The most popular river cruise routes are along the Rhine and Danube rivers, and they typically travel between Amsterdam and Budapest. This is the most popular routing for both one and two week river cruises in the world.

But what happens if you’ve already done this route, or this routing doesn’t appeal to you? There are tons of other choices if you want to experience a river cruise, but don’t want to be on the Rhine and Danube rivers.

First – the European options:

• For those with a particular love of the Dutch, you can sail round-trip from Amsterdam on the Rhine, Mosel, and Elbe rivers.
• If France is more your speed, you can sail on the Rhone, Saone, or Seine Rivers. These cruises usually start and/or finish in Paris.
• Italy is also a river cruising destination, often round trip out of Venice on the Po River.
  German river cruises are available on the Oder and Elbe Rivers.
• If you prefer to be further south in Europe, you can sail on the Douro River through Portugal and Spain.
• You can also take a river cruise to Russia. It is normally a two week trip that goes between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Other River Cruise destinations:

• The Mekong. Several of the European River Cruise companies have ships in Viet Nam for the Mekong River. A typical river cruise is 7-nights long between Siem Reap and Ho Chi Minh City. There are many additional land portions that can be added on to your cruise that include Cambodia and Thailand.
• The Mississippi. There are a variety of options for river cruising the Mississippi between New Orleans to Memphis, or in the summer months as far north as St. Louis and Minneapolis.
• The Columbia. You can sail between Portland Oregon, and Spokane, Washington. Other than the very cool craft brewery industry in Portland, this is the only river cruise that is more about spectacular natural scenery than culture and history.
• The Amazon. Much like the Asian river cruises, these are often paired with land tours to Machu Picchu or the Galapagos.

One last reminder that if you are considering a river cruise to any destination, you are well advised to book well in advance. Many ships sell out a year in advance, and as a general rule of thumb, the best fares are available the earlier you book.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

Anytime Richard Branson announces something new, a number of us pay attention.

This is simply because he has a track-record of redefining industries. There is no doubt that some of his ventures have turned out to be more successful than others, but if anyone has ever flown on Virgin-Atlantic, you will know it’s a very different experience than any of the North American carriers offer.

So what does this mean for cruise?

We don’t really know yet, because even though the first sailing is in just 3 years, very few details have been released.

There’s all the normal marketing talk that they have started with “a blank sheet of paper”, and that it won’t be like any other cruise experience, but the actual details are a bit sparse.

Here’s what we do know:

• It will be for adults of 18 years or older. This is a bit of trend reversal, but their target market is clearly not families.
• The first generation of ship will be about 110,000 tons, and will carry about 2800 customers. This puts it at about the same size as the Princess Grand Class ships, and slightly larger than the RCCL Radiance Class ships.
• There will be about 1150 crew, making the crew:passenger ratio about 2.43. This makes it about the same as Carnival, Norwegian, Princess or RCCL.
• The ship is being specifically designed for environmental sustainability. They haven’t released any details, but they are claiming they will be the most eco-friendly ships at sea.
• The staterooms will about 86% balconies, with the next 7% being Ocean view (bucking the trend away from OV cabins), and the remainder being inside cabins.
• They refer to their customers as “Sailors”, as opposed to “guests” or “passengers”. What this actually means, is not clear yet.
• Their target market will be those that have not cruised before, and millennials. I think this is really smart. Even though the cruise industry is growing like crazy, MOST of the vacationing population in North America has NOT taken a cruise yet. Virgin might be the one to talk them into it.
• The experience is said to be inspired by yachting. How you do this on a ship over 100,000 tons, with 2800 passengers will truly be a test of Virgin’s innovation.
• Their first sailing is in 2020, and will be out of Florida to the Caribbean.
• It is not clear what price point they will be pursuing. The crew to passenger ratio, and passenger space ratio would put them somewhere in the mass-market space, likely positioned between Royal Caribbean and Princess, but whether they charge a premium for the Virgin Brand we will have to wait to see. With the information available, it would be difficult to see them competing with the luxury ships.

They are also offering people the opportunity get access to the sailing schedule and reservations prior to the general public by placing a $500 deposit (per cabin) now. Although this is 100% refundable for any reason, I’m not sure I’d suggest this unless you are a huge Virgin fan (or you’ve got lots of $500 bills sitting around doing nothing).

