The Top 5 Things that Shocked Us about River Cruising

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Transcript

Edward: 0:00

Hey there, pizza pals! It’s Meltvin, your friendly neighborhood slice of cheesy wisdom, here to kick off this episode of'One Slice at a Time!' Join Stephanie, the mastermind of family-friendly adventures, and Ryan, the world traveling pizza connoisseur, as they reveal the top five things that totally surprised them about river cruising. Buckle up for some tasty travel tidbits, unexpected twists, and a whole lot of fun—let’s get this show on the road!

Stephanie: 0:34

Welcome to One slice at a Time. The podcast where travel meets pizza and bad decisions become great stories. Today we're sharing the top five things that shocked us about River Cruising. Spoiler. There was schnapps and people dropping it like it was hot. I think Stephanie wrote that. And yes, I have thoughts on pizza in Austria, Slovakia, and Germany. So this was me and Ryan's first river cruise. And we had some things that were really surprising to us, things that we were not. Ready for, one of those things was the demographics. So Ryan, what did you think about the mix of people that were on our ship? What I expected was to see wheelchairs and walkers Yes. And canes Yes. And gray hair. There were some, bald people and, bald people, AARP cards and all those things, and. I saw some of those things I saw like for sure the demographics are skew a little bit into the retired age group, but this is not something that is exclusively for retirees. This is like awesome for a variety of age groups and I would add that like you have to be in somewhat good health in order to do this type of vacation. So it's a bit of a misnomer to think that. It is only for, older folks, and I definitely was not ready for just some of the excursions were I. Not for anybody that had any kind of mobility issues. There were bike rides that I was not going to take. So I think that you would've to be very active to do even some of the excursions. And this would be great for a family group, with some older children. My daughters eight. I don't think I would take her on a river cruise anytime soon, though there are some cruise lines. AmaWaterways does the Adventures by Disney River Cruises. I know Tauck has some that if you don't have kids you can't even get on the ship. So those would be more geared towards children, but I don't think, I think like an older, kid that's maybe interested in the history of those places that you're gonna go see, would love this river cruise and it would be super easy for families. It's a thing where for kids, there's not e entertainment that's gonna be geared towards children. Mm-hmm. On a normal river cruise, Adventures by Disney is a different thing, but on a normal river cruise, like they have to be able to entertain themselves or the parents are gonna be the entertainment for the children. But beyond that, I can't think of an adult or, teenager and above that it wouldn't be great for, for sure. And I think especially for me, this was actually my first time to Europe. This was a convenient way to, see some of Europe and. Have everything taken care of from start to finish and not have transfers and logistics and all of that so if you're intimidated by going, this is a great way to see countries. Number two on the list is that the food is ridiculously good. Which was your favorite meal, Stephanie? Was it breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, afternoon tea? It was, there was like all these things. I know it was every single one of'em. Breakfast was about the same every day. There was a lot of options. Like a cooking station, And then they had a few cereal type stations and the bread selection and everything to where it was more buffet. you could have lunch in the lounge and order off the lounge menu and have'em bring you like a cheeseburger, french fries or flatbread pizza, something like that. Or you could go down to the main dining room and they were serving, several different options there. I don't know my favorite meal. Everything was just, it was just really good. Dinners were just amazing. The service is amazing, which also just makes the food better when the service from the staff is incredible. We were there as part of a bigger group and yeah, I was solo traveler, but with a big group, so I was in a room by myself, but I had, but we like had everybody there. What was cool is that there was always somebody for me to go sit down and eat with, and if I, there was, you could always eat. At the lounge, like you said. But then when we went down for dinner, there was, that we always had a group together that was eating and stuff like that and the food was fantastic every single night. So it was. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about Chef's Table now with AmaWaterways Chef's table is completely included with your cruise fare, which a lot of the things are included with your cruise fare, which is incredible about river cruising. But this is a special experience where you have, more or less a private chef for you. And however many people are in this tiny dining room, I think, how many does it hold? Maybe 20 or 30 tops Ryan? I'm not quite sure, but it's not a whole lot. Yeah. Yeah. And they have a private chef right there. Private wait staff. The very best of the wait staff work chef table. So let's talk a little bit about what you thought about that experience first and foremost, you must wait until they say Bon Appetit. I don't remember the exact dish, they put it down, there was maybe six or eight of us at the table, so we're sitting there. Four servers come