greenroads: River Cruise May 24

The River Queen - European Jewels - Uniworld River Cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest

Finally! Reality caught up with anticipation as we set sail on the River Queen from Amsterdam to Budapest on May 24th. Good friends Grant and Gisele were with us as we enjoyed this trip of a lifetime. The River Queen is 110 metres (361 ft.) long and 11.4 metres (37.5 ft.) wide. We were 119 passangers, almost full capacity and 35 crew and staff. The River Queen is beautifully appointed inside and out. The lounge and dining rooms had large windows but there was also a viewing deck above. This is versatile as it has to be partially dismantled to go under low bridges. The wheel house goes up and down accordingly on hydraulics but the captain can still peek out the top when necessary. As we navigated under 400 bridges and through 69 locks watching the manoevering of this huge vessel was fascinating. Sometimes the captain or his assistant could be seen steering the boat into and out of very tight quarters from the side controls. He seemed to be eye-balling things intently, thank goodness.

The crew and staff were from a variety of European countries, East and West and the service was excellent in all aspects. The entertaining young captain (reminded me of Keifer Sutherland and Ian Poulter combined) had an assistant since only a certain amount of sailing hours are allowed at a time and occassionally we docked for a “technical stop”. Supplies and laundry etc. were loaded on and off at different ports but we rarely witnessed it. Sailing was not always at night. During the day we “luxuriated” on deck as idyllic landscape, vineyards and medieval towns approached and receded. Occasionally we viewed industrial areas and bigger cities but this all added to our views of Europe.

We started in the Netherlands on the Rhine visiting Amsterdam. Then we sailed for 10 days through Germany picking up the Main (pronounced “mine”) just past Rudesheim. Past Bamberg Germany we navigated the incredible step locks of the Main-Danube Canal and into Austria. Now we sailed the widening Danube through Melk and Vienna and then on to Budapest in Hungary.

This took 15 days and each day had wonderful opportunities for guided tours and free exploration as you will see from subsequent entries here. Tally Ho!