Dec 2-12 GC Christmas Market Cruise Review

Part 1

I just returned from the Dec 1 Grand Circle River Ravel Christmas Markets Cruise. It was my mother, 65, and myself, 40, on this cruise as we left the husbands at home. We totally considered this a "shopping cruise" since it was called the Christmas Markets. We did the pre trip in Basel, Switzerland, and were very glad that we did. Those extra days were lots of fun and just the right amount of time to adjust to the time difference before getting on the boat. I would highly recommend it.

We arrived in Basel on a Tuesday morning after leaving Phoenix the previous day. As this was my very first trip to Europe, you can imagine my excitement! I didn't sleep a wink on the plane, so we were very ready for a nap upon arrival. GC had a rep at the airport to meet us once we cleared customs and quickly had us in a cab and on our way to our hotel. Karla, our program director, was waiting for us at the hotel and we were the very first to arrive. She had arranged with the hotel to have rooms available right away, which ended up being a true blessing. Unfortunately, my mother had started feeling ill upon arrival and soon had a bad case of the flu. We ended up having the hotel call for a doctor who arrived quickly and gave her a few miracle drugs which had her back on her feet the next morning.

Since I was dealing with the doctor and such, I had missed the first walking tour and group get together that evening. Karla felt bad for me, so she took me on my own private tour and we had dinner together that night. I can't say enough good things about her! Basel was very easy to get around and the hotel provided us with trolly passes for the entire time we were there, which were great.

Basel was just wonderful and the Christmas Market was tons of fun! Our shopping tour had just begun and already we had some wonderful treasures to take home. We took the optional tour to Bern on Thursday. It was a beautiful ride and the city was fantastic. Mom and I were there for one thing, SHOPPING! We quickly ditched the group and off we went in search of the Christmas markets. Unfortunately, they weren't open yet, so that was kind of disappointing. Oh well, we found plenty of other nice things.

1pm we loaded back into the buses for a ride into the countryside to tour a cheese factory. It was a beautiful ride thru the small villages and the snow covered hills. Just like you picture it in your mind. Learned a lot more about cheese than I ever really needed to hear, but enjoyed seeing the dairy and petting the cows. They were the best tended and cleanest cows I have ever seen in my life and it was fun to see how proud the farmer was of his herd.

Friday was our day to get on the boat. I kind of felt like it was a wasted day in a lot of ways. They wanted us at the hotel by 10:45 to load luggage and get on buses at 11:30. We arrived at the boat about noon and were quickly escourted to our room. We had a balcony room, totally spotless, with plenty of room. I've been on 6 big cruise ships and this room was very comparable. Little short on the closet space, but workable. We were really glad we had a balcony as the rooms were very warm. We turned off our heat and it hardly ever went back on. We even kept the door cracked most of the time. We called the balcony our refrigerator as we kept some snacks and a few bottles of diet coke out there. It was very handy! Luggage showed up very fast and we unpacked in no time. After lunch on board, we decided to take the tram back to the Christmas market for one last quick look to make sure there wasn't anything else we really couldn't live without. I really wish that we would of had the option for another tour. A group doing the post trip went to Lucern that day and since the boat didn't sail until later that night, I don't see why we weren't offered that too. Some did it on their own and I wish we would have.

I kind of think that Switzerland was my favorite stops in a lot of ways. It was very expensive. I was disappointed that we didn't get to do a tour to the Alps though. That's kind of what I think of when I think Switzerland, if you know what I mean. We were told that there was snow up to your waist, temps were below 0, it was a 4 hour train ride one direction and would be about $200. 4 people in our pre tour group did it on their own. They said temps were about the same, low 30's and there was very little snow, but it was expensive and a long day. They only had about an hour and a half before getting back on the last trian out for the day, so not sure it would have been worth it. Guess that will be for another trip.

Part 2 coming

Part 2

Since I didn't know what to expect on what a river boat would be like, I was very pleasantly surprised. As I said, the rooms are very comparable to the big ships. Not as much closet space, bathroom about the same, nice little make up table that had a large cabinet behind the mirror. Beds were folded into the wall during the day and brought down at night. Easy enough to put your bed up or down yourself and we found out after the fact that the head of the bed can be tilted up if you want to read or are used to sleeping on an angle.