over with two plates each. They time it so that they put all the plates down in front of you at the exact same time. And then I. I go to pick up my fork and knife and I'm like, I'm gonna start in on it, whatever this thing is in front of me. One of the servers comes over, rushes, puts her hands in front of my dish. Do not start. It's not time. It's not ready yet. They had a sauce that they had to pour over it. So then they poured the sauce over everybody's dish and then looked directly, looked me directly in the eyes and said, Bon appetit, which then became a running joke every course thereafter. They had to tell me it was okay to eat, but the food, it was fun. It was a seven or eight course meal and they were really tiny courses, but it was, I think they had a wine pairing. Oh yeah. Wine pairing when I was not overly impressed with the food at the chef's table, but the food in total, like they knocked it out of the park every single night. So I think I was expecting something even more elevated, but it wasn't like the food was bad. I was just like, maybe not. Yeah. Some of the dishes were special. They were different. Oh, they were, for sure. Yeah. The main course I finished and then they brought me more of it because they, I don't know, they thought I needed more of it. I guess. So extra. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, I liked it. Yeah, I think for me it was also because we had just finished with pretzels and beer and so then we went to Chef's Table, so I probably just wasn't that hungry either. Just transitioning to number three. I really enjoyed and was surprised, how beneficial it was that the, their ships were not crowded. I think I knew that kind of going in, that these are, they call'em long ships in the Viking world and Right. And they are, they're long, but they're, there's not that many people on board and I knew that going in. But to see the impact of that when you're actually on vacation and what that means for your experience wowed me. Sure. Like you said earlier, we were talking before we started the show. If you forgot something in your room, it literally was 30 seconds from anywhere in the ship to your room. And you could go grab whatever you needed and go back up to the sun deck or go back up to the lounge or whatever it was. It was, the rooms were, contrast that with the ocean cruise and you've got 20 minute, you forgot something and you gotta walk 20 minutes back to your room. You have to wait 20 minutes for the elevator. Yeah, forget about the walk to your room. You have to wait 20 minutes for the elevator. Check-in was just smooth. Getting on and off the ship for excursions, there was not a line. And I think because of the number of people, they can really control the experiences, right? So for instance. It just naturally happened that everybody congregates to the lounge at 6:00 PM and we're there. And so the cruise director comes in and he is got a microphone, and he talks to us about where we're gonna be the next day and what's going on. And. Here are the excursions that you have the option of taking tomorrow, right? And there are 15 of you that signed up for the bike ride. And just so you know, it's gonna be raining and 30 degrees and the wind is gonna be in your face. But if you wanna switch and now there's none of you, if you want to switch, that's no problem because you don't actually have to. You can pre pick your excursions, but you don't have to commit to them until you actually go that morning. With some exceptions and some of the itineraries you have things that you need to pre-book and some things that you even need to pay for. But largely in the European River crews like with AmaWaterways the excursions are included and you don't have to pick until you are actually going on the excursion. So there's so much flexibility that offers. And I think they can do that because of the number of people that are on the ship. Even if you wanted to switch around, so if you picked beforehand and then you met some friends and made some friendships while you were on the cruise and on the ship, and the next day you're like, Hey. We're gonna go here, let's make sure we're in the same group. You didn't have to worry about what you had picked beforehand. You could just go up to the front desk that morning and be like, Hey, I need five yellow cards for this excursion. Yeah. And they would give'em to you and you could travel with your new friends. And. It's the rivers through Europe. Mm-hmm. And so you dock right in the middle of everything. And I think that's number four on our list of things that surprise us. I, it is things that we knew, but also seeing it happen and play out still surprise you. Like when you dock in Slovakia and Bratislave and you walk off and there is you're downtown. You don't have to take a bus into the center of town. You're there. Some excursions require buses or whatever, but Right. A lot of times you're just walking off the ship and you're right there. And I feel like even some of the excursions that required buses, if you didn't wanna go on those excursions, I know me and Kyle stayed back the day that we are in Linz I had work to do that day and I could get off the ship. We walked around Linz, We got back on the ship. Even if you didn't wanna take the bus excursions, you were still close to, some town that you could, get off and explore or, do some shopping, whatever you wanted to do. Whereas I took the excursion to Salzburg and saw the whole sound of music, stuff like that, and and got back late and then met you guys for happy hour in the lounge. That's right. And I think we didn't even mention, but happy hour in the lounge. Like