SnowshoeCat

On 4/7/2024 at 9:52 AM, aussielozzie18 said:

I was so looking forward to our first visit to Sitka next month on the Grand Princess THEN I discovered that we will be in port with the Quantum of the Seas! 

I just checked the port schedule; Quantum will be with us (HAL) in Juneau.

I love train rides, so I thought I might enjoy a little more scenery. It turns out, if I skip the extra day of sightseeing, and only do the ship's tour, I can get a good flight home on disembarkation day.

Flying home to the US from LUX is somewhat inconvenient involving 3 flights and long connections (or scary short ones), making a long day even longer. So I thought after a day of sightseeing in Luxembourg City, I can take an evening train to Brussels and enjoy a relatively relaxing flight home the next day. The trains seem to run every hour. I enjoy a nice train ride, so just wondering if anyone here as tried this option.

22 hours ago, JordanF said:

Ha!  My first thought on reading the caption was that the cruise line ordered their new ship on Amazon...

😁 Oh good, for a second I thought, "Wait! Amazon has a cruise line?"" (I probably wouldn't have been surprised, they seem to have everything else) 😉

A few quick replies.

Right now it says we dock in Grevenmacher, which is the disembarkation point.Trier is an optional excursion. I think Luxembourg is an included excursion, but I plan to spend an extra day on my own. And it's Avalon.

Sorry - we had a death in the family and I'm running around, trying to get ready to travel tomorrow. I'll stop back when I have a chance.

I don't think anyplace is crowd-free anymore, except maybe off-season, just varying levels of crowded. It looks like a nice trip, and I've never been to Luxembourg!

21 hours ago, Kenster said:

The bikes are pretty decent.  In nearly every town, one of the excursions will be a bike tour. Sign up for those well ahead of time as they book up quickly. 
As for using a bike on your own (not in an excursion) you’ll have to check with the Activity Director to see if one is available). I think there are 18 bikes on each ship, plus two E-bikes. 

Good to know, thank you. Did you take any of the bike tours? What were they like? If I'm staying in town, I prefer a walking tour. I'd like to use the bike to get out and enjoy the countryside.

Has anyone here taken advantage of the bikes on board? I'm looking forward to riding along the Moselle and welcome any info. Are the bikes okay? I don't expect anything high end (although that would be a nice surprise), but would like to know what to expect.

I now have a reservation hold for a Moselle sailing in August. Even though I had hoped to go in the autumn, the summer dates worked better, and it might be nice to sit on the deck without bundling up. I also hope to take advantage of the bicycles as much as possible. I'm just wondering, do the Moselle towns get crowded like the Rhine?  I'm thinking it might be a little quieter. I have until Monday to decide.

Thank you for answering. I'm still undecided, although I have started shopping for a new sun hat 😎

On 3/23/2024 at 9:37 AM, megr1125 said:

 Thanks!

 

Not really concerned about beaching lol, I don't do much of that anyway. As much as I like sun and sand, the heat sucks the life out of me! 😄😄

 

 

I can't tolerate the heat, either, so I'd love to hear what kind of survival skills you may have developed(besides drinking lots of water 😉) I'm looking at a Med cruise in September, something I normally wouldn't do, but the itinerary is attractive, with interesting cities and antiquities. I like to walk around and explore, and I'm just afraid the heat will knock me out.

13 hours ago, notamermaid said:

 

I hope you all do and that you are safe and sound in a warm, happy home. And if you are travelling right now can look forward to returning to such a place.

 

 

 

Have a good week.

 

 

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

I'm anticipating a stressful trip next week and find this sentiment absolutely beautiful. Thank you.

Despite losing the last couple of days to a bus ride, I feel as if I were really fortunate on my trip. Rather than stay in Regensburg on the last night, we were put up in a Munich airport hotel. That allowed me to switch to an earlier flight with a better stateside connection. My flights went smoothly. The flight I originally booked was 2 hours late and I would have missed my connection. Then the snows came, then the engineer's strike... I think I used up a year's worth of luck in one week. I am truly sorry for those who are dealing with all these issues, both travelers and travel employees.

On 12/2/2023 at 12:36 PM, twototravel said:

So how does the snow affect river cruising? We leave on Monday arriving in Vienna on Tuesday for the start of our Xmas market cruise on the Monarch Queen. We are scheduled to be onboard 5-17 Dec, so I hope they get her repaired. Anyone with updated info?