The Ravel could hold 116 passengers, I think. We only had 106, so it wasn't a full boat. The main deck had the dining room at the back of the boat, rooms, reception desk and library were kind of the middle and the lounge and bar at the front of the boat. Not sure if they always have a piano in the lounge as a comment was made about it being special for the Christmas cruises, but we did have one and a pro player every night. Never went downstairs, but it was just more rooms and crew quarters, kitchen, engines that sort of thing from what I saw on the diagram. The lounge always had coffee, hot chocolate, water, nuts, cookies, fruit available. I really liked going and getting a cup of hot chocolate after a long day of shopping!

The crew was just delightful. Younger crowd, even the captain was only 39 and a total looker! He had all the women just swooning every time he passed by. Everyone just went out of their way for us. Reminded me of how it used to be on the big ships. The waiters learned the first day that I don't drink coffee at breakfast and prefer a diet coke. Never had to ask for one again. Didn't matter where I sat either. As soon as I sat down with my plate, I had a glass of diet coke placed in front of me.

Food was probably one of the only things I would really complain about. Breakfast and great and a nice variety. I liked that they would make an omlet to order and had one almost every morning. They had lots of other things available too, so no problems. We only had lunch on board maybe 3 times and it was okay. They usually had 2 entrees to choose from plus a buffet you could have too. Little more of a fancy meal that I typically eat for lunch, but it was nice.

Dinner was my issue. We had 2 entrees to choose from every night, sometimes 3. If there was a 3rd, it was a vegetarian entree and was usually tofu. Yuck! Sorry, if you are a tofu eater, but not for me. Of the other two choices, one was always fish. Being from Phoenix, I've never learned to like fish, so that didn't work for me. Mom likes fish, but said every time she tried it, it wasn't fresh but frozen and tasted too fishy, so she didn't like it either. The final choice usually wasn't too great either. I think there was only 2 nights that it was more of a normal, boring, American type of meal. Otherwise, it would be veal, duck, venison or pheasant. Sorry, I am just a meat and potatos type of gal and just wanted something a little more normal. It said on our daily sheets that we could always order chicken breast, which we did. It looked grey and was dry, so not a great option. We finally decided just to eat dinner off the ship a few nights, so we ended up eating brats in the Christmas markets once or twice which was fine. We didn't want to make a big stink about the meals since it was my being a picky eater and not really their problem. One night the cruise director found out we hadn't been eating dinner and he got all upset. He came to our room and wanted to have us sent something from the kitchen. Really went out of his way to make sure we were happy. Anyway, long story short, he told us to order steak any time we felt like it, which we did, 2 times. It wasn't the greatest steak, but at least I liked it! The waiters ended up teasing me about the fish thing and any time they put something in front of me, they would tell me it was fish. We got a lot of laughs about it any way!

The other thing I really like about the ship was all the little extras they did. On Dec 6 is when Santa visits for them, if I got the story right. Anyway, we had to put one of our shoes out our door that night and in the morning, Santa had been by! We each got an Advent calander and some chocolate angels in our shoe. It was really funny to see all the shoes in the hallway. We also had a childrens choir visit and sing one night after dinner. They were just wonderful. The crew did a show for us one night that had us laughing so hard we were crying. There were just so many personal touches. The girls at the front desk knew our names within the first day and we never had to tell them which cabin when getting our cards to get off the boat. That type of service will have me coming back, you can count on it.

Part 3 to come soon!

One thing I learned about doing this cruise is that next time I will time it a little better. We were lucky in the sense that the cruise before us had hardly any of the Christmas markets open yet. The only market that wasn't open for us was in Bern and that was an optional tour. Where we ran into trouble was on the weekends. We had 2 weekends to deal with.

Our first stop was on a Saturday and we were in Kaysersberg, France. What a great town! Very beautiful, lots of history, but MILLIONS of people! I saw at least 35 buses parked where we parked, no joke. I counted them! Later I found out that was only one area to park at. The place was just swarming. The roads or walking streets were very narrow and sometimes really hard to even walk. The Christmas market was kind of small but had some nice things. Lots of little shops open, but you could hardly get into them, much less walk around and look at everything. Really took a lot of the charm away.

