Christmas Market itineraries

[NMTraveller]

I have not been to the European Christmas markets.  What are the best interaries/ports to see?  When would you go?  Is perhaps a river cruise better to see them?

[s0479]

Personally I think a river cruise would be better.  We did a Christmas market tour 3 years ago but it was via land.  I do know someone that did a River Cruise and saw quite a few markets and had a great time.

[jalves]

I'd suggest a river cruise would be the better choice.  You get to go to some small towns with some pretty nice markets.  We did the Danube, Budapest to Nuremberg a couple of years ago on Viking in early December.  It was wonderful!

[cruisestitch]

I don't think there is any way to do a Christmas market cruise on Celebrity.  Celebrity has no ships in northern Europe in the winter.

[WestLakeGirl]

Did you mean to post this on the Celebrity board?  Perhaps some other cruise line does northern Europe itineraries in November and December, but Celebrity does not

[SC_Floaters]

20 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I have not been to the European Christmas markets.  What are the best interaries/ports to see?  When would you go?  Is perhaps a river cruise better to see them?

Most 'European Christmas Markets' seem to be in Germany... You could see them by a land vacation or best bet would be a River Cruise.

 

We Did The Last Season's River Cruise on Avalon, December 10, 2016, 8 Nights down the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel, Visited Amsterdam, Cologne, Koblenz - Rhine Gorge - Rudesheim, Mainz, Strasbourg Breisach and Basel. It was wonderful...

 

[Coral]

Austria also has some great Markets!

[notamermaid]

While Germany in all likelihood has most of the oldest ones, there are many great ones in Europe to consider. Even the British have adopted the tradition with Birmingham (!) and Edinburgh supposedly among the best. The North Sea in winter? Not that much fun probably. Perhaps along the coast of France and then into Hamburg harbour?

 

Copenhagen and Stockholm?

 

Other than that land trip seeing Dresden and the Ore Mountains, or indeed a river cruise on Danube, Rhine or Moselle.

 

notamermaid

 

[dogs4fun]

Germany has many excellent Christmas markets (too many to name) - a river cruise (Danube or Rhine) would be your best bet to visit a variety of Christmas markets in several countries. Austria (Innsbruck, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz), Hungary (Budapest), Slovenia (Ljubijana & Bled), Slovakia (Bratislava) all provide festive Christmas markets, many of which can be visited via river cruise.

[milolii]

We took a land based tour in 2016,  I think it was the best option as we had more time to visit all kinds of markets. Big and small. Also visited at night. Absolutely beautiful.   I think we visited 15 or so.  A land tour requires more effort and is not as easy for sure.  We also visited  markets in London, Bath and Ireland before flying on to Germany. 

 

 

I read here many note not enough time On the cruise.  Christmas  Markets generally open mid to late November and many are closed by Christmas Eve.  So early to mid December best, not the actual holiday.  

 

All the ones mentioned above are good ones.  Here is a link to an article.  Find out how many and which ones you want to see. 

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/best-christmas-market/index.html

[Coral]

8 hours ago, milolii said:

We took a land based tour in 2016,  I think it was the best option as we had more time to visit all kinds of markets. Big and small. Also visited at night. Absolutely beautiful.   I think we visited 15 or so.  A land tour requires more effort and is not as easy for sure.  We also visited  markets in London, Bath and Ireland before flying on to Germany. 

 

 

I read here many note not enough time On the cruise.  Christmas  Markets generally open mid to late November and many are closed by Christmas Eve.  So early to mid December best, not the actual holiday.  

 

 

We had plenty of time on the cruise. We had overnights and late nights in ports. 

[Stashblaster]

We just got back last week from a Uniworld Christmas cruise. We cruised from Budapest to Passau. It was our very first cruise to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Our trip was everything that I hoped it would be. The food was excellent, the Christmas markets were magical. The staff was amazing.

 

Before we booked our trip I was worried about the time in the markets. We decided that we really didn't want to deal with driving in Germany or Austria at night in winter so we decided to try a river cruise. There were a couple of tours that the time to shop was very tight but at the end of the town tour we had an hour or so or could go back after lunch or dinner to shop. Christmas is my holiday so I wanted as much time to look, eat, shop and to soak in as much of the European experience as possible. But as we moved through the towns, our luggage was getting full! My goal was to purchase an ornament or three from each town we visited and to bring back some mulled wine mugs. I had to be very thoughtful about how I was going to pack my treasures for the trip back to the states. I think we must have hit 15-17 markets. We managed to do five in Budapest and five in Vienna alone.

 

My husband and I were both happy with our decision. We met some wonderful people from different areas of the globe. I really can't say what my favorite town was from Vienna to Salzburg to Melk, each town, small or large gave us something special to experience. We are looking to plan a Christmas cruise from Nuremberg to Vienna in a couple of years.

[Respbj]

River cruises are probably the best if not doing your own thing. The Danube has some wonderful stops, try and do Budapest a few days before your cruise as so much to see and if you can train to Munich for a few days as they also have nice markets and great center of town.

[King of Cruising]

We are doing an Avalon cruise next November.

Would love to hear more from anyone that has been lately.

Not much out there for us newbe river cruisers.

[Roz]

King or Cruising, are you wanting more info on Christmas Market cruises on Avalon, or Avalon in general, or both?

[Coral]

3 hours ago, King of Cruising said:

We are doing an Avalon cruise next November.

Would love to hear more from anyone that has been lately.

Not much out there for us newbe river cruisers.

I would start a new thread.

 

There are a ton of newbie river cruisers on this board. River cruises are growing in popularity -  a lot of people are trying them now.