you think about the size of these ships, every one of us fit in the lounge for happy hour. There was no one standing without a seat. There was not. Could you imagine everybody on one of these big ocean ships trying to fit in the same space? There's enough room for everyone to come in and enjoy that happy hour. There was enough staff to make sure everybody had drinks. Yeah, it was like cruising with, 200 of your best friends. Yeah. And you had mentioned the the pretzels and beer a few minutes ago. And when we say we dock in the middle of the action on the waterways in Vilshofen or Vilshofen, yes. They have a relationship with the town where they have actually built out in the port. They do their own October Fest right there, and they do it. So like every itinerary that hits that town, they're doing this October Fest. So even if it's not October, you still get that. That's right. Kind of taste experience, right? Yep. March, April, whatever. You get the music, you get the later hose, and you get the beer, you get the pretzels, and then you get back on the ship and you go to Chef's Table. And you're like, oh, I'm so full. This doesn't even sound good. Just gimme the line. Yeah, but the other thing is the people that they have, we had a couple nights that they had special. Entertainment on board. I don't think I was really expecting that either. Like they had the string trio, but they had them come on board and played music for us one night and they were absolutely amazing. And then they had, I. A, a group come on and sing the day that we were in Linz. And so as we're like getting ready to sail away for the night, they have special performances. And they do set up all these little special things I was overwhelmed with how incredible these performers were. So that was unexpected. And then later on they had the DJ. Yeah I'll say this, and that's when you're going through I am not a, like a classical music aficionado. It's not really what I'm into, but I am intrigued enough by it and I respect it enough, and I am interested enough to appreciate it for like a 30 minute block. Right. And. What I liked about every interaction that I had with it as I was going through basically the. Home of it through Austria and, and Germany, is that mm-hmm. We did the excursion to House of Strauss and we, we listened like a th 30 minute set. Same thing when they came on the, on the ship. It was not like a two hour performance, you know? Right. It was enough to make you really appreciate that you are experiencing something cool without. Getting into the mandatory fun aspect of it. So I really liked it. And then to your point, you get to into the evening time, DJ and they're playing, baby got back and all these other random songs that just don't seem to fit. Yeah. At nine o'clock you're listening to the String Trio, and then at 10 o'clock you're listening to the DJ play"Baby Got Back" Yes. There's something for everybody. There is definitely something for everyone. Ugh. Unprepared for"Baby Got Back" on the cruise ship sailing down the Danube Yes. Are we not? Absolutely. So, yep. I, I think that those top highlights and then as we've just kind of talked about, like it's chill. Like one day me and Kyle stayed back on the ship kind of seen Linz came back, but there is so much to do. This is not boring at all. yeah, I had a great time and it, and there was one of the best days I thought was. Where we did spend the afternoon hanging out on the sun deck. Right.'cause we went in March, and March is a little early, in the season. Mm-hmm. In fact, it was the first sale was snow one day season. Yeah. Yeah. So it was not particularly warm except for one day where it was real nice. And we sat up there on the, we, we brought up drinks from downstairs. It was great. Yeah. Oh, we had a, as you can tell guys, we had an absolute great time. So are we gonna go back, you think? Uh, yeah, definitely. I think I've already deposited a cruise in Europe. Now it's time for Ryan's crusty Review. Brought to you today by Captain Luigi's Riverboat Pizza Palace. Europe's only floating vaguely Italian. Cruise adjacent pizza experience. Every pizza comes with schnapps, karaoke, and a sauce that they can't legally define. Captain Luigi's Riverboat Pizza Palace, because when you're lost between Vienna and regret, we're here and we're floating and we have cheese. Let's be clear though, to everybody. There is no such place. Unfortunately there is not such place, but, but there, there was plenty of pizza to be found in Austria, in Germany. Mm-hmm. Uh, in Slovakia. So, uh, I, it's something I've, I just do. I try to get myself a picture with, uh, me and pizza in every place. So in Vienna, stephanie, you and I, and Kyle went to this place called Cafe Pizzeria Pino, and mm-hmm. I would say that this was a place that. Checked the box. So I'll, let me say up front, I don't go looking, I don't Google ahead of time. Best pizza in Vienna looking for a place I just, you let it find you. Yeah, I see what I can find. And this was a place that checked the box so that I can say yes, in Austria, I've had pizza. Right. It was not anything wonderful. It was cash only, by the way. But yes, if you're looking for pizza. And you're on a river cruise that stopped in Vienna. It's a short walk from the boat. That's what it has going for it. That's exactly what it has going for it. What'd you think about the, pizza in Slovakia? Okay. We went to a place called La Piazza and this was. Delicious. This was incredible pizza. It was like that, almost like that New Haven style, fresh basil on top. We just got a margarita pie and split it between a few different people. But this was an