Sunday was Strasbourg and a canal boat tour around the city was included. We did this kind of early, at 8:30am, the boat was kind of warm and there were a lot of people falling asleep by the end of the hour long tour. The Cathedral was exceptional and maybe my favorite. ALL of the bells started going at one point and it just sent shivers up my arms. It was a huge Christmas market which was a good thing since everything else was closed. So much good shopping and all we could do was look in the windows!

Monday the buses took off early again at 8:30 to go to Baden-Baden. We didn't have nearly enough time here and could have very easily spent 2 or 3 days there! 2 hours or so wasn't long enough. Buses returned to the ship which had now docked in Speyer at about 1pm. Speyer was also nice, but we were so disappointed in our limited time in Baden-Baden it was kind of hard to enjoy it. Christmas Market was rather small and it was the only stop that I didn't buy anything at. We did get to hear a beautiful outdoor concert that evening since we stayed in town for dinner. Just was rather chilly!

Tuesday kind of got screwed up. We were supposed to have a friend pick us up for the day, but his scheduled got changed. We could have gone and done the optional Heidelberg tour but since they were doing a museum tour that we had no interest in, we elected to stay on the ship and sail with it to Mainz. There were about 30-40 of us that stayed on and it was a nice break. We had been going for a week non stop and the day to sleep in and kind of lay around did us some good. We arrived in Mainz at about 5pm and immediately took off for town. It was a huge Christmas market, but we termed it the "eating market" since most of the booths were dedicated to food or goodies.

Wednesday was a full day in Mainz and we took advantage of it. Hit the stores as soon as they opened and made a haul on shoes and purses. There were a few German and Italian brands that were a third of the price of what we pay here, so I came home with 5 new pairs of shoes!

Thursday was sailing thru all the castle country which was breathtaking. Seemed like there was a new castle about every mile or so we sailed! Best viewing was up on the sun deck, but boy was it cold! We got our blankets from the rooms and wrapped up in them and stayed outside a good 2 hours as we didn't want to miss a thing. Finally we couldn't feel our face any more, so had to go in, but it sure was fun.

Friday was Cologne. My only complaint here was that we docked so far away from everything. It was a pretty long walk and we weren't the only ones to feel the pain. I would say this was the best stop for Christmas markets. There were 6 different markets and we managed to get to 5 of them. The Dome was awesome but so crowded later in the day. Visit it first thing in the morning if you can. My shoe binge continued, so the day was very successful.

Saturday was Dusseldorf and a mad crush of people. Goes back to the weekend thing. I would avoid a trip that had two weekends in it! Crowds were amazing. At some points you couldn't even walk. As far as I could tell the Christmas market was huge, but lots of times the crowd was so think, we couldn't even get over to the booths to look. We basically wore ourself out just fighting the crowds and finally just gave up. They did have a shuttle bus to the ship which was nice but it seemed like most people gave up rather early that day. We went back to the ship around 5pm and were one of the last ones to return.

Sunday was Nijmegen and deader than a doornail. Not a soul was out on the streets until after lunch and of course nothing was open. Unless you do the optional tour to the liberation museum, just plan on having a very relaxing day. We were very disappointed. This was also our day for the home hosted dinner, but that was disappointing too. Our hosts were from Suriname originally and while they were very nice, getting them to talk was like pulling teeth. The dinner was good, but we didn't feel like we had experienced a Dutch family. Others had more of the experince that we had imagined it would be, so it was really just the luck of the draw.

We arrived over night in Amsterdam and the people with the early morning flights were off the boat by 4:45am. Rather early! We were lucky enough to have a 12:30 flight, so didn't get kicked off until 9am. Didn't see much of amsterdam other than the drive to the airport, so if you want to experience it be sure to do the post tour. Quite a few from our pre tour stayed for this too. Our program directors were very helpful getting off and getting us to the right places at the airport, so no worries. All tips were included for the porters for getting our luggage off the boat, but since we had extra after all our massive shopping, we left little extra tips. Our luggage was the first to be loaded!

