Part 2: Top Things to Know About River Cruising

In Part 2 of this two-parter on river cruising, we expand your knowledge about what it's like to river cruise. 

Whether it's your first, fifth, or tenth river cruise, you'll enjoy listening to our conversation as we reminisce about river cruise trips and planning - from why it's essential to get travel insurance (like that time we missed our first evening in Lyon) to why it's important to arrive in your port of embarkation city a day early. You'll relate to and learn from our experiences. 

Find out what river cruise lines are kid-friendly, about the 90-year-old woman who cruised with her 16-year-old grandson, what the big idea is about navigating river locks, and what happens when you need a visa for your river cruise destination. 

Dive deeper into these helpful resources, which we mentioned in the episode: 

• Read the Things to Know Your First Time on a River Cruise, which complements this episode.  
• Use an Airfly device for Quiet Voxes, which allows you to connect your wireless earbuds (like AirPods) to your excursion listening device. You'll find a link in our Cruise Essentials Packing List in our Amazon Shop. 
• Read more about Adventures by Disney river cruises, which accommodates children nicely. 
• We recommend shopping for travel insurance on Travel Insurance Masters. After you input your vacation information, they give you several plans to compare and choose from. 
• European visa EITAS info you'll need for 2026 & beyond. 

Chapters

• 0:46 Excursions and City Access
• 4:23 Guest to Crew Ratio and Dining on River Cruises
• 7:00 Navigating Locks and Unique Experiences
• 9:14 Family-Friendly River Cruises
• 11:25 Demographics and Guest Ages
• 12:19 Mobility and Fitness Considerations
• 13:52 Taking the Cruise Line Excursion or Doing Your Own Thing
• 16:24 Packing Tips for River Cruising
• 18:07 Health and Safety on Board
• 19:05 Travel Insurance for Your River Cruise
• 20:25 Visa Travel Requirements
• 20:28 When to Arrive for Your River Cruise
• 22:57 Pre or Post-Cruise Extension

Transcript

Mikkel (00:35)
We're back with part two of our two part series about Top Things to Know About River Cruising. This is episode five. We're on a roll, baby. All right, let's get right into it, Dan.

Dan (00:46)
Picking up where we left off, I want to point out that the dock is steps away from the city center. So in these small towns that river cruises visit, you're most likely going to be bussed to your excursion, but you are steps away from being right within the city.

Examples of that are Bordeaux, Porto, Passau, Germany - all of those places, you're right in the city. Now there's going to be other places or other ports that you visit that you may have a short bus ride into the city, such as Vienna. But overall you're going to be able to just step off the ship and be right in the heart of the action.

Mikkel (01:27)
That's a great point. One of the things I absolutely loved about Bordeaux is because it is a small city and most of these cities, when we say the heart of the city and these historic areas, it's the town center. So like the old historic town center of Passau in Germany, the historic city center of Porto. The historic city center of Bordeaux. 

And I recall when we stayed at the Renaissance Hotel pre-cruise in Bordeaux, we literally just got on the little tram that runs along the riverfront. It's their public transportation there. And we were able to take it to a stop on the tram that was steps from boarding our river cruise. So that's an awesome point, definitely an advantage of river cruising.

Now when you get off of the river cruise ship, and you go on these excursions, you very quickly learn that river cruises utilize a device called quietvoxes. If you're listening and you've been on a river cruise, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you've never been on a river cruise, you're going to quickly learn as soon as you go in your stateroom because every stateroom has two of them. Assuming, you know, staterooms are double occupancy. So

these quietvoxes - and that is a brand name, they have a monopoly on the river cruising industry, I would say, are little audio devices that go on a lanyard around your neck. You can also put it in your pocket and you hook up a headphone and you're able to hear the guide through their primary quietvox that is going into a channel like a radio does to everybody in your group. 

So let's say there are three different groups. Well, tour guide A might be on channel two, tour guide B might be on channel eight, tour guide C might be on channel 12. So they tell you what channel to tune in before you get off the bus and the commentary starts for the walking tour, let's say. That cruise ship is gonna provide a headphone for you. It's usually one ear the headphone, which is nice. You have the other ear free. 