[Daisi]

3 hours ago, King of Cruising said:

We are doing an Avalon cruise next November.

Would love to hear more from anyone that has been lately.

Not much out there for us newbe river cruisers.

 

If you are just looking for Avalon info, may I suggest reviewing this thread?  It's a bit long, but has lots of good info about Avalon, and if you have any questions you can ask them as well. 

If you are looking for info on Christmas markets, you may be best to review any line's markets as they probably all go to the same ones.  There are several threads on the Christmas markets, so it would be best for you to figure out which cruise you would like to take.

 

We love Avalon, I hope you enjoy your cruise.

[King of Cruising]

Saw it, don't have that much time...

Started a roll call (sort of)

Most information is old... Pre. 2016

[trivia addict]

We just returned from a Christmas Market Viking River cruise from Nuremburg to Budapest. It was wonderful. As mentioned above, with the exception of a few, there was plenty of time to see each market.

The ship was decorated for Christmas, and had themed activities for the holiday. People got into the spirit, and would buy ornaments at the markets to decorate their doors.

 

Two things I might mention. First, it was very cold. We wore long underwear, boots, scarves, sweaters and gloves! We were lucky, though with no rain. Had a bit of snow in Budapest.

Second, I had assumed that there would be no problem using credit cards at the markets. Wrong. Many vendors only took cash.

 

We spent two extra days in Budapest. I highly recommend this. Budapest is a beautiful city with an incredible history. Also, there are many Christmas markets along with the Central Market where we bought many handcrafted souvenirs.

 

[CPT Trips]

On December 23, 2019 at 1:44 PM, King of Cruising said:

We are doing an Avalon cruise next November.

Would love to hear more from anyone that has been lately.

Not much out there for us newbe river cruisers.

 

Hopefully you are going in late November. The Nuremberg market is scheduled to open on the 27th. While I did not check other cities, the markets typically start just before Advent.

[King of Cruising]

Thank you for this information.

We leave on our cruise on Nov. 21st, hoping most of the markets along the way will have started.

We are so jazzed to be planning our first river cruise...

[Coral]

1 hour ago, King of Cruising said:

Thank you for this information.

We leave on our cruise on Nov. 21st, hoping most of the markets along the way will have started.

We are so jazzed to be planning our first river cruise...

So my cruise last year was on November 20-30. 

 

Not sure where you are going. In Vienna, on the 20th, half the markets were open, but not the big ones. When we returned on the 29th, they were all open and the big ones were big. The rest of the Austria markets were open but we got a lot of "this is the first day of the Salzburg markets" or this is the first day of the "lake district in Austria's markets". 

 

Germany was a different story. Most ports we were in, they were opening that night or the next day :( . Same with Cesky Krumlov. So we missed those markets.

 

Though - the ones we saw in Austria were amazing and have no regrets on the date I chose.

 

You can probably google your ports for this year and say "Port Christmas markets dates" to get a feel for next year. Though several are centered around Advent date so it can be different.

Edited December 26, 2019 by Coral

[trivia addict]

Just returned from a cruise on the Viking Egil Nov.  30 to Dec. 6 from Nuremburg to Budapest. Afterwards we spent two days in Budapest, which I highly recommend.

Although there was a chance of having to switch ships, due to low water levels, we did not have to.

We had a wonderful cruise, but if I were to do it again, I would plan to spend my extra days before the cruise and not after it. Better to relax on the ship after going it alone.

Also,  recommend the excursion to Passau rather than Salzburg. All who did that excursion really liked it. As for Salzburg, the short time there after the long drive, was not worth it, and our whole tour was focused on the Sound of Music, of which I had no interest.

All Christmas Markets were crowded, so don’t expect anything less!

[Coral]

1 hour ago, trivia addict said:

Just returned from a cruise on the Viking Egil Nov.  30 to Dec. 6 from Nuremburg to Budapest. Afterwards we spent two days in Budapest, which I highly recommend.

Although there was a chance of having to switch ships, due to low water levels, we did not have to.

We had a wonderful cruise, but if I were to do it again, I would plan to spend my extra days before the cruise and not after it. Better to relax on the ship after going it alone.

Also,  recommend the excursion to Passau rather than Salzburg. All who did that excursion really liked it. As for Salzburg, the short time there after the long drive, was not worth it, and our whole tour was focused on the Sound of Music, of which I had no interest.

All Christmas Markets were crowded, so don’t expect anything less!

Just to show that different lines do different things. We were on Crystal.

 

We did Salzburg from Linz. I did not think it was that long of a commute - maybe an hour. We had a full day there. Our tour was of Salzburg and not Sound of Music. One guide did not like Sound of Music and didn't even mention anything about it. The guide I went with once in Salzburg did point out a few things when we were walking by something that was filmed in Sound of Music but it definitely was a Salzburg tour. And the Christmas markets there were some of my favorite.

 

In Passau - I did Regensburg and Munich. Both Great.

 

I regret I did not see Linz or Passau but Munich and Salzburg were on my bucket list and I am so glad I saw them.

[USCAdventurer]

i'm booked on the crystal mahler christmas market cruise from budapest to vienna beginning dec. 2 to the 9th.  i've been to vienna and salzburg christmas markets before and they were glorious and lots of fun.  the other places on this cruise will be new for me and i'm really looking forward to it.  after my first crystal river cruise last month, i'll always trust crystal's itineraries and service.  i am going to spend two days in budapest before the cruise and we overnight in budapest after boarding the ship so i'll have an extra day in budapest.  we also overnight in vienna which i will love.