incredible, incredible pizza stop. If you're looking for pizza and it, and it's also again a short walk from the ship, so. Yeah, that was a great find. So I was a little concerned about you trying to find pizza in Bratislava because we were like the first river cruise kind of group. Coming through and a lot of the places were not really open.'Cause it wasn't really high season for the tourist. So they did, we did find a candy store and we went and bought Ryan some gummy pizza just in case we couldn't find pizza and Bratislava But he did a great job. Probably the best pizza. Thank you for that. Looking out for me there. But we did find a good pizza that was great. And then in Germany, when we went to. We went, we had a, actually this was harder. We were searching for a while for a place, and this place, Pizetta it's called, it looks like it was gonna be like a full on restaurant. We got to the place and it was a counter. With some pizza and a dude who would warm it up for you and it was like the square cut pizza too, so it was like not, um, you know, like, not like a circular pie. It's not New Haven style. Like what I got in Bratislava It's not New York style, it was that square cut, but not Detroit or Sicilian or anything like that. It was kind of still kind of thin, and it was quite good actually for a place that didn't look like it should be. Uh, it was, it was pretty good. And also not too far from the ship. I think everybody that tried this pizza really enjoyed it. So I know me and Kyle both had a little slice and I'm like, oh, wow, this is, this is actually pretty good. Absolutely. So, surprisingly enough, right? Yeah. Well, uh. That I think takes care of the, the crusty review. But before we finish the episode, I do wanna talk about one more river cruise experience that we had, and it pertains to our rooming situation. We need to compare my rooming situation versus Stephanie's rooming situation. Let me pull up. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see some photos here. This is some pictures from Stephanie's room. You've got Stephanie's bed, you've got her sitting area. You got her like other sitting area, and you've got her desk. You don't even see that she has two balconies in this room, right. This is, this is a beautiful room. It's, it's a nice big, and then somewhere is like three floors below. Stephanie was my room. And what took you four pictures to really show? Stephanie's room. You get in one picture in mine, like that's the whole room and it's, you can see my bed and my sitting area. But if you were to sit in the chairs, your knees would hit the bed, so, mm-hmm. I got recommendations. If you're gonna go on a river cruise, there's gonna be the opening price and that's gonna be, um, this road, basically, you'll be sleeping below the water line. Go, go up at least one level and the rooms are just so spacious. Right. This was perfect for a single, for, for a single traveler though. Right. And I think as you got later in the year, I would definitely want at least the French balcony where you had some windows that open and you could sit there and enjoy, the scenery as you're cruising That would be something even more important as the weather warmed up Now that said, I didn't spend very much time in my room at all, and I think it's again, because we went with a group and because I had all these people that were there with me, I just got outta my room and wandered up to the lounge, and I would undoubtedly find somebody that, I could. pal around with, and if I didn't, I would sit down and do the New York Times crossword on my phone until somebody walked up that did know me. One more thing though. Yeah. Here's the difference in bathrooms. Ryan's bathroom versus Stephanie's bathroom. Stephanie had like this full walk-in shower where she could stick her arms out and to a dance. And, um, mine, if I turned around, I would, you know, hit my stomach on the, on the wall. So, yeah, and I'd say like all the rooms are a little bit tight. I felt like mine was about the same size as a normal, maybe balcony state room on a. On a cruise ship. I mean, I didn't feel a huge size difference between that or like a regular balcony room. Just be prepared for, the rooms are going to be a little bit smaller but they use this space really well. Even in like your room. Like they use this space really well. so, yeah. Like I said, for, for me traveling by myself being the only person in that room, it was perfect. I didn't need any more space than what I had'cause I wasn't really spending a ton of time there. But, uh, okay. That was my little surprise interlude there that I tell Stephanie about ahead of time. That's okay. Full of surprises. Full surprises. Well, I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. Like Ryan mentioned, I asked him if he would river cruise again. He's already got a deposit down. Why don't you tell us a little bit about. That cruise that you are going on and I hopefully I am too. Okay. Well, our agency Creating Magic Vacations that both Stephanie and I are a part of has chartered a ship, the AmaSintra, and we are going to be cruising with the godmother, Jenn Lee, who is hosting the cruise, and it will be, next year. And on the Duoro River. So I hope, I hope if you wanna join us to find out more details, uh, email us at bookings@oneslicepod.com. Right or reach out to us. Facebook, Instagram, we're One Slice Pod, website should be up oneslicepod.com, Send us an email, reach out. We'd even love to see your bad, international pizza incident. So send us pictures, send us your crusty reviews, your crusty reviews. But thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.