I'll wrap this up in the next post, I promise!

Since I've been home a few days now and have had time to look at all my pictures and reflect on my trip, I thought I would finish off my review.

I guess my only real disappointment on this trip were the attitudes of some of the other passengers. It seemed like we ran into quite a few grouchy old people. I really thought everyone would be full of Christmas cheer, but it wasn't the case. We quickly learned who the old grumps were and carefully avoided them the rest of the trip. Did I let this ruin my time? Certainly not! I just feel it was such a shame that they couldn't seem to enjoy this wonderful trip. But, if I have a choice between grouchy old people and screaming kids, I'll take the old people any day of the week! :)

I am sorry to write such a long review. Guess I just got carried away. If any of you that have been brave enough to read all this and still have some questions, feel free to ask away! I'll do my best to answer any and all.

Great report, Pam! Sounds like yet ANOTHER dedicated river cruiser! Not to say that ocean cruises should be abandoned but it is a nice change to travel on the rivers (even with us old folks!).

Clarence:)

Pam, I am so inpressed and happy you wrote such a detailed review..I felt I was with you in all the places..we will do our first river trip next October on Viking and we are now REALLY looking forward to it..

Glad you had such a wonderful time..arent you lucky to have gone with your Mom!!!

Jan

crzunlimited

Pam,

Your review is not too long and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and reliving my tour last Nov. My trip was the Great Rivers with GCT and we had some ports in common. I also took my blanket and with 2 other friends sat on the deck so as not to miss the wonderful sights. It was cold, but so worth it. We were early for the Christmas Markets, but we did find two and they were fun. Too bad you missed Heidelberg....thoroughly enjoyed that town. Sundays were a problem on our trip also. Everything was closed which left us with just walking tours and church visits, but still interesting. Merry Christmas.

L.L.

AZ Pam: My husband and I just returned from this tour yesterday afternoon. We have mixed feelings about the whole trip. I agree that the older crowd was a bit difficult for some of us who are traveling in our "younger" years before our knees give out!! They are great people but we did not have much in common due to the age difffernce.We tried to be friendly, but either they went to take a nap or didn't have much energy..our first river cruise and while we really enjoyed the smaller numbers, I was a bit disappointed in the Christmas Markets. I thought they would be much more different than they were. It seemed in every city we stopped, all the markets had the very same things for sale. Anyway, we had a good time, bought some unique items for the family and view this trip as something very different but very fun. I agree with the shopping in Dusseldorff..what a grand city!! The side trips (we, too, ditched the others and did our own thing!) were great and the high points of our whole trip. Am so glad you and your mom had just a great time! Happy New Year!

Pam..Enjoyed your review very much. We did the GCT Rhine-Mosel cruise last August and visited some of the same places. Your home-hosted dinner in Nijmegen sounded just like ours! The whole group complained to the program directors but it doesn't look like they got the message! We, too, were on the Ravel but, unlike you, had no complaints about the food. My husband and I were among the "older folks" on the ship but I hope we weren't seen as grumpy! This was our second river cruise and we hope to do another one this year.

Dorothy

Thanks all for your kind words! I so enjoyed my trip and would love to do it all over again!

Katbird, I'm surprised you were disappointed in the Christmas Markets! While we did see some of the same things at all of them, we were really surprised at how much different stuff they had too. Maybe you just had to hunt for the differences, but that is what were were there for and didn't have any problems finding things. The older crowd didn't really bother me too much, just the grumpy ones. I knew it was going to be that way going, so was prepared for it. And like I said, I'd rather sail with an older crowed that with kids that are totally out of control!

Dorothy, did you ever get any response back from GC re your home hosted dinner? It was just such a disappointment and our group expressed that to our program director and again on my feed back form. I just wonder if they do anything about it?

