DANUBE CRUISE

I am back from a very disappointing Danube Cruise. Instead of sitting on the sundeck and enjoying the beautiful landscapes of different countries, I was locked inside the ship.Nowhere was it mentioned that the ship navigated during the night and was anchored in the town's port which we should visit during the day.

 If I was lucky, our ship would be between two others and I could admire the bedrooms or dining rooms of the other ships, or we had a wall on either side. If I would have taken a coach and done the same tour I would have seen far more and spent a lot less money. 

Here are a few pictures which I could take from the ship. Unfortunately I couldn't take part in the excursions because they were all walking tours and I couldn't take part in them for health reasons. 

 

We started in Munich, which fortunately I had seen already and looked for a place to sit. I was not the only one who couldn't follow the running walkers. I should have taken a thing like that ! I don't know how it is called.

Opposite the Munich Opera house where we were all sitting in a Restaurant, waiting for the bus with the others,  taking us to the boat.

our ship which we took in Passau

and our itinerary, from which I saw Budapest because I had been there two times, and Bucarest.

 

View from my bed ! 

That place was the one we all had hoped to sit and rest during the day and slowly moving !

An advantage ! View from my bed, while we navigated during night

All other pictures I had to take from the ship, and sometime zoom.

                                    

 

The last 6 pictures I took in Budapest where we stayed during the day.

and during night

We approached the Iron Gates which is a gorge on the Danube. It forms part of the boundary between Serbia (to the south) and Romania (north).

This part of my cruise "The Iron Gate" in Rumania,  was the most beautiful part of the cruise and exactly how I had imagined a cruise. We navigated the part of the night and the whole day and it was absolutely gorgeous and interesting.

A sunset in this area.

And then we finally arrived in Bucarest, where our cruise ended. But that will be another post, because we saw a lot and had to walk !

If I may give some advice before you book a river cruise, ask if it is also suitable for the disabled. Not all seniors are good walkers. The 70 and 80 year old travelers  have mostly seen all the churches, castles and monuments and just want to rest. That was the case for almost half of the guests who were not happy at all with their cruise. Especially that we navigated mostly during night.

The ship, the crew, the food, the rooms of the company Rivages du monde were perfect there is nothing to say. I hadn't realized either that we were only Frenchs and Belgians and everything was in French. I had thought that we were more international as "monde" is the word for "world"

Next time if there will be a next time, I will pay more attention, but for the moment I am rather disappointed !

Linking to TRAVEL TUESDAY