Photography, Large Groups and Newbie to River Cruising

This is my first day reading through River Cruise posts and it's mind numbing. I tried to do searches for photography and free time in ports, but couldn't find much info, so please bear with me.

We started cruising in 2009, and have ocean cruised 10 times, totalling around 250 days. In those 10 trips, we've found we love the port days. We have a tendency to research well in advance, and then strike out on our own, or with two or three other couples when we hit a port.

We've never been to Europe, and I have to admit, coming from a small town of 10 thousand, I'm a little hesitant about whether densely compacted locations may feel really congested. Yet, conversely, we've had wonderful times in larger centres such as Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Lima, and Melbourne.

But when push comes to shove, it's the smaller ports that we often end up smiling about, because we've had a better chance to meet and talk to local people who love their home cities.

Heading out in groups of 40 people...sometimes even 20...at a time seems, well, a little like 'herding cats'. So many varied interests, and needs. Some people want to eat and drink locally. Some want to move, move, move to get as much local colour as possible in the time in port. Many times hearing the guide is hard if you're at the back of a group. And waiting for people at bathrooms can eat up a lot of touring time.

So, we're wondering how we'd fit with river cruises if we LOVE our free time at port during daylight hours for amateur photography. We can spend a LONG TIME waiting for the light we want, or for the right angle.

And you get to talk more often with locals if there's only two or four of you, rather than being part of a group of 40.

I like the concept of moving from location to location in an easy manner. I like the concept of not having to pack and unpack every day as we move along. I like the concept of meeting new people on a small boat of maybe 200 people. I like the concept of smaller towns and interesting walks.

How does one find out in advance how independently one can spend one's time in a port? If we need to check out each cruiseline/itinerary/date the concept becomes daunting.

Or is it likely we're just not meant for river cruising?

Are any of you keen on small group travelling in ports? I'd appreciate any suggestions/comments/observations. You can also email me at

yknot05 at hotmail dot com

That's yknot zero five at hotmail dot com

Thanks!

Like you my wife and I prefer doing our own thing when traveling as we tend to move at a different pace then many and I'm somewhat of a control freak. So I tend to research for up to a year in advance using websites, travel guides, forums, etc... So when I first started looking at a river cruises I was concerned like you but loved the concept of the floating motel. We are going on our first river cruise in July with Uniworld down the Rhine. My research showed that at every port you have the choice of at least 3 different excursion options. A active guided tour, a more relaxed guided tour, and do it yourself. They provide both bicycles and walking sticks if you want them. So I feel we have the best of both worlds. Their excursions are included if we like the way and the feel of them but we can branch out on our own if we prefer. My understanding is that they provid shuttles while in port if you want to come and go from the ship for lunch, etc...

I'm sure you will get feedback from many who are experienced River Cruisers but I wanted to share my thoughts since I understand your concern. I would go to Uniworld's website and you can download brochures to get a better feel. I'm sure the other lines are similar but I chose Uniworld.

If you narrow your selection down to a specific ship and itinerary, and then ask questions, it might be easier to help you, giving you details about the different excursions.

Decide on the river and the towns you want to visit an then look closely at the various cruise lines and itineraries. They are somewhat similar, but each has it's own "brand".

Once your ship docks, you are not obligated to go on any tours, you can make other arrangements, as long as you are back on the ship before it sets sail to the next town, nobody cares.

If you want to use the bus tours just as a means of transportation to a place, you can do that too. Just be sure to find out what time the bus is leaving to go back to the ship.

Lyndaler,

While a river cruise ship is in port and the gangplank is open, you can hit the ground running off to do whatever you want! Just don't miss the boat when it sails off. :-)

We too, are Uniworld fans and will continue to sail with them. When you do set out on a guided tour you will have your own personal 'quietvox' set. A receiver you can hang around your neck or put in a pocket with an over the ear piece with adjustable volume. The guide will have a mic to speak into. You do not have to crowd around the guide at all. I was known to be window shopping half a block away admiring shoes while listen to a history lesson. Multi tasking at it's best.

If you are bored or not interested in the tour you are welcome to slip away to take photos or slip into a cafe or pub.

If a bus ride is required to get to the location of the tour, the guide will let you know where the bus for the return trip will be waiting and at what time. In larger centres public transit is usually nearby, or the tour director can help you with your plans.

It is/your vacation ....enjoy it by doing what makes you happy.

We've traveled only with Avalon but are avid amateur photographers and tour independently.

That said, we use the "guided city tours" offered in every port, sometimes staying with the group, but often striking out on our own.

If a bus was used to get us to city center or to important destination (think fort, cathedral, etc) we see it with the group because we've already paid for it, then ask our guide when the bus will leave and from where. Then we strike out on our own returning in time to catch the ride back.

