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Thank you, I did find some nice photos of the area, looks great!

Considering the Rhine on Gate 1 next summer. They offer a 4 hour trip to Colmar. Has anyone opted for the excursion with Gate 1 or similar.... any thoughts? Looks like a nice area to explore.

thanks in advance.

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Hi Floridiana

As of last year Gate 1 has 3 ships and I believe another on the way -

http://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Gate-1-quietly-enters-river-cruise-fray

The ships were previously with the amawaterways fleet, I believe the next ship is from a different company.

Emerald looks like it has some nice cruises.

We recently traveled on Gate 1 and were very happy with the trip. Emerald seems to fit similarly in pricing their cruises, does anyone have experience with both cruise lines and could comment or compare their experiences?

thanks!

What about the excursions to Salzburg and Cesky Krumlov? Are they worth the cost?

Cesky Krumlov was not offered in our trip but if offered we would have probably signed up for it too. We did take the optional trip to Salzburg. Although before we got on the bus we went on an early morning walk around Passau (self-guided) which is a pretty little town. Otherwise, we would have missed Passau entirely because the bus meets the ship further down the river. The trip did include a lunch, although I would have rather wandered into a local restaurant instead. The lunch was a turkey schnitzel, which was so-so, a similar experience to ordering the chicken option at a wedding ;), but others thought it was fine... so what do I know? and honestly it's just lunch, it was more important that we were in Salzburg. What's that saying about the small stuff...

Was worth it worth going? - I would have regretted not going to Salzburg for the single reason that I don't know if we will ever have the chance again, and the cost was minimal since we were already in the neighborhood. We enjoyed the excursion including the bus trip through the meticulous farmland.

View from the Salzburg - Hohensalzburg Fortress via the funicular:

a couple more...

I have only one question, what was the dress code for breakfast and lunch, with the heat there this time of year, dress shorts is what we thinking of wearing, and dress pants for dinner.

We found the dress code to be very lenient, the ship was well air-conditioned so pants or shorts is fine. And as for the tours... you should definitely wear comfortable shoes and attire, especially if the forecast is for warm days.

We had a great trip on the Monarch Queen (first river cruise... first cruise) - Regensberg to Budapest. A couple photos from the trip below. This was a trial run for us to see if we would like river cruises and it was a success. Gate 1 did a great job, no complaints, met some very nice people on-board, and the price certainly made it easy for us to give it a go...