Or you can do what we do because we like to use our own headphones so we're not wasting, you know, an earphone every time we use a new one for a new river cruise. Save the earth. Another thing that we have seen people doing that I can't wait to try is a device called Airfly. That's another brand name. We'll link you up in the description or show notes to an Airfly.

There are competitors, but this is the most popular one we see that I know we're going to get for our next cruise. And it hooks up to your Bluetooth. So you can use Bluetooth headphones for your quietvox in this case, like your AirPods. And you can also use your Airfly on your airplane seat actually to listen to the television and movies while you're flying to your river cruise.

Dan (04:23)
Something else to know about a river cruise is the guest to crew ratio is incredible.

The guest to crew ratio is often 2:1 or 3:1, which means you're gonna get that extra special attention from the crew. They're gonna learn your name pretty quickly. And you really get to know even like the captain. He or she is often seen around the ship and you're gonna run into them or else you may even have dinner with them one night.

Mikkel (04:49)
Yeah, the Captain's Table is always a highlight. Not that river cruises are fancy by any means. Another thing to know is that the dress is pretty casual. You know, as dressy as we get was when we wore nice pants and a button-down shirt for dinner one night and I wore a dress just because I wanted to get a little fancier, but most nights you're fine and slacks and a nice top or whatever. But the captain's dinner is always kind of a highlight and people like to put on you know, an extra accessory or jacket or something kind of just for fun to dress up. It's totally not necessary. 

But also with the smaller guest count, it's usually somewhere between 100 and 200 passengers on a river cruise, depending on the itinerary and the ship. Friendships often develop faster.

Dan (05:35)
You're eating dinner, lunch, and breakfast with the same people over and over. So there's bound to be people that you gravitate towards, and there's also going to be people, well, frankly, that you gravitate away from.

Mikkel (05:46)
Yeah, and two more things in terms of dining and we touched a little bit more on dining on river cruises in episode one, so be sure to check that out if you haven't already listened to it. But there's usually just one seating for dinner and lunch. And you're definitely free to come within whatever you know, first 30 minutes of it.

If you're returning from an excursion - with the lunch or the dinner. Obviously if dinner's at 7, you don't feel like you have to be there at 7 or you're not going to eat. But showing up at 9 p.m., probably not a good idea if dinner started at 7. 

Breakfast is a little different. I would say people kind of come and go within the two hours or so that breakfast is happening. Usually there's an early risers breakfast as well, sometimes on the river cruise ship depending on the line.

They'll do kind of a late diners breakfast after the main dining closes. But there's usually just one seating for lunch or dinner and also room service on river cruise ships really, really varies. It's very atypical that there's room service on a ship.

The exception might be if you're not feeling well and you've kind of arranged with the front desk to have a meal brought to your room, but don't expect cruises to have room service, generally speaking.

Dan (07:01)
Something to be aware of as you're cruising on a river is you are likely going to experience locks. And for a first timer you're going through a lock, it can be a little bit abstract, a little bit jarring, a little bit strange when you open up your curtains from your stateroom and there's a concrete wall. That's your view. You're just staring at a concrete wall.

Mikkel (07:20)
Right!

Dan (07:24)
I definitely suggest go up on the top deck if you've never experienced a lock and really take in that experience. Depending on the size of the lock, you could feel like a very small ship in a very big bathtub or else you could feel very, very tight and be the only ship in the lock.

It was pretty interesting when we were on the Danube River because in total, we went through 15 locks on that cruise from Nuremberg to Budapest. And each one of those had its own like personality and some of them we went through at night, some of them we went through during the day. So you will probably miss some of them because it'll be at night unless you want to get up and check all the locks of the Danube off your bucket list.

Mikkel (08:06)
Yeah, I love that, especially if you're into engineering, it's totally not to miss. But even if you're not, it's really an incredible, incredible feat, manmade structures commanding the levels of the river. 

So if you don't know what a lock is, it's pretty much a way to cut off a portion of the river so you can control the water level. And it's almost like a connector of steps in the river levels. 

