Comparing a 7 Night Cruise of the Danube May 20 2023
Which river cruise company should I use?
Have you always wanted to go on a river cruise but don’t know where to start? Many people immediately think of Viking River Cruises because they send so many advertisements. But there are several other fabulous river cruise line companies with which you can enjoy a meander through multiple countries. But of course, that makes it even more difficult, because how do you know which one to choose?
Talking to a travel advisor can help.
My first suggestion would be to talk to a travel advisor. Part of our job is to try out the different cruise lines (tough job, I know!), so that when a client wants to cruise, we know which ones to suggest to them. After talking to you about your preferences and the things you want to do and see, we can narrow it down from 10 or so cruise lines to 2 or 3.
How can a travel advisor help?
So now you’re wondering, “Have you been on all of the different companies river cruises?” Not yet, but I’m on a forum with hundreds of my fellow travel agents and if I don’t know something, one of them does.
Good travel advisors also know which questions to ask to help determine which river cruise lines are best for you. If you go on the internet and ask “Which river cruise line is the best?” You’ll get a multitude of different answers – and the answers will be which cruise line was best for the other person, not for YOU.
What’s wrong with just going with the cheapest river cruise?
Many first time river cruisers are mainly concerned about price. This is normal. It’s a chunk of change to go on a river cruise. But it’s very hard to compare apples to apples when looking at the different websites. That’s why I’ve created a couple of tables to show you the difference between Viking River Cruises and AmaWaterways. You might notice that AmaWaterways has 16 excursions, while Viking only has 5. That means that if both ships are completely full, you have 156 guests spread out over 16 excursions on Ama Waterways compared to 190 guests spread out over 5 included excursions on Viking. Of course that’s not quite apples to apples, because some people on Viking will pay for other additional excursions, but typically the group sizes on the excursions are considerably smaller on AmaWaterways.
Here are some images for comparison also.
AmaViola 
Viking Egil
Ama Check-in 
Viking Check-in
Ama Dining Room 
Viking Dining Room
Ama Stateroom 
Viking Stateroom
I can help you narrow down the choice of which river cruise line is best for your needs and then we can talk about which river cruise itself would be best for you. Give me a call or send me an email. My contact info is here: Contact Kathie
Photo Credits: Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash & Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash