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ingo_e
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I did not write much on CC for a few weeks (or month :) ), as I was busy programming and hoped to finish a new feature for the christmas cruises. Well, did not work out. Anyway..

 

At the moment I need to compile a list of categories describing what one could see (or do) in a city, tour types and things that could ruin your cruise. This is what I got so far (based on my experience 'in the field' and what I researched). I would like to hear your feedback, especially if I forgot anything.

 

1.) Tags for cities (excursions & tours):

Ancient History, Medieval History, Renaissance, Baroque, 19th Century, World War 1, World War 2, Jewish History, Cold War, Contemporary History, Art, Music, Food, Nature, Sports, Religion, Meet the Locals

 

2.) Tour types

Walking tour, Panoramic drive, Combined drive & walk, Bicycle tour, other

 

3.) Things that may ruin your cruise, crisis & disasters:

High water, Low water, Lock issues, Ship related problems, Other

 

In a week or two you are going to find out, what I need this for :)

 

Thanks for your help,

Ingo

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Hello Ingo,

 

this sounds like an interesting - and massive - project. May I suggest for 1.) also: Art Nouveau including Arts & Crafts (although some people prefer to put the latter into 19th century) and genealogy. Genealogy is a wide topic, but perhaps it fits in. For example the family Rockefeller can be traced back to a specific village in Germany. Or the waves of emigration in the 19th century from Palatine to the Americas...

 

Perhaps for 2.): Spa towns (the modern word wellness might fit in here as well). There is actually a German company that offers such a themed cruise. Cannot recall the name at the moment.

 

Thank you for your efforts.

 

notamermaid

 

Still have not been to Nuremberg by the way, high on my list for must-sees. I am a railway enthusiast. :o :)

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For tags for city tours, add beer and wine (together or as 2 separate categories), then food could be expanded to be food and other drink (like where does the apricot liqueur in Austria fit in? I don't know what you have in mind, but would shops fit in anywhere?

 

For 2, is it worth differentiating moderate to strenuous walking (includes hills, stairs, etc.) vs. easy walking (with places to sit and rest as needed).

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Perhaps a category "special interest" where those things go in that do not necessarily fit anywhere else. Like regional cookery course or railway museum, for example? Those things that stand out as unique in a town or port.

 

Will there be references to railway lines and bus routes for those that want to explore on their own?

 

Perhaps something titled families, i.e. things that appeal to both children and adults, like leisure centres and theme parks?

 

notamermaid

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Ingo, my DH is specifically looking for "photography" meaning, he'd like to take tours when the light is good (usually early or before sunset) and go places that are photogenic, or places where the culture and people create interesting photos. So that's a category people might be looking for.

 

I'm hoping to avoid the disasters;)

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Hello Ingo,

 

this sounds like an interesting - and massive - project. May I suggest for 1.) also: Art Nouveau including Arts & Crafts (although some people prefer to put the latter into 19th century) and genealogy. Genealogy is a wide topic, but perhaps it fits in. For example the family Rockefeller can be traced back to a specific village in Germany. Or the waves of emigration in the 19th century from Palatine to the Americas...

 

Perhaps for 2.): Spa towns (the modern word wellness might fit in here as well). There is actually a German company that offers such a themed cruise. Cannot recall the name at the moment.

 

Thank you for your efforts.

 

notamermaid

 

Still have not been to Nuremberg by the way, high on my list for must-sees. I am a railway enthusiast. :o :)

 

I will second the genealogy topic. Genealogy is a very popular hobby in Australia.

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On the crises issues:

- intense traffic to/from sights (i.e. Moscow and St Petersburg)

- intense crowds (ie Hermitage in St Pete, Forbidden City in Beijing)

 

Not the normal stuff, but is this tour/cruise/sight prone to such disasters.

 

Of course, not knowing what you're up to, but curiously interested, this might not be what you're looking for.

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Ok, to specify: I am finishing up programming a review system. Based on a preselection of cruiseline, cruise, direction & ship one will get a quantitative & qualitative rating system for everything. This was a bit complicated to write, but has a few huge advantages (compared to one long text), as it is linked against my cruise database.

 

Hence it allows us

- to tag all reviews (link them against items that are mentioned in cruise), which means easier access to information in the first place

- on the fly ratings of cruise lines, cruises, ships & cities

- theoretical we can even predict review scores for cruises that no one has taken yet, as long as the ship and the cities on the itinerary have been reviewed on other cruises.

- a lot of other fancy numbers and graphs :)

 

Thats what I need the 3 categories above:

1.) will be connected to the cities, will allow users to tag cities

2.) will also be connected to cities

3.) will be connected to the cruise (& river) - that others know how a cruise line handled a problem along a cruise.

 

Now for your suggestions:

1.) Genealogy: This is a wide topic, may cause a problem? Does genealogy mean the same expectation for someone from the US vs. CAN, AUS, NZ?

2.) Photography: How about something like "Great Photo Opportunities?

3.) Special Interest: I will add it, again, users can specify in the textfield

 

On the Walking diversification(gentle, medium, hard..): This is kind of a problem, as I would have to add it to the "combined drive & walk" as well. So instead of 5 tour types we would have 10 or 12.. So in this case I would rather prefere to leave it as it is - there are textfields for comments anyway :)

 

On crisis issues: id4elizabeth' suggestions rather has to do with cities, so you can mention it in the cities textfield.. Crisis really should just deal with things that totally interrupt your cruise..

