.

The Mozart is a lovely ship and I think its cabins are larger than those on others on the river.

Enjoy your trip! We certainly did.

jg

[Palmetto Lady]

We are booked on a Deilman River Cruise on the Elbe in October. I was wondering whether most of the women, particularly the Europeans,:confused: wore skirts or pants on the informal evenings?

[steamboats]

Palmetto Lady,

Check my review of the MS DRESDEN cruise this spring (linked in my signature).

It´s totally up to you. I´m no pants´ woman except for jeans so I do prefer skirts. Pants and a nice top will do it perfectly for the informal evenings. It´s much easier for us women than for the men as many evenings were "jacket and tie". I´ve listed all daily dress codes in my review.

And just as an example (this was during the day), that´s us on the MS DRESDEN (off the German Deilmann brochure)

http://www.deilmannkreuzfahrten.de/pages/flussschiffe08/images/s041_050/s046_047e.jpg

steamboats

[Palmetto Lady]

Thank you Steamboats. This will be our fifth European river cruise, but they have all been on an American line. Everyone wore pants most of the time including in the evenings. The only possible exception was one night at the Captain's dinner.
When I travel, I try not to stand out an an tourist - no sneakers or fanny packs. At one time we were advised not to wear jeans because "you don't get treated with respect" but our German guides on our last trip said "that's old fashioned".:)

[steamboats]

Palmetto Lady,

Definitely don´t worry about wearing jeans. Everyone is wearing them and they are definitely o.k. during the day.

steamboats