Often we will simply tell the guide we're leaving and will make our own way back to the ship which could be hours later either walking or using mass transportation.

One of our favorite research tools is frommers.com which gives excellent walking tours with matching maps. That way we can do our own thing, wait for the light, get there early for uncrowded shot, reflections on the water. If we don't finish the walking tour, no harm!

Often by the end of the cruise we're tired of cathedrals and so don't take the guided tours preferring to go out on our own to photograph boats, trees, bicycles propped up on an 800 yr old buildings. It's all good!

River cruising is definitely for photographers, no matter the skill level. Heck, you might just want to go out on your own and leave the others to drink at the cafe! You'll have great memories and even greater pix!

Hello lyndaler,

I have just answered you in the cost comparison thread.

Already great posts here from photography enthusiasts!

I agree that is also a good idea to do the includes guides tour just to get to know the place you are at and maybe come back to a few spots for taking more photos.

Some companies have itineraries that specialize in closer encounters with the locals. I cannot remember where I read this but one company has an optional coffee and cake afternoon with a family living near Speyer in Germany, I believe.

notamermaid

All of the above is good advice I think most cruise companies now have very good devices for hearing a guide from some distance away some are also GPS enabled so no getting lost, some even have a self guided tour of where you are built in. We find them very useful because my other half is always losing me when I spy that must have image and there are always to many of them. Although there are always organised excursions most companies seem to encourage some do it yourself by foot or by bike even electric assisted bikes. I know Scenic has meals with local families on offer on some of their routes we have never tried them but those who have thoroughly enjoyed them. Also although you may not like to be in a somewhat larger group it may be of an advantage at times to join an excursion to a place for that all important, here we go again, not to be missed image opportunity. Happy shooting the photographic kind of course.

Our cruise line makes use of "whispers", the device you wear around your neck and has one ear bud. The guide can talk in a normal voice or, as the name implies, whisper into it, and we can still hear him/her. I think most of the lines use "whispers."

The advantage of that for a photographer is huge! You can "stray" from the pack, still hear the guide, but capture the photo you must have. I shoot, as does mr wonderful, but I can watch him, and if necessary, whistle to get his attention and motion the direction we are going.

I tell the guide before we start that while one of us may stray, the other one will be responsible and keep us with the group and not to worry about us.

Who knew when I was 5 and my grandfather taught me to whistle, that it would be such an important part of my marriage!

SUCH good, practical advice! The info on the headsets was really useful. I've seen them used in the odd museum here and there in the Americas, but only in about 10% of the places/tours we've been on...really frustrating as only the keeners working their way to the sides of the guide get to hear the info.

Didn't know the devices had such good range. Would most of the tours...say 90% make use of them?

I love to hear the details and stories of the guides but because of lack of headsets and preferring not to have to push to the front of the group, have prioritized photo taking and shrugged off the verbal descriptions, going with written details or more research later.

So hearing we can linger, yet hear the details, was great.

Since these boats have, say 200 passengers, do the land tours often end up with smaller tour groups, or do you end up at a site where there are 600 people in smaller groups of say, 25, because 3 boatloads of people hit the location at the same time?

I'm feeling a little more comfortable about river cruising as an option. I still have lots more research, and likely questions for other threads before we pull out our credit cards ;)

Thanks again!

For the percentage of guides who use the headsets... on Uniworld it was just about 100%. I can think of visits to wineries where the people at the winery did not use them, and our Budapest tour only had 6 people, so she didn't use them.

We have not experienced hordes of tour groups on our trips. Sometimes it's inevitable (like visiting the Melk Abbey, it's one destination) -- but for the city or town tours, the Uniworld guides tend to go in slightly different directions or do things in a slightly different order. You might see another group, but they try to keep a little distance.

As far as groups from other ships, I will say our Uniworld guides would joke about moving on because the "Vikings are invading". The Uniworld ships have closer to 120-130 people, there were normally 5-6 groups. Our groups seemed to be about 20 people each. We did see groups from other ships (mainly Viking, but also some Tauck), but that was normally in places where there was just one main site.

Most River ships have far less than 200 pax. I think 120-140 is a good number. The Viking long ships have up to 180, same amount of space. Something for you to consider.

All of the ships use the whisper devices. Sometimes I just take mine out of my ears. Other times it was imperative, like when we were at Versailles and amongst a crush of 100s of other tourists.:eek:

since photographer/whisper questions are the most important :) i'll answer those first and give you our experiences (and only OUR experiences!)

We can stray ~50' from the guide and be able to take pix and still hear or as Mr Wonderful just said "we can walk on the other side of the street, are away from the group, hear what the guide says and still be able to take pictures."

Even if he or I wander away from the whisper range to take pix, the other person can briefly fill in the missing info.