 

As you now know what I am up to, maybe you have other ideas :) For 1.) City Tags: we are up at 20 items so far, I do not want to exceed 25 total. But am open to the idea of dropping one or two that you find useless.

 

I got two days off, have to do some finetuning and polishing. So you'll get a first 100% usable version (still lacking a few charts) on wednesday or thursday.

 

Again, thanks for your help,

Ingo

Edited by ingo_e
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Europeans who emigrated to US, Canada, Aistralia or NZ would have all left via the same ports.

 

My husbands GGGrandfather arrived in 1850 from Hamberg. I am sure many others from other countries will have similar ancestors and would be interested in following up where in Europe they came from and who his ancestors were.

 

Is there a particular building in each town or city that we should go to in order to find historical records? I think that would be helpful. Eg, is it the Town Hall?

 

I may be expecting too much - please just say so.

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Hello Ingo, hello strathegen,

 

now that I know what the ideas are for I see that genealogy is a very complicated topic. It works for a town like Hamburg or Bremerhaven as they are "emigration ports". But other towns? It could mean a place for enquiries which is usually an archive or a town hall, a local history society or even an old cemetery. I will have to give this one another thought. I suggested the topic as I know about the Rockefeller family origins and have myself been approached literally by Americans in the street asking me for help tracing places and family names.

 

notamermaid

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So, it is not friday any more, but I managed to fix all of the remaining minor bugs. There might be still some mysql warnings, but that's (hopefully) only because I got no reviews submitted so far. When I filled the Review DB with dummy data, everything looked fine :) So here we go:

 

1.) The submit system - http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/write-review

 

This consists of two parts: First you'll have to select a cruiseline, an itinerary, cruise season and cruise direction (if available). Based on this, you will get suggestions for departure dates and the ship(s) you cruised. As not all companies do provide these data (e.g. Scenic just gives you a ships class - which is fine as all ships technical installations are identical; but I want to be more specific), there is a second select tab for fine tuning.

 

Based on the entries, you'll get a specific data sheet for your cruiseline, all ships and cities you visited. This always has a quantitative rating (numbers from 0 / poor to 10 / awesome) and a qualitative comment field (write something down). Furthermore you can select categories and tour types for cities.

 

2.) Simple Review overview- http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/read-review

 

This is just a simple review overview, newest review submit on top. Each review has a total score, a cruise line score, an itinerary score, and a ship score. All are simple averages at the moment.

 

The cruiseline score is based on the service provided by the company before + after your cruise (+ crisis management) + rating of cruise director

 

The itinerary score is based on all rated cities and tours.

 

The ship(s) rating is based on the ship items :)

 

Total score is (cruiseline + itinerary + ship) / 3

 

Furthermore, you'll have a similar review overview connected to the database for all cruiselines, cruises, ships & cities, which have been reviewed. This is actually why I did all the efford in designing the review spreadsheet: No information will be lost! With one mouseclick you will see all reviews where the ship or cities you're interested in have been an item.

 

3.) An automated ranking system - http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/review-rankings

 

This is going to be the second advantage of this system While the qualitative textfields are displayed under ships, cities.. with no information lost, this is just some first chart to show you the options of the quantitative ratings. Who has the best fleet, best single ship, which city is the place to be, and so forth. Everything is comparable.

 

4.) Whats next?

Well, first of all I am going to connect the review submit to my apps (will be done in february, just in time for the next season). But there is much more the database can achieve: We can rank cities according to categories, connect categories and cruises (and the cruise search). Last but not least I want to figure out, how much of a problem double docking really is. Where it occurs, when, which cruise line is statistically affected most..

 

But in order for these things to become relevant, I need a few dozen reviews :)

 

5.) Beta testing

Until the 2014 season starts, feel free to play around with the 2013 season data. In case you find a bug, please let me know ingo@rivercruiseinfo.com :)

Edited by ingo_e
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Ingo, my DH is specifically looking for "photography" meaning, he'd like to take tours when the light is good (usually early or before sunset) and go places that are photogenic, or places where the culture and people create interesting photos. So that's a category people might be looking for.

 

I agree. Photography is top of my list -- best places to get the "postcard" or unusual shots, photography tours, cultural issues with photography (will people be okay with us taking their pictures?).

 

Also, ways to meet the locals would be nice to know. For example, there clubs that meet in local pubs or bars and invite native English speakers to stop by so the locals can practice speaking English.

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Funny story....

We went on a Greece tour/cruise. One evening our CD took some of us to a local dance club. DH got tired, so he went outside. I eventually went out to see if he was ok and found him deep in "conversation" with two Greek fellows.

 

He and they spent two hours together......with no common language! Somehow through it all we winded up with an invitation to spend the next summer visiting with them!!!!

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Also, ways to meet the locals would be nice to know. For example, there clubs that meet in local pubs or bars and invite native English speakers to stop by so the locals can practice speaking English.

 

This would be another project, maybe one could connect it to the app / maps :)

 

BTW, i've added the photography category.

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I like the idea of a rating for "meet the locals"-opportunity as well. For example, I saw on the GCT website that one of their itineraries includes a coffee afternoon with a German family.

 

"Photo opportunities" also nice, my personal tip there "sunset on the Rhine", you need a cabin facing the left bank of the river if you want to appreciate it from your window or balcony.

 

Great work, Ingo!

 

notamermaid

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