So, kind of going from higher area to lower area in the geography of the earth, or the opposite. It's so cool. You definitely don't want to miss the first time you're going through a lock if it is during kind of operating hours, even if like Dan said, it's dark. Also, our cruise director, we haven't done the full length from Amsterdam to Budapest, although we've done both portions, but our cruise director of one cruise told us that there are 68 locks (whoa!) between there. So you don't want to miss the exhilarating experience of locks your first time or your seventh or your 12th time on a river cruise.

Let's get into kids on river cruises and that being really uncommon. Some river cruises have a minimum age requirement and some don't. But here's why you don't see a lot of kids on river cruises. Generally speaking, the itinerary and excursions are not geared towards children and there's not much for them to do.

So we would say if you want to take your kids, one of two things either look for a river cruise line that caters towards children in middle school and younger, look for an itinerary that could be interesting. So an example is the Mekong River. I thought that was a great itinerary for teenagers and older.

Know your audience, know your kids. You're going to know if your kid's going to be jazzed about the excursions on the list or

Another option is something like Adventures by Disney river cruises. They charter AmaWaterways ships and have programming geared towards families and kids of younger ages. And then the last point I'm going to touch on for this is A-Rosa, which is a

European river cruise line that largely targets the UK, but they accommodate kids really nicely. And that shows up in the design of their river cruise ships, which accommodate more than two people. Most of these river cruises, the ships only really are made for double occupancy in the rooms and - something to know about river cruising in general, much like a bigger cruise ship or yacht most of the time on river cruises, is that your bed is either set up as a queen or as two twin beds kind of thing, depending on if you want to sleep with your partner or not, or if you're traveling with a friend or if you're a solo traveler.

But Adventures by Disney is on the AmaWaterways ships that largely have the capability for the rooms to connect kind of like at a hotel so you can adjoin the rooms. And A-Rosa that I mentioned has cabins that have bunk beds and are made for kids. So let's move on from that because kids are not, you know, a big topic in river cruising, but that kind of leads us to guest ages.

Dan (11:25)
I found that there's a mix of ages, but typically the clientele skews a little bit older than us. We're in our mid forties and we've met some amazing people that are slightly younger than us and also some amazing people that are quite a bit older than us. I remember, I think it was on the Emerald cruise, we met a woman that was  90 years old, traveling with her grandson that was like, 16 I believe. 

It was quite the dynamic of watching them two maneuver throughout the ship but also the friend groups that were starting to be formed around both of them.

So really, you're going to find somebody. Because of the ages, they do skew a little bit older, but it is extremely accommodating for pretty much all ages except for children.

Mikkel  (12:19)
Right. And let's talk about mobility because mentioning that fabulous 90 year old woman that we met on that Emerald ship reminded me that she did need to take the elevator to move between the decks. 

And something I want everybody to be aware of on river cruises or if you've never river cruised or you're looking at a new-to-you river cruise line and you do need an elevator is two things. One, not every ship has them. So make sure there is an elevator of some sort if you need it. We even went on a river cruise with a man that was in a wheelchair.

Something else though is that the elevator usually does not go to that top sun deck. So I want everybody to be aware of that

Let's move on though to fitness. Coming back to fitness and mobility, something that we talked about in part one of this two-parter was that if the ship has bicycles,

(not every cruise line does, but a lot of them do) choose your river cruise based on your desire of level of fitness. Those bicycles are free. They're first come first served. So if there's not an excursion with the bicycles and they're not being used, the crew will put them outside of the ship when it is docked and safe to disembark. And you can do your own thing. You can...take a bicycle and ride around town and you know, you just have to bring it back in time for all aboard. 

And that kind of leads back to what we were saying in part one also was that so much is included with a river cruise ship, but you can still do your own thing.

Dan (13:52)
Right. I think that's a really important thing to note is you can do your own thing and it's so easy because you are so close to those ports. So if you want to do half the tour or half an excursion and then break off and start to do your own thing and then just make your way back to the ship, that's easy to do also. And, frankly, it's the best of both worlds.

Mikkel (14:18)
Yeah, I love that. And that's a great point. You can start off on an excursion. Sometimes we've had people that want to take the transportation if they're, you know, being bused into the center of Vienna, so they get on the bus, but then they tell the tour guide, you know, we're gonna find our way back to the ship. So don't include us in the headcount on the way back. 