Yes, there is the potential to have several boats at the same port and therefore lots of people in the same general location. The tour guides try to arrange it so that within a boat not everyone is there at the same time. So in a museum we might be in one room while another group is in another room and then we switch. The river cruise ports generally are not as crowded as St Thomas!

The potential does exist for lots of people in one place. That is going to happen even if you do a private tour or DIY. There have been some times that he and I sneak away to take pictures of something just as we arrive and it isn't crowded and then rejoin our group inside by flashing our Avalon ID. I always say "sorry I went to the bathroom" and they smile at the crazy American lady.

Speaking of bathrooms, always be on the lookout for one, and try to use it before everyone else does, even if it means missing 3 minutes of the guide's talk. That way the women in your group aren't standing in line for 20 minutes. (You can thank me later!)

I remember that at Giverny (which I highly rec'd) our Avalon ship was the first to climb on buses and we were well through the tour before the other cruise buses came. One of the Avalon group walkedthrough town, another through Monet's house, another went to the famous bridge in the gardens and then we all played switchys. It was an excellent experience.

When you go to the ship's lobby there will be color-coded boxes with whispers wearing that color. If you are traveling with a group, it helps for one of you to go grab that number of whispers so that you all are on the same bus which also has that color advertised in its window. Your guide will also have a sign with the color on it.

If you decide to leave the group, please tell the guide because he/she keeps track by number of people and you don't want to hold up the bus waiting on you/your group if you have left.

Do your research ahead of time when you decide on an itinerary. It might be that you don't want to go on the guided tour because you want to take pictures of flowers, or walls, or boats, or street signs, and the light is just perfect, and the thoughts of another 700 year old church is just too much. Your research will help you make that decision.

Other times you will want to go with the city tour because there is an admission charge into something that you should or want to see. The internet is wonderful about showing you pictures of what you will see on the itinerary stops and you can decide if you want to see it and it will also give you examples of how to take a glorious picture. (nothing wrong with using someone else's perspective!!!)

as i said in another post, we use frommers.com for their walking tours and accompanying maps and do a bunch of DIY for our photography.

Hope this all helps a little. Have fun researching and shooting!

On our recent Uniworld tour upon checking in, our photo was taken to be electronically enmeshed with our room 'key'. This looked like a credit card. Every time we left the ship we were to flash the card at an electronic reader. Up popped our photo in the absent from the ship list. When returning, again, pass your card over the reader and your photo moved over to the on board side.

The quiet vox units were in in the closet in our cabin in a recharging dock. The daily newsletter indicated when we were to take them with us on tours. A great system.

On our recent Uniworld tour upon checking in, our photo was taken to be electronically enmeshed with our room 'key'. This looked like a credit card. Every time we left the ship we were to flash the card at an electronic reader. Up popped our photo in the absent from the ship list. When returning, again, pass your card over the reader and your photo moved over to the on board side.

This is a great upgrade to the practice of taking a numbered card (that is so easy to forget to turn back in!) or leaving your room key on a hook (which I've heard some older ships still use).

One of the prior posts indicated that their whispers were in their room which sounds like they kept them for the duration of the trip.

I probably wouldn't like that since I want to be able to choose my "color" which allows me to choose what companions I don't want to be with. Once we had a woman on our first city tour that was unhappy about everything--I waited until I saw what color she had chosen and then I chose another!

Another time we had a heavy smoker and I really had problems being in the group with him as he left smoke in his wake so I chose not to be in his group.

One of the prior posts indicated that their whispers were in their room which sounds like they kept them for the duration of the trip.

 

I probably wouldn't like that since I want to be able to choose my "color" which allows me to choose what companions I don't want to be with. Once we had a woman on our first city tour that was unhappy about everything--I waited until I saw what color she had chosen and then I chose another!

 

Another time we had a heavy smoker and I really had problems being in the group with him as he left smoke in his wake so I chose not to be in his group.

That's really not an issue with either system. We kept our QuietVox units in our room for charging, but for each day's tour you picked up a colored ticket at the front desk -- that allowed you to choose your companions. [This may be more important to some people than others, but by keeping your unit in your room you know where those earbuds have been!]

That's really not an issue with either system. We kept our QuietVox units in our room for charging, but for each day's tour you picked up a colored ticket at the front desk -- that allowed you to choose your companions. [This may be more important to some people than others, but by keeping your unit in your room you know where those earbuds have been!]

Even if the boxes are collected every day the earbuds remain with you. Those are never handed back in.

Even if the boxes are collected every day the earbuds remain with you. Those are never handed back in.

Good to know. Thanks!

Even if the boxes are collected every day the earbuds remain with you. Those are never handed back in.