I got my first new catalog from GC yesterday in the mail. Now if I could just figure out somehow to convince my husband he wants to do one of these! Any good suggestions???? :)

Pam- I wasn't totally disappointed in the Christmas Markets, they just didn't have a lot of different items for sale. We didn't have the massive crowds that you obviously had and we did get around to most of the vendors. We found mostly food and mulled wines for sale and different items; however, the stops we made had basically the same things. Dusseldorff was the best market we experienced and that is where we purchased most of the items we took back home. It was really a good experience and I wish you luck in getting your husband to go with you on one. Mine had no problem!!!

No, I never received a response from GCT regarding the home-hosted dinner. Our program director told me verbally that the family in question would be eliminated from the program. However, I don't know how much weight her opinion was given. I did include my remarks in the post-trip survey. also. For another river cruise suggestion, I would encourage you to take the Holland in the Springtime trip. We did it several years ago and it was wonderful!

Dorothy

Dorothy,

The Holland tulip trip is one that has already caught my eye. Also the ones thru the French countryside and wine country. Would love to do both of those! Unfortuantely, with two kids in university and just having paid the spring semester tuition, I am feeling rather poor at the moment and can't imagine getting to do those any time soon! We do have a spring break cruise with the family planned for the Southern Caribbean on the Golden Princess in March, so at least I have that to look forward to.

Guess I will just have to read all about everyone elses wonderful river trips for a while!

AZPam,

You mentioned that you were able to drink Diet coke for breakfast. Do you need to purchase it from the bar (how much?) or is it included with the meals? I don't drink coffee...but I am addicted to Diet Coke. I want to verify if it is readily available, as I would suspect the bar is probably not open first thing in the morning to buy it. I know this is a minor issue but any info you have on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

I am sure you will enjoy your family cruise to the Southern Caribbean. Hopefully, you will get to take another river cruise one of these days.

Dorothy

AZPam' date='

You mentioned that you were able to drink Diet coke for breakfast. Do you need to purchase it from the bar (how much?) or is it included with the meals? I don't drink coffee...but I am addicted to Diet Coke. I want to verify if it is readily available, as I would suspect the bar is probably not open first thing in the morning to buy it. I know this is a minor issue but any info you have on this would be appreciated. Thanks.[/quote']

I never purchased coke from the bar as I usually only have one in the morning. I had brought on board 3 bottles and took them to breakfast with me the first few mornings. Once the waiters realized that was what I would drink in the morning rather than coffee, they would always bring me a glass. I know there were others that had soda at night with dinner rather than the offered glass(es) of wine, so I would venture to guess that you can have soda with any meal you wish. Sorry, but I have no idea what they charged at the bar for soda.

I just returned from the Rhine River Holiday cruise with GCT, and the cokes that I got onboard cost $2 at the bar. I didn't try getting one instead of wine at dinner - if only I had thought of it, I would much rather have a coke than wine any day! I noticed they have Coke Light there instead of diet coke.

Lorraine

Hi Pam!!

FANTASTIC review!!

The minute you talk Ron into this trip (ummm... winter 2009 after B gets out of college?) I'd better be getting an email!! If we did it early enough in December, David MIGHT just be able to wrangle some time off. Glad you and your Mom had such a wonderful time! I'm a lovely shade of green right now!

Enjoy the spring break cruise without us (waaaah) - Cory is touring with the choir and we couldn't have gone anyway, so it's just as well we didn't book it. How do you feel about Alaska summer 2007? heheheheeee

:)

Pam,

I glad you were happy with your trip. I have been on 7 GCT river cruises (3 Great Rivers, Rhine & Mosel, Rhone River, Eastern Europe, and Russia). I have enjoyed each and traveled at different times of the year for the variety. I returned from my most resent trip (Great Rivers) on November 29th. The Christmas Markets were open in the last 5 cities (Nuremburg, Bamberg, Passau, Regensburg & Vienna) so I was able to sample those for the first time. As you may guess I like the Great Rivers trip the best since I've done it 3 times. Next year I plan on doing the Rhine & Mosel again. I do a land tour every year also but I travel as a single and like comraderie on the river cruises. I really enjoy how the crew treats everyone (even the grouches). I am usually one of teh youngest on the ship but always seem to find many other travelers with interests similar to mine. I'm sorry you did not care for the food since this is another one of the top marks I always give GCT.

