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The Ideal Cruise?
A River Runs Through It Story and photography by Nancy & Eric Anderson
The better river cruise lines in Europe make a point of catering to North American guests and have knowledgeable guides fluent in English. For many travelers the best feature of river cruising is that the rivers were there long before there were roads and much has grown up around the ports over the centuries. Says Viking River Cruises, "You spend less time getting there and more time being there." There is one caution about river cruising: it's an intimate experience. Passengers get to know each other. They talk. Costs vary. Deals abound. If one person got a great price better than any other it may become obvious on a ship with, say, 120 passengers - and cause resentments. So shop for your best price. Review advice and any complaints at community websites. Find out, for example, if the river you want has a low water season when you may travel more than you bargained by bus. Be aware of international manipulation by foreign countries. For instance, to build a new boat to travel a foreign river a cruise company may have to build it in that country with suspect quality. A boat built in Finland would not have problems but Finland doesn't have the Nile! Also be cautious when a cruise company expands a popular cruise. Given, say, the xenophobia of France it shouldn't be a surprise that French officials would drag their feet in authorizing American cruise lines the additional right to cruise through Paris for an evening on the Seine - not when a French company like the Compagnie des Bateaux Mouches has been doing it with its nine boats for 50 years. So do your homework. Read about the countries to be visited before you get there. On the river you'll be closer to the land also. How else could you walk past a scarecrow in a farmer's field in front of the 1714 wooden church with its 22 onion domes on the island of Kizhi in Russia?
So check things out. Ask questions. Where should you go and whom should you go with? Several long-established river cruise companies have, of course, their enthusiastic supporters in Europe. Avalon (a member of Globus) started up in 2003 and AMA Waterways in 2002. Scenic (an Australian company) began in 1988 and Collette has been around since 1918. But Americans tend to favor either Viking or Uniworld. Nothing beats word of mouth and success begets success. Viking River Cruises. The Volga is the longest river in Europe and in many ways the most interesting because Americans don't know much about Russia. In 1939 Winston Churchill described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" and it hasn't really changed that much. In addition Russia has more beautiful and photogenic churches than even France with all its magnificent cathedrals. Russia is unique and now its people want to see Americans. You may have difficulty on your own visiting Russia. English is still not common if you stop and ask for directions and even the street signs in Cyrillic will give you unexpected problems. In addition the distances are surprisingly vast; this is not dinky country like Monte Carlo or even tiny Luxembourg. Cruising with Viking River Cruises, the largest river cruise company in the world, is a safe, easy and relatively inexpensive way to see the country. Many cruise operators rent ships in Russia but Viking owns its own. And rest assured no one is going to try and indoctrinate you into the world of Lenin although you'll find out how much the Russian people care for Putin.
Uniworld Boutique Cruises is the big competitor to Viking. Guy Young, Uniworld's president, has long thought he should provide well-built, comfortable and attractive river boats created especially for the American market -- and sell them off to European companies if they start to show their age. Then build anew. Most tour operators believe American tourists want the best whereas Europeans are less fastidious and would be influenced more by low price than high quality. It is not difficult for Uniworld to clear its old stock to make room for the latest. The company is expanding into new areas so its clientele can always find fresh places to cruise with Uniworld. That is important: many who cruise rivers now had done everything available on the ocean previously and are thrilled to discover river cruising is just what they want and hadn't realized that it actually existed. It's like being a keen reader and suddenly are captivated to find a new author. The Danube is Europe's second longest river. Sailing down it with Uniworld, for example, from Vienna to Bucharest in Romania leads you into Eastern Europe, countries more poorly understood by Americans than even Russia. You are sailing into towns you have barely heard of, locations only now coming out from under the Communist yoke, countries that hope to encourage both American tourism and investment -- and places where the almighty dollar still has clout. And how else would you get such a front line view of Budapest's Houses of Parliament if not from a boat on the Danube?
Perhaps the most romantic of all European rivers is the Rhine, the river edged with Christmas scene villages and topped with towering medieval castles perched perilously on cliffs. This is the land where the Rhine Maidens of the Lorelei, the rock soaring 400 feet over the river would lure us to disaster unless our captain's wife Julie, our hotel manager, can distract our Uniworld captain Jord Zwaal, from their wiles. This is the river of legends where we enjoyed a hamburger and ice cream buffet on the sun deck as the castles of the Rhine unfolded in front of us in what our captain described as "a movie opening outside your cabin." It's been said the Rhine is romantic and has become for the English-speaking people that home of romance that Germans seek to find in Italy!
It would be hard to call the Columbia River which separates Washington State from Oregon romantic. Dynamic, powerful, remote, windswept, yes. Historical. Culturally interesting. All those things. But not romantic. Perhaps because the Columbia is so much a part of the expansion of America and that is not by itself a particularly romantic part of U.S. history. This is the land of Lewis and Clark. Of the Nez Perce People. Of harnessing the might of the fourth largest river in the United States. And it's the story of the spunky family of Chuck West, an Alaskan bush pilot who essentially jumpstarted Alaskan tourism and moved on to run a company called Cruise West, now with nine small ships, as feisty as the Wests themselves. Viking and Uniworld takes you into secret spots, places you can't be expected to know about. Cruise West brings to your country's own history; you don't sail to new places, you sail into times gone past that you almost remember as remnants from elementary school. It's as if Cruise West is sitting you down and whispering, "This is Your Life!"
Sailing with Victoria Cruises on the Yangtze, "the River of Heaven" is a completely different experience from any of the other river cruises. First it's a long way so you have more invested for the experience. Second, the country is more opaque, more inscrutable than even Russia. You really are a stranger in a foreign land. You are visiting a country that is the very antithesis of the United States. This is not the place of the common man, with the unalienable rights of the individual. Here is not the Pursuit of Happiness. This is a nation determined to rise, its only Superpower rival recognized as India. This is a country facing its future and even with a magnificent history of several thousand years behind it looking forward not back. To know the fertile plain of the Yangtze grows the food for one half of China and see how it is building dams five times wider than Hoover Dam to raise the Yangtze 575 feet is to reveal to American travelers that all this will impact America as much as it will China. And maybe this is the time to cruise the river that twists and turns its way to the sea like the Chinese Dragon itself.
To readers who have not taken a cruise. Of any type. It does seem to be the future. Despite the increased cost of fuel, despite the collapse of the economy, despite the hassle of flying to your departure port, cruising is the travel success story of 2009. The Cruise Line International Association claims that 53 percent of North American travel agencies say the cruise is the perfect vacation because of its value and the simplicity and ease of travel. "Cruising is the best deal," cry travel agents. Fourteen new ships were built in 2009 and 21 are
on order through 2112. The cruise business is booming despite the often
quoted but inconsistent figures suggesting significantly less than 20
percent of Americans have ever owned passports. As if to substantiate
those low figures (and many sources say the number is even lower) only
10 million North Americans cruised last year. Much of the trade is repeat
business; it's not unusual to find passengers who have cruised more
than 20 times. Happily. |
he hot part of the travel market is the river cruise. It is exploding.
Why wouldn't it? What's not to like about small ships with boutique
hotel-like personal attention, hotel style beds, classic cuisine,
insightful lectures - and shore excursions where, increasingly, the
guides have microphones at their throats and passengers iPod-like
hearing devices in their ears? River cruising has all the advantages
of the European bus trip that was so popular in Europe after World
War II but without the claustrophobia of being cooped up all day and
the tedium of unpacking every night.
Tell Eric what you think of his article. In the meantime, here are some of the feedback we have already received:
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Stay tuned.
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