Or sometimes, you know, of course, this happens with anything. Sometimes you're just not feeling the excursion. And you kind of just want to tell the guide, respectfully, we're gonna bow out of this. They're never offended. They never take it personally. And you can go do your own thing. I very often kind of wander away from the group. 

But thanks to that quietvox in my ear, I can hear the group within a certain distance. Dan usually has to look back and think to himself like, "Oh my gosh, are we gonna lose Mikkel walking away from this food market? Or is she coming back with the camera?" Anyway, so...

You can kind of break away, come back, you know, it just depends on the situation. But don't feel pressure to do everything with the group on a river cruise, even though you're paying for the cruise fare. 

Sometimes the best things we've done have been on our own. I do remember one of the river cruises we stopped in Passau in Germany, and there's this amazing hike to the top fortress. Well, the river cruise ship was doing it in the morning. Unfortunately, my tummy was a little off that morning.

On top of that, it was so gray and foggy that morning that I thought, I don't even know what they're going to see when they go to the top of the fortress, right? And we waited. We decided not to do what the group was doing that morning, not to do one of the included excursions. We waited until my tummy was better later in the afternoon until the fog lifted and it was sunny. And we looked up Google Maps, how to hike up ourselves, and we had the most spectacular view of Passau from up there. It's a photo that we use again and again. 

So do your own thing. Sometimes it could be the most rewarding, even though I can't say enough about the included excursions with the river cruises we've been on. They're incredible. When you're getting off the ship, know about your packing list for your cruise.

Please check your weather before you leave home. Because - great thing to know about river cruising is that you want to be prepared for the weather by dressing in layers. There are a few instances that we haven't really needed to dress in layers. 

The two instances I'm thinking of are the height of heat in Europe during summer cruises the popular rivers, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Moselle.

Another itinerary is the Mekong. It is hot, hot, hot in Cambodia and Vietnam, pretty much year-round. They do sort of have two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season. But you can count on that all being relative in their language and vocabulary because we were there in August when it is supposedly less hot than other times of the year. But holy cow, were we sweating every time we got off. 

So maybe not layers for that one, but we did check the weather and we did know from listening to others that had been on that itinerary that we wanted to pack extra underwear, extra bras for me, extra T-shirts for both of us because we were gonna sweat through them and we did. So check the weather forecast.

Dan (17:37)
The other thing is you want to make sure you're packing comfortable walking shoes. Now you can bring a pair of dress shoes for dinners and maybe special nights out. 

But if you're on a river and you are in, let's say a European city, be prepared for a lot of walking and a lot of cobblestones. It's just like putting on sunscreen your first day. You don't want a sunburn and you don't want blisters for the rest of your trip. So make sure you have those comfortable walking shoes.

Mikkel (18:07)
Yes. And you reminded me, I want to bring up a really good point about a doctor on the ship or if you're not feeling well. 'Cause you had mentioned in a previous episode that if you need a doctor on a river cruise ship versus let's say an ocean ship, there's not an infirmary on board. There's not a nurse's station on board. And the reason is because it's just not worth it for the river cruise line to staff somebody like that.

But it's so easy if you need emergency medical attention to go into town because you're only steps from the shore and it's very likely you're going to port within a limited amount of time. So within the hour, within a few hours. And, God forbid there's an emergency, they can get to the shore and a dock very, very easily. So if you need any sort of drugs or medication, it's very easy to go to the pharmacy ashore. 

So there's not a doctor on ships, and that's why. Am I forgetting anything with that topic?

Travel insurance. Another thing to know about river cruising, just like any vacation, you're going to want to check the travel insurance policy that you buy. And we always have a travel insurance policy.

For us, we buy an annual policy on our own, not through the river cruise line, but you need to do what's best for you. Before we had the annual plan, we used Travel Insurance Master that I'm going to link up in this show description and show notes. Something I really liked about that was that it compares three policies, four policies. So you can put in your parameters of your trip - your dates, your age, all that kind of stuff.