Great review, Pam. Felt like I was there and enjoyed the trip. I've been to most of the places you mentioned so brings back fond memories. I'm sorry you missed Heidelberg. That was one of my favorite stops. I've been to 3 home meals on the last two trips and all were delightful. Sorry you got an unpleasant one. As for the food on the ships, I found it very good. But then I like fish and sea food. I prefer that most of the time when I have a choice. I was curious about a winter time cruise and you convinced me I don't want to go to Europe in the winter. I'll stick to the Caribbean in the winter. I'll be going on my 3rd river boat cruise the end of Aug. It's so great to sit on deck and watch the scenery that time of year. I try to travel light, so don't want to bring a lot of cold weather clothes along. Nor do I want to do a lot of shopping so as to have heavy suitcases to haul back home. To each their own, right? But I did really enjoy hearing what it was like.

Carole

"To each their own" is a great way to put it! That's exactly what I like about doing a cruise. There is a little something for everybody. I liked the fact that we could just take off and do our own thing when the organized tour didn't appeal to us. And it was fun to come back at night and hear about everyone's day and what they did.

Food is such a subjective thing. And, I know that I am a picky eater, so I really try not to make a fuss about it. I was just so impressed that GC tried to make sure I was happy and had something to eat when I didn't care for what was on the menu. That says a lot about the customer service, to me anyway.

I'm not sure when, but one of these days I'll be back on Grand Circle and a river cruise again! I highly recommend it for all, no matter what your age is! :)

Pam, how did you get your picture on this thread? That is really neat. By the way we have 10 of us booked for a GCT trip next Aug. 25, "Romance of the Rhine and Mosel". Why don't you join us? Yes, I'm really impressed with GCT and their personal service. I have allergies to certain foods and the maitre'd made sure every meal that I had special plates prepared that didn't have any of the allergens on them. She knew my name from the first day on. She even went out of her way to warn me when we were eating ashore to be careful. Just a little personal touch goes a long ways. If you are interested, email me at caesker@hotmail.com.

Carole

Carole,

Thanks so much for the invite! I would love to go along as it sounds like a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, with two kids in university and a husband that has limited vacation time, a river cruise this year isn't going to work out. After just paying tuition for the spring semester and then having to buy books yesterday, I am feeling extra poor at the moment! Going to have to save my pennies for a while, I guess.

As for the picture, you would have to ask my kids that! I have no idea since they did it for me! But, you would be surprised at how many people on a ship will recognize me just from that sillly picture. We were on the Diamond Princess last March and I had people calling me by name and telling me hello. It was rather nice, but strange too, if you know what I mean.

Hi Pam,

My wife and I took the exact trip, but the reverse itinerary, leaving Amsterdam on December 10 and traveling to Basel. It was our first River Cruise, although we have traveled to Europe several times before.

We loved Grand Circle. We thought everything was first class all the way. We were the youngest on the boat, with my wife checking in at 47 years old. I did not find any of the folks to be "old", even though many were in their eighties. Everyone was very friendly to us - staff, crew and most of all the passengers.

We were advernturesome with the food and ate the duck, lamb and pheasant. Normally not something we would eat, but we found the food to be terrific - it gave us an opportunity to eat something we would otherwise have not chose. To each his own, but we found that to be an interesting part of the trip. We have considered a return trip on another GCT boat, and are a bit worried about how our traveling companions will adapt to the food --- no chicken fingers and french fries!!

We enjoyed the Christmas Markets, and also thought that Strasbourg was our favorite city, although we enjoyed Nimijgen as well and had a great time with our home hosted dinner there. Our host lived in an apartment in the shadow of the cathederal, and as we sat in his living room we could hear the church bells and look directly at the cathederal, which was less than 100 feet away. A great evening .....

All and all, we thought Grand Circle was terrific...

Dave Zemens

dwzemens@comcast.net

Hey all,

I've had so many emails for my packing list which has also ended with lots of fun discussions I've really enjoyed. A common question I seem to be getting are questions about my past cruise, so thought I would go and find this old review I did and bump it up. Keep in mind this was 3 years ago though!