Prague to Berlin

We are considering a Peter Deilmann River Cruise April 28, 2007 from Prague to Berlin on the River Boat Katharina. Wondering if anyone has done this cruise on the Elbe River? We would appreciate any info on the ship, itinerary and the weather at this time of year.

Steamboats has traveled with Deilman but she lives in Munich so probably will not be available till later.

Also if you do a search for Peter Deilmann you will find many posts about Peter Deilmann cruises.

Zephyr1,

We´ve been on Deilmann´s MS Mozart on the Danube river last year. You can read my review linked in my signature. I put up a fact sheet about all Deilmann boats on our www.rivers-rails.com website. I haven´t seen the Katharina von Bora yet. We´ll be on Deilmann´s MS Dresden by the end of May going from Dresden to Hamburg.

steamboats

Steamboats

We will be interested in your report of the Dresden/Hamburg trip. After our Budapest/Amsterdam cruise we are going on to Hamburg for a few days to play the Casino and meet some Swedish friends so a good Hotel recommendation in Hamburg would be handy.

Mike.

Hi Mike,

We haven´t booked a hotel for Hamburg yet. Our cruise ends June 2nd and we haven´t decided how much time we spend in Hamburg.

Last time (2 years ago) we stayed in the Crown Plaza Hotel (Graumannsweg 10 = street address). We got a good deal there, breakfast buffet included. It is conveniently located close to the Alster lake. A bus stop is next to the hotel and a subway station is within a walking distance. I just checked it for our trip but rates are too high.

Etap and Ibis are low budget hotel chains over here. And they usually have some nice downtown locations. I´d avoid St. Pauli (red light district). We´ve stayed in that area years ago in a really nice hotel. DD was less than 2 years old so we didn´t go out at night anyway but that´s an area I´d avoid at night (except the main tourist street there, but the hotel was in a small side street).

Check with

http://www.hamburg-travel.de/irs/TPortal/main/vacancy/hht/quickSearch.jsp;jsessionid=1C298BD0D0C0DF889A0A3FF1CACBB1D9?dummy=1168501021746&LANG=en&session_id=1C298BD0D0C0DF889A0A3FF1CACBB1D9&VPID=TBX00020050001753267

and

http://international.hamburg.de/

Order free brochures (including city map).

The main attractions of Hamburg are close to the Harbor (Landungsbruecken) and the Alster (lake, river). So I´d take a hotel in that main area next to a subway or suburban train stop.

The public transportation system is quite good (not as clean as in Munich, but save)

http://www.hvv.de/

Also check the Hamburg Card which includes public transportation and discounts to many attractions (doesn´t pay off if you stay less than 3 days).

This is a great hotel overlooking the harbor (but not inexpensive)

http://www.hotel-hafen-hamburg.de/

This one is also nicely located along the Elbe river at Finkenwerder (you need to take the ferry to get downtown, also not inexpensive)

http://www.goldentuliphamburgaviation.com/

You need to take a harbor cruise. Just go to the Landungsbruecken. There are a lot of offers there. There´s also a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus starting next to the Landungsbruecken.

Here are some of the bus companies

http://www.hamburg-city-tour.de/indexe.htm

http://www.hummelbahn.de/engl/index.htm

http://www.stadtrundfahrthamburg.de/

http://www.hamburg-stadtrundfahrten.de/

If you love model trains you have to visit

http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/

steamboats

We have actually made a decision and booked a Peter Deilmann river cruise on the MV Frederick Chopin on April 28th. to May 5th from Prague to Berlin.We are planning to spend a couple days pre and post in each city. We were interested if any of our cruise critic friends have taken this cruise or are planning to go this route. Would appreciate any info that anyone could share with us regarding the cruise line, river boat or itinerary.