And then it gives you some options. And you do have to read the fine print of what is covered and what is not. It was great for us in the summer of 2022. It was kind of notoriously the summer of canceled flights. It was all over the news and unfortunately one of our flights was canceled and affected the night we got into Lyon.

And because of that, we missed our hotel night, but we were reimbursed because we were covered with travel insurance. And you want to make sure you know about the medical that's included either with the insurance through your river cruise line or insurance you're getting on your own. And that kind of links back to everything I said about not having a doctor on board, but being able to go into town for that.

Other travel requirements, good to know with a river cruise - and this is true of no matter where you're vacationing - you might need a visa. That was kind of surprising for me when we went to the Mekong.

Dan (20:37)
When we went to the Mekong, we had to obtain those visas ourselves, but we had pretty thorough instructions from AmaWaterways and they incredibly helpful guiding us through that process. Something to keep in mind Americans will need visas for Europe starting in late 2026.

Mikkel (20:54)
That's right. So, in short, we're not going to get too into this, but in the future, it's been all over the news that a travel authorization will be necessary for most people entering European countries. And there's a list of 60 countries online. We're going to link it up in the show notes or the description of who is going to need this. It is called an ETIAS.

What does that stand for? European Travel Information and Authorization System. It's a mouthful. So ETIAS, which is what you'll see written most of the time, is a visa of sorts that is linked to your passport or your travel document. It's good for three years or less if your passport expires before the three years is up. Americans need to do this, Canadians, Costa Ricans, Australians, Mexicans, Brits.

It pretty much includes everybody. So, again, I'm going to link that in the show notes and I'm not going to get too much into it here, but just know that you're going to need it starting in late 2026 unless they delay that. They've already delayed it a few times. Typical, just like the Real ID in the United States. But be aware of your travel requirements. And most of the time, you know what Dan said for the Mekong River...

AmaWaterways was great about kind of guiding us through that process, even though we had to do it on our own, essentially, they guided us through that. So your river cruise line is more than likely going to tell you if you require a visa for where you are traveling.

Dan (22:28)
So another tip to keep in mind, and this one is a great one to end this podcast on... We cannot stress it enough: fly in the day before your cruise starts. You all know how many unexpected things can come up with travel, but we always encourage - travelers new and experienced - to go in the day before their cruise and enjoy the city that you're gonna embark from and also enjoy the city you disembark from.

Mikkel (22:57)
Yeah, I mean, you're flying to a place to embark on this amazing travel experience. Why not extend it before or after if you have the allowance with your time and energy and your budget? You can do it with the cruise line and very easily add it on. You can use a travel advisor to guide you through that process. Check the description and show notes for the travel advisors we recommend.

Or you can do it on your own. Dan and I have done both with the cruise line and have done it on our own. More often than not, we just plan something on our own because it's not always an option to do it with the cruise line. And heck, we like doing our own thing a lot as well. We love to explore more food tours. We like to see what the best restaurants are. Wow.

That was two food things in a row. So I guess everybody knows where my mind is. We like to see landmarks lit up at night, we maybe want to get up early if there's a sunrise view somewhere, we want to walk around, we want to take the subway, we want to use public transportation to get to know the culture better. So I completely agree. Extend the cruise experience and prolong that vacation as much as you can.

Dan (24:14)
Absolutely.

That was two full episodes of things that you may not have known about river cruising but you really should know now after such great conversation.

Mikkel (24:26)
Next week, we are going to talk about small ship cruises and budgeting for small ship cruises, mostly what to expect price-wise and kind of a good rule of thumb when looking at these cruises. And maybe even let's touch on some tips of how to budget for these cruises. Some funds have got to get you there. So I'm excited for that in episode six.

Dan (24:51)
And as always, if you found value in this episode, please rate it. We always appreciate if you subscribe or share these episodes with your friends and family.

Mikkel (25:01)
You can find us on Instagram at @SometimesSailing

There's also a link in the show notes for that. We are great linkers in those show notes you guys. Check 'em out. And if you haven't already done so hit that follow button so you never miss an episode that is released every Wednesday. And we'll see you next time or you'll hear us next time but we would love to hear from you too, as Dan said. So don't be shy.

Dan (25:27)
Goodbye, everybody.