Time to start travelling again!

Travel and Leisure

Ok, well maybe "booking" is the appropriate verb here. Now that we have had our two shots, and the world is starting to catch up, it looks like we might start to be able to do some European travel again. So while I was browsing the travel deals that come into my inbox daily, I noticed a Travelzoo promo for Emerald Waterways river cruises that looked pretty good! For those of you who haven't looked into river cruising, it can be ludicrously expensive, but sales do come up, and it can often come into the price range for "normal" European travel.

Let me explain. First of all, we don't normally travel in 4-5 star hotels, and eat 5-course meals for dinner. But if we were to travel to most places in Western Europe, we'd be probably paying $200/night¹ for a hotel, and then meals for both of us would likely be at least another $100 (conservatively), plus another $100 for transit/taxis and tours/attractions. So we would be looking at $400 a night, or $200 per person for each night we'd stay in Europe. Sure, regional differences will make that go up and down; it would be hard to get by on that in Paris or Zurich, versus you might only spend half that in Porto or Zagreb. But the $200 figure is a good baseline that I like to use for a discount fare on river cruises; i.e. if I see anything that comes remotely close to that, it's time to take the offer seriously.

What? For some of you reading this, you are thinking that I am probably on crack right now. European river cruising for $200 per night? Yet we've done it, and all it required is some flexibility on dates and routes, and watching the inbox for deals to come along. In truth, we actually have gone on two cruises where we sailed for $159/night - Essential Holland with Vantage Deluxe Travel, and Budapest to Regensburg w/ Prague with Gate 1. And we're not talking about being in the dark staterooms on the bottom of mediocre ships, cruising in the shoulder season. No, this was peak times, and we were in French balcony rooms on the middle or top deck, and the Vantage MS River Voyager was definitely a Deluxe² calibre of ship. Update: Gate 1 has picked up the lease on the River Voyager, and re-branded her as the Monarch Queen.  

Emerald Panorama Balcony Suite (image credit: emeraldcruises.co.uk)

The one cruise I have been watching out for is the Lower Danube, typically starting in Budapest and ending in Giurgiu, Romania, with a short bus trip to Bucharest to catch your flight home. So when this deal rolled across my inbox and that route was included, I quickly did the calculations, and it was coming close to my pull-the-trigger $200 threshold. The Travelzoo promo code didn't give exactly 50% off, since the discount didn't apply to the port charges and taxes, as well as the one hotel night in Bucharest; the final per night price came down to around $270 per person. Emerald also includes some extras that we didn’t used to factor in, like onboard and shoreside tips. I'd never seen this itinerary go on sale at a reasonable price, and since we've saved so much money not travelling during the pandemic, I figured the overage was within my Scottish financial reach. 

Now that I've pulled the trigger on a September 2022 river cruise, I was curious as to what the other guys are charging for this cruise. I had a tough time trying to get pricing to match up for the same type of cruise with a good sampling of other operators (e.g. without pre- and post-excursions, flights, etc.), so I picked a very popular Rhine river cruise that sails Amsterdam to Basel over 7 nights. Pretty much every operator offers this cruise, and while there are tons of them, I narrowed it down to the three Deluxe (5-star) big guns, and some other First Class (4-star) ones. For each operator, I checked their website for the current list price for a Cat D or C panorama window/French balcony stateroom, then deducted any promotional offer from that. 

The shocker of course, is Crystal (edit: now defunct), as their list price for this cruise shows on their site at $14,998! But since they are pretty much always selling at 2-for-1, I've adjusted that as their list price in the table. Even though it's not the trip I booked, the Emerald Travelzoo promo code³ brought their price down to the cheapest. But you're thinking, "So $2,100 divided by 7 nights, that's still $300 per night?" And you'd be right, but with some patience and if you’re flexible on dates and route, there's still room to go down. Sign up for discount sites like Travelzoo.com and RiverCruise.com as well as the regular updates from the major cruise operators. That's where your flexibility comes in - if you like the route and dates offered, you can often save even more; I sometimes see the Gate 1 Travelzoo promo knock 50% off their already competitive prices! Update: you would also see cruise deals for Vantage Deluxe pop up on Travelzoo, but with their recent issues, I would not suggest booking with them going forward. If you would like to read about how these lines compared to our original Uniworld trip, click here.

Now I know there are those that will say, "Uniworld is all-inclusive" or "you leave your wallet at home with Tauck", and while these statements are true, all the other operators I've compared with are nearly all-inclusive. There is always one free included tour or excursion everyday, Wi-Fi is also free, and wine, beer and soft drinks are included at dinner (and sometimes at lunch). Some do require that you pay tips at the end, which for a 7-night cruise is around $120 per person. Yes, drinks at the bar during non-meal hours are expensive, but really, how many cocktails are you able to suck back between the time you get back from your afternoon city exploring, and dinner? In my comparison above, it would be hard for me to justify almost $3,000 difference to sail with Uniworld (BTW, our first river cruise was down the Rhine with Uniworld, but it was long ago, when she was a travel agent, and we got a special price). But I salute those of you who can afford the high-end, Deluxe cruise operators - maybe someday we will find ourselves travelling with the upper echelons as well. But for now, I'm happy to save some money and sail on First-Class ships.

¹ all prices discussed in this post are USD or approximated USD equivalent.

² With river cruising, Deluxe is classified as the highest level of service, and First Class is one notch below that.

³ Travelzoo promo sold out as of time of writing.

Want to read my other posts about river cruising? Click here.