Which direction: Amsterdam to Budapest or vice versa?

My wife and I have settled on an itinerary for our first European river cruise: starting and ending in either Amsterdam or Budapest. The question now is which direction. Would you go south from Amsterdam to Budapest or north from Budapest to Amsterdam? Why? If the time of year helps, we are looking at late April/early May.

I apologize if this has been covered before but I searched the forum and could not find any threads on this question.

Thanks for any insights.

David

We did Budapest to Amsterdam last August. This allowed us to then catch a fast train to Paris so we could visit France post cruise. We booked the cruise first (AMA Waterways) and just thought that it would be easier (and shorter train journeys) to travel on from Amsterdam via train to other European cities than from Budapest and gave us more choices for planning our own post cruise tour. It was only a couple hours train journey to France once we settled on Paris for the post cruise portion we planned (Paris and Normandy region) and it was a very easy trip (since the boat basically docked right next to the main train station in Amsterdam).

We did it the other way from AMS to BUD and found we appreciated the Eastern block countries more after experiencing the extravagance of the other countries. Do spend extra time in Budapest or take a post cruise to Prague, it is a fabulous city. One post that I read had said that when you go from Amsterdam to Budapest the weather follows you so whatever you are experiencing at the start of your cruise, you will likely have for at least the first few days. We went in September and the weather was perfect last year.

We did Budapest to Amsterdam but not for any of the reasons mentioned so far. If a weather front comes in from the sea to Amsterdam it might be with you for your entire cruise as it heads east.

However, if you go from east to west and that same weather front comes, you will go through the front and (hopefully) emerge into fair weather.

Of course the weather in Amsterdam is iffy any time. A native told me that Amsterdam has 4 kinds of weather: rain, sleet, snow, sun and that one could have 3 of 4 in a single day!