More excursion choices - that's one big difference in river cruise lines. That's one of the many things we review with our clients that are interested in river cruises. We just got our documents for an upcoming AmaWaterways cruise and thought it's a perfect example to share. Here's the sailing schedule with an overview of all the excursions offered.
The first thing to notice is that sometimes the ship will visit several ports in a single day. And you'll notice that AmaWaterways offers excursions in each port. For example on Monday Oct 15th, the ship visits, Mainz, Rudesheim and Lahnstein. There's excursions included at each of these cities. Other cruise lines will only include one excursion per day, regardless of how many ports visited. (They will gladly sell you excursions in the other ports of course).
Notice also that the there are several choices in each port - not just the standard walking tour of the local town. This appeals on several levels. First, you can have a great experience even if you've already been on the same river cruise by choosing different excursions. Second there's a wide variety of choices - say you love food and want to visit the mustard mill in Cochem but your husband would rather do a castle visit. No problem - you can both find tours of interest.
A great example of different activity levels is on Sunday Oct 14th. Here the cruise line offers a walking tour, a hike, a tasting tour and a bike tour! And once you get on the ship, you'll realize that the walking tour is offered in both gentle and active walking speeds. Not all cruise lines offer such a variety of activity levels. Again this means more excursion choices and a great benefit you you.
It's one thing to offer lots of choice, but another to include them in the base price. Of all the choices on shown on this page, there's only one that costs more - it's the one labeled "optional tour " on Sat Oct 13th. That's it - everything else is included in the base fare. So careful when comparing river cruise lines. Some lines will advertise many choices but won't advertise the fact that those choices are not included in the base fare.
Included excursions are one of the great benefits of river cruising. On this cruise, there's over 23 excursion choices included at no extra cost. They range from active hikes and bikes to gentle walking tours to gondola rides. Sound like too much? You can always opt out and spend the day on the ship relaxing. Or sometimes when we get "toured out" we'll just explore the local town on our own. Consider it another great choice you can make.