When we were at the hotel on Wednesday, one of the cruise directors implied they figured out the problem and they expected the next cruise to be normal. According to the Marine Traffic website, the MQ has been sailing. I just hope it's on schedule and you can enjoy your cruise.

On 11/19/2023 at 4:36 AM, steamboats said:

The first two markets in Munich opened up this week...

 

The Glühwein Festival opened up on Thursday. O.k., that might be a bit off the beaten track (but walkable from my home).

 

A bit easier to reach for most of you is the Christmas and Winter Market at Munich Airport which opened on Friday. They even have an ice skating rink.

 

the first of Advent) and opens Dec 1st (my favorite for more than 40 years now).

 

I think there are approximately 30 markets all over the city - way too many to list them all up on here. These are my favorites and the ones I usually visit (time depending).

 

I hopefully will try out the Regensburger Christkindlmarkt (depending on Deutsche Bahn and whether they go on strike or not) which opens Nov 27th.

 

@Canal archive your recipe reminded me to give my collegue a note to get me some hand made Elisenlebkuchen from Nuremberg.

 

steamboats

I was just in Regensburg yesterday (was it only yesterday? I went from there to the airport, and now I'm back home in the US). It was snowing and festive, and also very cold. I had soup and gluhwein 🙂  I was surprised when I was asked if I wanted red or white.  I tried the white, considering it was white wine country. 

The Munich Airport market looked nice, but it wasn't open at 6 am 😉

Well, we’re taking a bus to Regensburg tomorrow. We’ll still get a tour of the city, then we stay at an airport hotel. That last part works out well for me so I don’t have to worry about the trains, but it is going to be a long day of driving.

Monarch Queen, formerly River Voyager. Isn’t it bad luck to change the name of a ship?
 

My only concern is Regensburg disembarkation is Thursday (and many of us have same day flights) and I’d rather not have a long bus ride. We won’t know anything until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest and I know they’re working hard to have plans in place for different situations. 

So the good news is they said the water levels are cooperating. The bad news is the boat’s broken and we can’t sail until an engineer arrives and hopefully fixes it.  So we’re stuck in Melk.  A bus trip to Salzburg was scheduled for tomorrow, anyway, so not a big inconvenience yet.

Thanks for the heads up. I won’t fret yet🙂

Is Deutsche Bahn really planning a strike? I have a ticket for 30 Nov.

The river does seem fast here in Vienna, and the wind is blowing strong in the same direction. There are even little whitecaps.  I’m watching two swans going nowhere as they try to swim upstream, while another two just swept past in the other direction.

Reporting from Vienna. It’s snowing 🙂  The river looks fast, but I have nothing to compare it to.

When I was looking at a sailing that stopped in Linz, I looked at Google Images to see what the city looked like. I noticed many river ships in the satellite photos. As I scanned, I saw many more. They seemed to be parked everywhere. Then I noticed that the images were from 2020. 

On 11/8/2023 at 12:39 PM, notamermaid said:

You are right. The Monarch Empress is 110m long, the Monarch Queen almost the standard 135m and is the ex-River Voyager. Here are some details: https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?112886-Monarch-Queen-KFGS-02336621

 

What an odd coincidence.

 

Have a great cruise.

 

notamermaid

 

On 11/8/2023 at 4:31 PM, CruiseIreland said:

Indeed, the ship plan/schematic in the hallway just off reception states River Voyager. Nice ship and great crew. You will enjoy it. Ken 

Thank you. I'm looking forward to it, and your review answered a few questions. I read it when it was liveish, but at the time, I was supposed to be on a different ship.

Because the Queen is a larger ship, I looked to see if it was still "sold out". The website is updated and bookings are open with the extra cabins. It seems like they're staying on top of it.

Two weeks out and we already have a ship change. Gate 1 has a nice 5-night cruise between Vienna and Regensburg which I'll be taking at the end of November. Yesterday we received an e-mail that because our scheduled ship (Monarch Empress) couldn't sail between Regensburg and Passau, we will now be using the Monarch Queen, a slightly larger ship.  No big deal to me, but the funny thing is I've already been on this ship. I'm 99% certain it used to be Vantage's River Voyager (if the photos are accurate), and my one and only Vantage cruise was on the RV.   I was in a tiny, single aquarium cabin last time, and looking forward to enjoying the larger, French balcony cabin this time.

Thank you again for your information and quick reply. I was there in the summer, so maybe that's why there was better train service. It wasn't an ICE train, but it was direct and only about 45 minutes to Salzburg. We'd go for the afternoon, have coffee and cake, then return to Prien.