River Cruises
Our colleague Phil Reimer, who writes Ports and Bows blogs and column for readers across Canada, recently made a long trip to see Longships, the moniker the rapidly-expanding Viking River Cruises gave its newest line of vessels. What Phil found, among other things, was the most ambitious river cruisers in the world. He witnessed [...]
Continue reading about Viking River Cruise at least Ambitious
Down in the fine print of the cruise news, there was an event in Amsterdam last week that warrants more credence than it probably gets. It was the story of the Viking Longships. Anybody who follows cruising — be it ocean or river — knew they were coming. Six new river cruisers this year, six [...]
Last week, American Cruise Lines announced that its new Queen of the Mississippi was going to be even more like an authentic riverboat with the installation of a 23-ton paddlewheel. Everything that goes around… Paddlewheelers on the Mississippi were originally designed to transport goods from state to state. That made them trade centers, which attracted [...]
Continue reading about Mississippi Cruisers Gamblers at Heart?
From conversations we have with friends, family and just travellers, it seems like everybody has seen Graceland. And everyone should. The caveat there is that “everyone” means “everyone who has heard of Elvis.” So, everyone. The few who have missed it, or the many who like going more than once, are getting a new opportunity…and [...]
Continue reading about American Queens Trippin’ the Mississippi
In another life, as a sports writer, there were five big sports events I hoped to see before moving on to another profession. One of them was the Kentucky Derby. I made it, in 1978, when Affirmed left the favorite, Alydar, a length-and-a-half behind at the finish line of the famous Run For The Roses. [...]
A friend of a friend was reading Cruising Done Right one day recently when he discovered, as all of you have, that we are neophytes when it comes to river cruising. So he offered to help. His name is Brian Forst and he went to the trouble of passing along a few thoughts for those [...]
Something that comes with going on cruises of any kind is education. It could be from meeting people of different races, it could be from experiencing geography never before seen, or it could just be a history lesson. Take the Danube River. You don’t have to take a river cruise on the Danube to find [...]
Either there’s been a dip in the advertising by major cruise lines, or it just seems that way. Everybody’s just a little gun shy about promoting cruises when bodies are still being discovered off the shores of Italy. The cruise pendulum continues to swing towards river cruising, and there is no shortage of advertising these [...]
Here’s one of the New Year’s resolutions made in our house: By the end of 2012, we hope we will no longer be able to say we’ve never been on a river cruise. Clearly, river cruising is becoming a significant part of the “cruise community” and it’s time for us — so that we can [...]
Maybe there’s a generation gap here. Among the news in cruising is that next year there will be two steamboats working the Mississippi River, up one from this year and up two from 2010. For some of us “steamboats” were what quarterbacks counted before they had to throw a pass in touch football. The “Mighty [...]