It’s my hope that Virgin truly lives up to its brand promise of redefining the industry. It would be really cool to see what innovations they can come up with. So far, it appears that the Virgin marketing machine is in full gear – we’ll have to wait to see if the product lives up to the hype.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

Bob and I did our first Seabourn cruise in 2017, and it was a great orientation to the world of small ship cruising. With only 450 passengers, we got to see a side of Alaska that we had been unable to enjoy on our previous Alaskan Cruises.

We are literally bombarded with marketing materials every week from all the cruise lines, so I have become a bit skeptical about which offers I should pass on to my clients.

But when Seabourn sent me a notice about the sale they have running between now and December 12, I took some notice.

Seabourn is offering Suites for the price of Ocean View Staterooms on 26 sailings in 2018. I won’t list all of them, but here are a few of those offers:

Date – Days	Price per person	Departs	Arrives	Cost per day
May 15 – 21 Days	$5499	Kobe, Japan	Vancouver (via Alaska)	$261
April 7 – 18 Days	$4999	Barbados	Lisbon	$277
March 19 – 16 Days	$4999	Singapore	Bali	$312
April 22 – 19 Days	$5999	Dubai	Athens	$315
March 24 – 14 Days	$4499	Barbados	Barbados	$321
March 31 – 7 Nights	$2499	Barbados	Barbados	$357
November 2 – 12 Days	$4999	Venice	Athens	$416
September 11 – 14 Days	$5999	Anchorage	Vancouver	$428
February 11 – 36 nights	$15,999	Capetown	Singapore	$444

When you consider all the inclusions on Seabourn, some of these prices are an absolute bargain. If you’ve ever been on a cruise, and your room charges exceed your fare, you’ll appreciate the value of these Seabourn inclusions:

• All gratuities
• Most drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic). Unless you’ve got really expensive tastes in wine or scotch, you can read this as “All Beverages”
• All specialty dining including the Thomas Keller dining room. Even if you’re not a foodie, it’s nice to try a dining experience that would cost you $250/seat if you were on land.
• All suites – the prices above are for balcony suites. As odd as it seems, the thing I found most impressive were the bathrooms – the one in my suite on Seabourn is bigger (and far more finely appointed) than my bathrooms at home.

When you compare the total cost of some of the trips above, with a comparable cruise on a mass-market line, these could be much better value – and that’s before you place any value on the luxury amenities and service you get on board.

The only catch to this Seabourn offer is that is must be booked by December 12. If it’s of interest, please be sure to let me know.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley

The South Pacific continues to be world’s fasting growing cruise market. I suspect this is partly because when many of us are suffering through short days and cold nights in the Northern Hemisphere, our neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere are enjoying the height of their summer. It is also a very safe and easy place to travel.

The one variable that holds people back from the South Pacific is the unpredictable cost of flights. There is no way around the distance – from any of the west coast gateways, it is usually a 14 hour flight to Sydney or Auckland.

So, while no one can change the lengthy flight time, Paul Gauguin cruise line has taken the guess-work out of the cost of air, by including round trip airfare (from Los Angeles) in their cruise fares.

Paul Gauguin has only one ship, and they only operate exclusively in the South Pacific. If you want to be immersed in the Polynesian culture of Tahiti and French Polynesia, then this is the ship you want to be on.

It’s also a great way to enjoy snorkelling, scuba diving and other water sports that are just not available in other parts of the world. There is a watersports marina platform at the back of the ship where you can take out a paddleboard, kayak or windsurfer.

The Gauguin is only 20,000 tons, and holds 330 passengers, so you can get into some of the smaller islands and bays that larger ships can’t get to. And when you consider all the inclusions, the pricing is quite competitive:

• Round trip airfare from LA
• Pier transfers
• All specialty dining
• Most wine, beer, spirits, waters and coffees
• Gratuities
• Most watersports

So I quickly searched all the 2018 departures, and here are a few examples of what I found:

• February 3^rd – 7-nights to the Society Islands from Papeete – starting at $5145 per person.
• January 17^th – 10-nights to the Society Islands and French Polynesia from Papeete – starting at $5845 per person.
• January 6^th – 11 nights to the Cook Islands and the Society Islands from Papeete – starting at $6145 per person.

Most of the cabins on the Gauguin are verandas, and there are no inside cabins, so the pricing here on a per-day basis is even more compelling. Once you back out the air cost, and the value of the other inclusions, these cruises are selling for under $300 per day, or about what you’d pay to have a balcony cabin on some of the mass-market ships.

If the South Pacific is on your bucket list you might want to look at Paul Gauguin. I don’t think there’s any doubt this is the way to see the area in and around Tahiti.

Planning a Cruise?  I’d love to help!  Click here to get in touch today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bradley