My View of Heidelburg

I took my first big-ship cruise over 40 years ago, and that was what I sold when I first became a travel agent, but around the time that I started my own agency I began to look for something different. That same year I attended a seminar introducing AMAwaterways river cruises and became enthused with what I learned. I had already become a certified niche cruise specialist and found that small ship cruises have many things in common with river cruises:

• On both small ship cruises and river cruises you have at least one excursion included every day that  you are in a port, and other items which cost extra on a big ship cruise are included on a small ship or river cruise, such as soft drinks and fancy coffees; these days the best river cruise lines provide free internet access and some alcoholic beverages such as local wines and beer.
• The smaller ship sizes and open seating in the dining room give you the opportunity to meet new friends, and after a day or so it sees as though everyone is a familiar face.
• It is a relaxing, casual experience; no need to bring dressy clothing with you, no worrying about jeans being banned from the dining room at dinner time on a small ship or river cruise.

These cruises are all about what you see and experience at your destinations, not about what you can do aboard ship.

It is great having an included excursion each day on your small ship or river cruise, but what if there is something different that you want to see? In most cases you will have time on your own in port so if it is close by you will have time to see it. In addition, the cruise lines offer optional excursions at additional cost, but in some cases it is just a matter of picking the right itinerary. When I took a Rhine river cruise with Uniworld I knew that I wanted to visit Heidelburg; it was an optional excursion on one itinerary but included on another similar itinerary, so I was able to see what I wanted without paying an extra charge.

Here are some things to consider when you have to fly to your ship:

• You may get the best rate by getting a flight itinerary with two or more connections or with very short connecting times. DON’T DO IT!! If you think about it, flights are subject to the domino effect; if the first one is late or cancelled, there’s a good chance that you will miss your connection(s). If you have to book with multiple connections, be conservative.  Lately I have been impressed by most of my flights leaving and arriving on-time, or even a little early, but there is always a possibility of bad weather, mechanical issues, etc. My last trip was to the UK this past January; I was connecting through Dulles airport in order to meet up with family members. First, my flight from Atlanta to Washington was delayed; the plane I was taking was late getting in due to snow. Once we were all onboard (an hour and a half late), there was a mechanical issue that delayed us an additional half an hour. I was very conservative when booking my flights and was lucky enough to make my flight to London in plenty of time.
• It’s always a good idea to plan on arriving a day or two early before your ship is due to sail, because if you miss the departure, you may have a difficult time catching up to your ship the next day, and can end up missing most of your cruise.  You can be a little less conservative on a river cruise as most of the destinations are reasonably accessible by air, and in many cases the ship may not actually sail for a day or so. Small ship cruises are different; if your cruise is visiting remote spots you may never be able to catch up to the ship.
• Try and bring a change of clothes in your carry-on bag. Even if you are careful to fly in the day before and get a non-connecting flight, the airline can still manage to lose your bag and not get it to you before the ship leaves. There’s not alot of shopping on board these small ships (t-shirts and candy bars?), so if this should happen you will end up frantically trying to grab some essentials locally. This happened to a nice man that we met on our last small ship cruise.  He followed all the rules, had a direct flight and arrived a day early, but still was without luggage when our ship sailed.