We just returned from our third Viking cruise, and we were told that Viking has begun returning the earpieces to QuietVox for recycling. When we came back from dinner on the night before leaving the ship, the QuietVox units were in their charger, but the earpieces had been removed. Given their unique plug in, they probably won't fit anything besides a QuiteVox anyhow.

It's interesting to look on QuietVox's web site. Apparently they do not sell the units, but rent them to the tour provider for €1.20 per guest per day.

FuelScience

Additional clarification regarding the Uniworld quiet vox system. The earpiece is not one of those ear buds that you jam into your ear, but has a section that hooks over your ear and the tiny speaker covers your ear like a tiny little ear muff. It is designed to fit over your left ear, as I recall.

As far as picking groups for the tours, the guides would be outside of the ship holding their 'lollypops' with Uniworld and a number on them (think of the school crossing guard holding a stop sign) . One was always designated for the gentle walking group and the rest were just there....go and stand next to the one you wanted to stand next to. If you felt it wasn't going to be the group for you, you just casually moved over to another group...maybe there were less people in the next one and you wanted to help balance the numbers :-)

As long as you were standing close to your guide when he / she turned on her microphone and your receiver picked up their signal all was good. Once the walk began you could wander and still hear their voice. If there was some interference from another guide as you were wandering you just turned off your receiver, walked up close to your guide and turned your vox box back on.

We just returned from our third Viking cruise, and we were told that Viking has begun returning the earpieces to QuietVox for recycling. When we came back from dinner on the night before leaving the ship, the QuietVox units were in their charger, but the earpieces had been removed. Given their unique plug in, they probably won't fit anything besides a QuiteVox anyhow.

 

It's interesting to look on QuietVox's web site. Apparently they do not sell the units, but rent them to the tour provider for €1.20 per guest per day.

 

FuelScience

That is true, but during the cruise your earpiece is yours. It is only returned at the end of the trip. When we first started cruising and the boxes and earpieces were handed out, only the boxes were returned. They told us to either keep the earpiece or throw it away.

Hello lyndaler,

 

I have just answered you in the cost comparison thread.

 

Already great posts here from photography enthusiasts!

 

I agree that is also a good idea to do the includes guides tour just to get to know the place you are at and maybe come back to a few spots for taking more photos.

Some companies have itineraries that specialize in closer encounters with the locals. I cannot remember where I read this but one company has an optional coffee and cake afternoon with a family living near Speyer in Germany, I believe.

notamermaid

That would be Grand Circle (and also OATS). The "Home Hosted Visit" is part of every one of their trips, whether cruise or land. Speyer is only one of the cities that hosts these visits. Locations vary by itinerary, even among cruises that travel the same waterway.

As for the listening devices, I have found that they are good for much more than 50' as long as there is not a lot of buildings between transmitter and receiver, several hundred meters if there is line of site. I'm a wanderer, and I love them. More than once I've heard, "wait there CPT." Also, with GCT, the device stays with you only being returned once or twice for recharging. If you bring your own headphones or stereo buds, don't be surprised if only one side works.

Hi! I have never been on a river cruise, but I we just booked our first, and I am an obsessive researcher.

One of my favorite river cruise bloggers is "from the deck chair." Check out his postings (link below). You will see how easy he found it to take off from the group when he desired and his photography of the towns he visited proves in some cases it was well worth it.

http://www.fromthedeckchair.com/2014/04/

Which attractions forbid photography or require you to deposit your cameras and phones?

Any comments on taking videos versus still images? As I am the main photographer in my family, I think I'll be taking the video camera and my iPhone 5S, but not sure if I should also take the DSLR with the 18-200 mm lens. If the attractions don't allow photography then I don't want to check in three things every time.

Take the DSLR, especially with the lens you're using;it's the only one i use. Mr. Wonderful carries the telephoto, wide angle, etc and shoots for specific situations...I'm the generalist in the family! It is the perfect lens to capture close ups of street signs or of an entire harbor! (trust me, you'll kick yourself for not bringing it.)

Does your DSLR have video capability? I use mine for street dances, etc but we don't carry a video camera.

Our experience is that few cathedrals say no to shooting unless services are in progress but many do not want flash. If you're not allowed to shoot, there is a camera glyph with the international slash mark over it posted at the front of the cathedral.

Your city guide will be able to tell you about photography before you enter the building, or leave the bus if you came in one, which will allow you to shove it in a bag, or leave stuff on the bus. The driver is good about staying with the bus and locking it up to protect your stuff.

I can't remember any place along the Rhine or Danube where we couldn't take pictures.

Just remember your battery charger and extra SIM cards. They can be expensive in the photo shops in the small towns. We travel with a small laptop and he downloads our pix every night just for back up. (He also takes the time every once in a while to dump the ones that don't make the cut!!!)

River cruising and photography are made for each other!